Private Attorney Chosen To Investigate Alexis Herman
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 26) -- Ralph I. Lancaster Jr., a private attorney from Maine, has been appointed to investigate allegations of influence-peddling against Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman.
The U.S. Court of Appeals announced Tuesday Lancaster will begin investigating whether Herman took a cash bribe or solicited illegal campaign donations while she was a White House aide to President Bill Clinton. Herman has denied the allegations.
Lancaster handles civil and criminal cases in Maine and Massachusetts as partner with the firm of Pierce Atwood of Portland, Maine. In 1987-88, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed the Harvard-educated Lancaster as a special master for a civil case involving New Jersey and Nevada.
At the center of the independent counsel investigation is a claim by African businessman Laurent Yene that he, Herman and a friend, Vanessa Weaver, conspired to trade Herman's influence as a White House official for cash.
Attorney General Janet Reno sent her request for a special prosecutor to the special three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals on May 11.
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