To: AllPolitics Subject: Sen. Glenn On Kenneth Starr
From: CNN "Inside Politics Weekend"
In: Washington
Posted: 2-22-97
Senator John Glenn, (D) Ohio, said he is shocked by Kenneth Starr's decision to stay on as Independent Counsel in the Whitewater case. "These are mighty big important matters, and to decide one day you're out, the next day you're in raises real questions about how the investigation is going." Glenn made his comments during an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics Weekend."
On his role as ranking Democrat on the Senate Government Affairs Committee, Glenn said he and Committee Chairman Fred Thompson have not resolved the Republican and Democratic dispute over how much to spend on the committee's investigation of campaign fund-raising improprieties. "We have not resolved a thing yet, and I like Fred, Fred is a friend, and I hope we can work together on this. I like the way the Iran-Contra investigation went, where Senator Inouye and Senator Rudman were always on tv together, they had their press conferences together, they tried to make it truly a bi-partisan effort. And that's what Fred and I would like to do in this case."
Glenn said it is up to Attorney General Janet Reno to decide whether or not to appoint an Independent Counsel in the Democratic Party fund-raising scandal. "You know, the Independent Counsel law is very precise, and what you can appoint an Independent Counsel to do. It has to involve the President, the Vice President or a member of the Cabinet, as I understand it. And you have to have some very specific material there against one of those particular people. Whether we have that or not, I don't know. I don't know of any such material myself."
On the issue of whether someone like John Huang, the former Democratic National Committee fund-raiser under fire for collecting illegal donations, should be given limited immunity for testifying before the Senate Government Affairs Committee, the Senator said, "Those would have to be considered in each specific case. I don't think I would say I'm willing to give immunity in every case, but I - those are ones that would come up and you'd have to look at the background, look at the information you have and decide whether the information you would get from them would deserve immunity to get to some bigger problem you're investigating."