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FEC Audit May Lead to the Mother of All Probes
By Elaine Shannon/Washington
The Federal Election Commission is probably the least-feared
watchdog agency in Washington, which is why inside the Beltway
its nickname is the "Failure to Enforce Commission." That
explains why the hottest guessing game in town is figuring out
how this nearly toothless body managed to do what volumes of
editorial screeds, congressional bombast and urgent pleas from
top FBI and Justice officials could not--specifically, push
Attorney General JANET RENO to the verge of naming a new
independent counsel to investigate the financial maneuverings of
the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign. The explanation, says an
insider, is that an FEC audit of the campaign, which landed at
Justice about three weeks ago, concluded that White House and
campaign officials may have intentionally attempted to evade
federal election laws by manipulating "issue advocacy" ads
funded by the national Democratic Party or state parties into
hard-sell vote-for-Clinton-Gore messages. Why is this
significant? Because throughout the year, Reno has been able to
ignore the entreaties of FBI Director LOUIS FREEH, Justice
campaign task-force chief CHARLES LABELLA, Common Cause and
Republican leaders because, she has said, the case did not meet
the independent-counsel law's test that there be "specific and
credible charges" about the President or some other high
official. While the FEC audit contains "no smoking guns, no
great revelations," says a a lawyer familiar with the case, "the
Justice Department bases its interpretation of the law on what
the FEC says, and once they say something's improper, bingo.
It's specific and credible." The issues seem plain. "These ads
were produced and designed by the campaign media consultants,"
says Common Cause president ANN MCBRIDE, pointing out that "it's
on the public record that Clinton was very much involved in
them." Reno watchers believe she will soon launch a formal
90-day inquiry into the Democrats' use of issue-advocacy ads to
promote the ticket, and the betting inside Justice is that she
will ultimately seek an independent counsel. If that happens,
officials say, the mother of all IC probes could result,
enveloping Clinton and Gore and even Republican standard-bearer
BOB DOLE, whose campaign also benefited from issue ads like the
ones in question. "In the real world," says a senior
Administration hand, "it comes down to the whole ball of wax. No
self-respecting independent counsel is going to stop at some
artificial line."
--By Elaine Shannon/Washington
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