XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU MARCH 09 2000 21:45:00 ET XXXXX
JUSTICE DEPT BOMBSHELL: LABELLA MEMO REVEALED!
The LOS ANGELES TIMES is reporting in a Friday frontpage blockbuster the first public details of the Labella Report, the confidential Justice Department memo on 1996 Democratic fundraising irregularities which Attorney General Janet Reno has kept under wraps for two years!
The TIMES' William Rempel and Alan Miller are first with hot details.
"Among those getting special treatment, the report said, were President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former White House aide Harold M. Ickes. It is the first indication that the task force was considering Mrs. Clinton's conduct in the fund-raising scandal."
"In singling out Clinton, Gore, Mrs. Clinton and Ickes, LaBella's report did not accuse them of specific criminal violations. Rather, it cited questionable actions by them and 'a pattern of conduct worthy of investigation' by an independent counsel."
MORE...
The TIMES is in possession of an edited version of the 94-page document which was written by former Campaign Financing Task Force supervisor Charles LaBella -- who was appointed by Reno.
The document accuses "senior Justice officials of engaging in 'gamesmanship' and legal 'contortions' to avoid an independent inquiry into Clinton-Gore campaign fund-raising abuses."
The Labella memo also blames top Reno advisers for "'intellectually dishonest' double standards -- endorsing independent counsels to investigate Cabinet-level administration officials while opposing them for similar or stronger cases involving senior White House figures."
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Senior Justice Department officials commenting on the memo call Labella's conclusions "outrageous".
Myron Marlin, a Justice Department spokesman, defends Reno, stating that she "based her decision on the facts and the laws without regard to politics, the pundits or pressure."
"Responding on behalf of Clinton, Gore and the first lady, White House spokesman Jim Kennedy said: 'We're not going to comment on selectively leaked information that's allegedly from a sealed report we've never seen.'"
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"LaBella noted administration dealings with various Asian-American fund-raisers for the Democratic National Committee as well as with wealthy foreign nationals that it said 'suggests a level of knowledge within the White House -- including the president's and first lady's offices -- concerning the injection of foreign funds into the re-election effort.'"
"The report said that one of the common themes among various cases under review at the time was 'the calculated use of access' to the White House and high-level officials, 'including the president and vice president.'"
The document contradicts Reno's arguments to Congress that there was no inner turmoil on the subject in the Justice Department at the time.
The TIMES describes that the environment, in fact, was "a bureaucratic brawl that went well beyond the commonplace tensions between hard-nosed field prosecutors and seasoned Washington superiors."
IMPACTING...
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CIA GIVING TOP AWARD TO FIRED AGENT
Terry Ward, a former high ranking CIA official who was fired in a 1995 scandal, will receive the agency's Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal in a closed ceremony later this month, the WASHINGTON POST is reporting in Friday cycles.
WASH POST'S Vernon Loeb writes that Ward, who served as the chief of the Latin American Division, was fired for not reporting the CIA's link to a Guatemalan colonel tied to two murders in the early nineties.
Jennifer Harbury, the American lawyer who brought the scandal to the forefront in 1994 by staging a hunger strike in front of the White House, expressed outrage:
"I'm not surprised. The CIA is living down to its reputation in giving this award. And they weren't acting in good faith (five years ago) when they said they were cleaning up their act. Obviously, they didn't mean what they said."
Harbury's husband, a leftist guerrilla, was killed in Guatemala in 1992.
Ironically, Ward was fired by former CIA head John Deutch who is now embroiled in scandal himself for breaching national security by having top secret CIA data on two accessible home computers.
Developing...
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