WASHINGTON -- Reversing course Wednesday, a federal judge gave permission to House impeachment investigators to read secret Justice Department memos laying out evidence of alleged fund-raising irregularities in President Clinton's 1996 campaign.
U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson said one Republican and one Democrat from the House Judiciary Committee staff will be permitted to see the memos written by FBI Director Louis Freeh and prosecutor Charles LaBella.The staffers will not be allowed to copy or take notes of the memos and can only report their contents to Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the committee chairman, and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, senior Democrat on the panel. Any further release or distribution must be approved by the judge.
Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., a committee member who attended Wednesday's hearing with Johnson, called the decision "a step in the right direction."
The judge had ruled just last week in a sealed decision that lawmakers could not see the memos, which contain secret grand jury evidence gathered in the two-year Justice Department investigation into fund raising.
The decision this week by Republican impeachment investigators to veer into the fund-raising allegations against the president drew sharp Democratic criticism Wednesday. The White House called on House Republican leaders to "step up and figure out a way to get this thing resolved expeditiously."
And House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said, "I think no one is in charge" of the impeachment inquiry.
Gephardt echoed the criticism of White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, who complained that outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich and incoming Speaker Bob Livingston don't want to touch the impeachment process, leaving it in the hands of Hyde.
"It's obviously an odd situation where you have the Congress undertaking the most grave responsibility they have short of declaring war and the leadership saying that they don't want anything to do with it," Lockhart said. "I think they need to step up and figure out a way to get this thing resolved expeditiously because everybody wants to get this behind us."
Clinton's attorneys, meanwhile, were preparing a letter for Hyde's committee on whether they would present a defense. Gephardt said it was hard to determine the best strategy because the investigation "is so spun out of control."