E D I T O R I A L 
Political Bridges At Justice

Date: 12/16/97

Does Bill Clinton have contacts in the Justice
Department who do his personal bidding? The
evidence says yes - and it undermines Attorney General
Janet Reno's claim that she has no political conflict of
interest in probing the president.

It's no secret that certain key figures at Justice have
worked as bridges to the White House.

When President Clinton first came to Washington, he
appointed his old friend Webster Hubbell to associate
attorney general. Until Reno was appointed, Hubbell
ran Justice, where criminal referrals for the
Whitewater scandal were lost for months. (He also
found time to run personal errands for Clinton like
looking up information on UFOs and the JFK
assassination).

These days, the role of White House-Justice bridge
seems to be filled by Kent Markus. Markus, who was
chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee in
'93 and '94, is deputy chief of staff to Attorney General
Janet Reno.

By virtue of his positions alone, Markus stands to know
something about fund-raising and money-laundering
scandals. His political ties are especially relevant
now, in light of Reno's refusal to appoint an
independent counsel to investigate Clinton or Vice
President Al Gore.

With that in mind, we filed a routine Freedom of
Information Act request with Justice on Sept. 28. We
asked for communications on campaign fund raising
from Markus to the White House and DNC. Justice has
refused our request.

So what's behind the curtain?

We're not the only ones with sources who say Markus
is a critical player in the cozy Justice-White House
relationship.

The Washington Post thinks Markus' role at Justice is
of public interest, too.

In the middle of our struggle to get the truth from
Justice, the Oct. 19 Post noted that Reno had
''ambassadors to the White House'' including Jamie
Gorelick, who was deputy attorney general until she
resigned this year. Gorelick, the paper said, ''served as
what she described as a 'switchboard,' who ensured the
connections were made between the two institutions.''

And who's making the connections now? Markus. The
Post says he ''serves in a similar role, though at a lower
level.''

The Landmark Legal Foundation, a public-interest law
firm, also has been fighting for public information
about Markus. And it, too, has hit a wall.

Markus isn't the only political figure at Justice to work
with the White House. Ron Klain was one of Reno's
top aides and was another critical ''bridge'' or
switchboard from the White House. He now works as
Gore's chief of staff.

There's also evidence that Clinton views the Justice
Department as something of a White House training
camp.

After Gorelick left Justice, the White House wanted to
name her to head the White House Legal Counsel's
office. To Gorelick's credit, she refused.

But tapping a Justice official for the White House fits
in with the Clinton modus operandi. Clinton has
already turned the taxpayer-funded lawyers into his
own personal army to deal with and suppress scandal.
Within the White House they're called the ''masters of
disaster.''

The Justice Department has also sullied itself by filing
friend-of-the-court briefs to back the Clintons in their
court fights.

And now it resists disclosing how the work of a
political appointee may breach the wall of separation
between it and the White House.

Margaret Ann Irving, deputy director in the Office of
Information and Privacy, first told us that our request
for documents wasn't narrow enough - even though we
took pains to name specific people related to the
scandals.

Second, Justice claims not to see how the information
would ''contribute significantly to the public's
understanding of government operations.''

We find it hard to believe that IBD, with more than a
quarter-million subscribers, doesn't have a sense of
what the public needs to know.

Still, all this resistance suggests we're on to something.

The Office of Information and Privacy claims that even
if it were to grant access to the materials, it says it
would have to refuse us a fee waiver. This is an
unusual move against a member of the media.

And a clever tactic. With it, the department can deluge
us with useless paper work and run up the tab for
copies and searches.

The Freedom of Information Act is meant to shed light
on how government works. Clearly, Irving or someone
higher has decided that the Justice Department isn't
interested in being open to public scrutiny.

Both Bill Clinton and Janet Reno on entering office
ordered their workers to comply with the FOIA. Here
seems an ideal case.


(C) Copyright 1997 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
Metadata: E/IBD E/SN1 E/EDIT