Storm flags rising for Gore?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 12, 1998 | by Timothy W. Maier

Al Gore has kept a low profile during Bill Clinton's scandals. But he may soon have his own crisis. Will Janet Reno appoint an independent counsel to probe the veep?

As the Watergate scandal focused more and more attention on Richard Nixon, the disgrace and resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew seemed to come out of nowhere on Oct. 10, 1973. A quarter-century later, as another president copes with a potentially impeachable scandal, an October surprise may come once again from the office of the vice president.

Insight has learned that Bill Clinton's handpicked political partner, Vice President Al Gore, has been pressed by close confidants to resign rather than support the president. But his own legal problems also could force Gore's exit. Will Gore become the next Agnew?

"Al Gore grew up in Washington -- not Baltimore. He's no Agnew" says Terence H. Benbow, dean emeritus and professor of law at Quinipiac College in Hamden, Conn., which has raised $25 million to attract some of nation's best legal scholars.

But Attorney General Janet Reno may hold the key to Gore's future as her team of investigators reexamines the vice president's controversial fundraising calls from the vice president's office. Her first probe found no evidence of wrongdoing, but she's back and she's ticked. In August she ordered a 90-day preliminary inquiry into Gore's role in the fund-raising scandal. At stake here is not so much that Gore may have violated the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits politicians from fundraising on federal property, but whether the vice president lied to federal investigators about his role.

"It's still very technical," one source familiar with the probe tells Insight. "It's still narrow. It's still gray. But what is black and white is the lie."

Gore should have known better. As Insight reported last year (see "What the Vice President Knew and When He Knew It," March 31, 1997), an April 27, 1995, memo written by then White House counsel Abner J. Mikva to the White House Office of Policy Development and Office of the Vice President provided legal guidelines for federal employees regarding fundraising. The memo warned that violating the guidelines could result in criminal convictions punishable by prison and substantial fines.

Insight since has learned from sources familiar with the probe that Gore's dance with the truth has so angered Reno that she is likely to authorize appointment of an independent counsel to probe further. That would mean big trouble for the veep.

Reno's unwillingness so far to pull the trigger and invoke the independent-counsel statute has frustrated FBI Director Louis Freeh so much that congressional and Justice sources tell Insight he may call it quits. The top G-man quietly has hinted in letters to senior congressmen that he soon will be leaving. "The tone of the letters" says a congressional source, is that "Freeh is thanking members of Congress as if he is saying good-bye."

Rep. Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, sharply criticized limitations on the probe shortly after Reno announced her intention to proceed with another preliminary investigation. "An independent counsel is a must for the entire campaign fund-raising investigation," declared Burton, whose committee had voted earlier to cite Reno for contempt of Congress when she refused to provide a memo written by Charles LaBella, her hand-picked former head of the department's campaign-finance unit, in which he recommended appointment of an independent prosecutor for the campaignfinance scandal.

The findings of the new probe could be politically disastrous for Gore and even result in criminal charges. Should Reno pull the trigger releasing the statute, Freeh might decide to stick around. He knows that once an independent counsel is in place a prosecutor can start calling witnesses before a federal grand jury -- including Gore himself. Benbow points out that after the three-judge panel appoints the independent counsel the door is wide open to anything -- including following the Asian money trail. "Look at Clinton: Monica Lewinsky is a long way from Whitewater. Gore has got to be concerned," Benbow says.

The focus of Reno's probe of the vice president is to determine whether Gore knew that any of the 75 or more fundraising calls he made from his office were solicitations for cash to be placed in hard-money accounts used for reelection campaigns, rather than "soft money" used for party purposes and subject to fewer regulations. Any efforts to raise hard money would be illegal because federal officials are prohibited from raising campaign funds on government property.

Gore told investigators the contributions were to have been deposited in soft-money accounts. If that is true, Gore might walk away without the stain of investigation by an independent counsel -- leaving only the stain of his close association with the embattled Clinton.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Neal wrote recently that Clinton needs Gore more than Gore needs him. "If Clinton resigned and Gore moved up, Gore could give him a blanket pardon. ... If Gore quit and Clinton remained in office, Gore's prospects in 2000 would be much better than if he spent the next two years apologizing for Clinton's indiscretions. The problem for Gore as Clinton's vice president: He might not make it through the primaries."