Reno Rejects Independent Counsel in Ickes Case

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Friday said that she would not seek an independent counsel to investigate perjury allegations against former White House aide Harold M. Ickes, saying there is “no credible evidence” to suggest that he lied to a Senate panel about a Teamsters strike.

Closing out a six-month review by her office, Reno rejected allegations that Ickes covered up the Clinton administration’s efforts to help resolve a bitter Teamsters strike in Stockton, Calif., in a quid pro quo aimed at generating campaign contributions from the well-heeled union.

The threat of a prolonged investigation into Ickes’ affairs clearly had worried many in Democratic circles because the former White House deputy chief of staff was considered the main architect of the party’s 1996 fund-raising campaign, a subject that already has produced several indictments.

Reno’s much-awaited decision also puts to rest the last in a public string of 16 independent counsel reviews that the attorney general has undertaken in the last several years involving administration figures, including President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Cabinet members Ronald H. Brown, Bruce Babbitt and Mike Espy.

Republicans immediately criticized Reno’s decision, saying it validates their belief that she is unwilling to challenge colleagues in the administration, particularly on matters involving campaign finance.

“The demise of the independent counsel law when it expires this year may be the most notable ‘achievement’ of her tenure as attorney general,” said Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who headed the Senate’s fund-raising inquiry.

A House Republican official also active in campaign finance said: “This is simply following suit. It’s Reno redux. . . . She’s just protecting the president.”

Under the law, Reno decides whether the evidence warrants the appointment of an outside counsel to review allegations of misconduct. If she thinks one is needed, a special three-judge panel considers the appointments.

Further allegations against officials covered under the independent counsel act could trigger a new review by Reno’s office at any time. But for now, Justice Department officials have earned a rare reprieve from the time demands and political pressures generated by the reviews.

“There’s definitely a sense that when these are done we can go back to what really matters--like fighting drugs and violent crime and terrorism,” said one official active in the process.

The reviews “are a lot of work, an awful lot of work . . . on cases that probably won’t go anywhere. Some of them are dogs,” the official said.

Of the 16 reviews that Reno’s office is known to have conducted, she has referred matters to independent counsels 10 times. All but two of those inquiries--including Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of the president--remain active.

Wake Forest University professor Katy Harriger, who recently wrote a law review article on Reno’s use of the statute, titled “Damned If She Does and Damned If She Doesn’t,” said that Reno has called on independent counsels more frequently than many of her predecessors.

“Say what you like about her, but she’s an independent person,” Harriger said in an interview. “If she’s willing to let Congress cite her for contempt [for refusing to turn over documents related to an independent counsel inquiry], she’s obviously willing to take the heat.”

Reno, asked about Ickes at a briefing Thursday, said that her charge was to “apply the law as it exists” and that she would not be bullied by political pressure.

“Once I’ve satisfied myself that I’ve explored every issue, that I’ve considered all points of view and that then I’ve made the best decision I can, I go home and get a good night’s sleep and decide that if people don’t want me, I’ll go home to Florida,” she said.

Ickes’ attorneys Robert S. Bennett and Amy Sabrin praised the attorney general’s “courage to do the right thing in the face of intense political pressure.”

“It would have been a grave injustice if an independent counsel had been appointed in this matter,” they said.

Still, Reno stirred speculation in December that she might seek an outside investigation after delaying her decision 60 days. The delay was prompted in part because another independent counsel had secretly sought court authority to investigate Ickes’ dealings in connection with a related matter involving Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

The review of Ickes, a former New York labor lawyer who now works as a Washington consultant, was narrow in scope, centering on two statements he made during 1997 testimony before a Senate committee about the Teamsters’ ongoing strike against Diamond Walnut in Stockton.

Ickes was asked twice what the administration had done about the strike. The first time, Ickes answered: “I’m not sure anything was done on the Diamond Walnut strike.” The second time, he said: “Nothing that I know of.”

But Senate investigators later uncovered an internal Teamster memo asserting that Ickes had urged then-U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor to intervene in the dispute.

Ickes has acknowledged asking Kantor to make a phone call, but Kantor has said that his call to the company’s chief executive was not motivated by fund-raising, as Republicans have maintained. Kantor has said that he asked the Teamsters about the status of a possible settlement of the protracted strike against Diamond and that he applied no pressure.

The Senate committee reported that “documents produced by the White House and other evidence suggest that Harold Ickes assisted the Teamsters Union with the Diamond Walnut strike and other matters in order to encourage [then-Teamster president Ron] Carey and the Teamsters Union to provide more financial assistance to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee.”

But Reno suggested that Ickes’ response might simply have reflected the ambiguity of the question or a lapse of recollection. It “strains credulity” to think that he would have knowingly lied about the administration’s efforts in the strike because those efforts were “known to so many people.”

Moreover, Reno noted that the administration’s intervention in the strike fell flat. While the Teamsters mounted an aggressive campaign to enlist the administration’s help and donated generously to Democratic candidates, she said, the union ultimately “was disappointed with the lack of action by the administration” in ending the impasse.

Times staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this story.