End to Probe of Calls From White House Is Expected

WASHINGTON — Justice Department investigators are recommending that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno not seek appointment of an independent counsel to probe fund-raising telephone calls by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, department officials said Saturday.

Reno could act on the recommendation as soon as Monday and is likely to make her decision before the Dec. 2 deadline in the matter, a department source predicted.

If Reno accepts the recommendation against asking that an independent counsel examine telephone solicitations by Clinton and Gore, the White House can be expected to hail the decision as exoneration of the two, who have denied any wrongdoing.

But it would just as likely spark a new round of heated criticism of Reno on Capitol Hill, where Republicans have argued that an outside prosecutor is needed to probe the phone calls because Reno--appointed to her post by Clinton--has a conflict of interest in investigating high administration officials.

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At issue is whether Clinton or Gore violated an 1883 law against soliciting campaign contributions from federal office buildings--in this case, the White House.

Clinton has said he did not recall making any campaign solicitation calls from the White House but that he may have done so. Former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes has told investigators that Clinton did make several fund-raising calls from the residence quarters of the White House, which is not covered by the law.

Gore has acknowledged making more than 40 fund-raising calls from his government office, but he has denied they broke the law.

There is disagreement among lawyers on whether federal law prohibits either the vice president or the president from soliciting donors by phone from the White House.

Also, sources said the fact that the 1883 law has never been used to prosecute fund-raising calls made from federal offices to private citizens was a factor cited in a draft of the recommendation by the Justice Department investigators.

A decision against naming an independent counsel to probe the phone-call matter would not affect separate investigations by a Justice Department task force into possible campaign fund-raising fraud by individuals through such practices as making donations in the names of others. In fact, sources close to those probes had hoped to have sought grand jury action before Reno decided on the Clinton and Gore matters, but that now seems unlikely.

Gore, in defending the calls he made, said they broke no law because he was seeking money for general party-building and advertising unrelated to an individual campaign. Such so-called soft money is not covered by campaign finance laws, Reno has concluded, citing Federal Election Commission rulings.

But Reno took the first steps toward seeking an independent counsel in the Clinton and Gore matters after it was learned that Democratic Party officials had been using 20% of large contributions for “hard money” efforts to reelect the Clinton-Gore team.

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Sources said that preliminary inquiries by Justice Department investigators turned up no evidence Clinton or Gore knew of the shift from soft to hard money. One source said this was also cited in the draft recommendation.

Department sources would not confirm that officials would also recommend against seeking an outside prosecutor to probe whether former Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary broke the law by allegedly soliciting a $25,000 contribution to a charity in return for a meeting with Chinese businessmen.

The O’Leary case involves an allegation by lobbyist Johnny Chien Chuen Chung that an aide to O’Leary sought the contribution to help persuade the Energy secretary to meet with the businessmen.