Related Stories
Does $25,000 Buy A Meeting With A Cabinet Officer? (8/20/97)

Chung Contributed To Group Set Up To Counter Whitewater Charges (8/11/97)

Bulletin Board
Join a thread, start a thread -- it's your chance to sound off!

Infoseek search

  Help
Navigation

Solomon: Prosecutor Needed Now

Chung's allegations require Reno to appoint a prosecutor, House Rules chairman says

solomon

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Aug. 21) -- An influential member of the House insisted this morning that Johnny Chung's campaign-finance allegations require Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint an independent prosecutor. But Reno continues to show no signs of budging on the issue.

House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.) has faxed a letter to Reno, asking her to immediately appoint an independent counsel to investigate allegations that former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary violated federal criminal law.

This is not the first controversy surrounding the former Energy secretary, who had a reputation for taking numerous costly overseas business trips.

reno

In a letter faxed to Reno, Solomon alleges that "the Honorable Hazel O'Leary, former Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration, may have successfully solicited a bribe from Johnny Chung."

According to Solomon's letter, "Mr. Chung has admitted that he paid $25,000 to Africare in order to arrange a private meeting with a group of ten to twelve Chinese businessmen and Secretary O'Leary. The current Secretary takes this quid pro quo seriously and has properly referred the case to DOE's Inspector General."

For her part, Reno says her staff is still looking into the matter, but gave no indication she's any closer to appointing a prosecutor. "As I have said all along, we will consider each new piece of information that we get," she told reporters in her weekly briefing this morning. "And if it triggers the statute, we'll do it."

CNN has obtained copies of the $25,000 check to Africare, as well as documentation of O'Leary's meeting with the Chinese businessmen.

Closing his letter, Solomon writes to Reno, "you have been intransigent in the past, much to my disappointment. In this instance, however, you cannot claim that administration officials implicated in alleged criminal activities were not covered by the relevant statute. This being the case, I request you immediately appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate the serious allegation that Ms. O'Leary violated federal criminal law."


In Other News:

Thursday August 21, 1997

Senate Investigators Grill Morris
A Trimmer President Clinton
Clinton Intervenes In Amtrak Dispute
Solomon: Prosecutor Needed Now
Clinton Considered Soft-Money Ban
E-mail: School Enrollments On Steep Climb




home | news | in-depth | analysis | what's new | community | contents | search

Click here for technical help or to send us feedback.

Copyright © 1997 AllPolitics All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this information is provided to you.