WASHINGTON — Attorney General Janet Reno indicated Thursday that the FBI could do background checks on potential presidential appointees for both the Bush and Gore campaigns while the court battles continue.
Reno told her weekly news conference she had given Justice Department officials working on the transition two principles: "We want to be fair and we want to make sure that we are responsive to the needs of whoever, or whether it is both, in terms of preparing for a new administration."
A senior Justice official, requesting anonymity, explained later that "we have the legal authority to begin background checks for both transition teams at the appropriate time."
The official said "the appropriate time" to begin background checks would be "when it's necessary for an orderly transition." Reno said she wanted to prevent background checks from slowing the transition. She said no requests had been received yet from either campaign.
"The process involves filling out a rather extensive application. Those forms have been made available," Reno said. "And we've received none of them back from either candidate's side." She said she wanted to make sure that the background check "process does not slow down" the transition once applications are received.
FBI officials do not expect any backlog in checks.
"When the names come in, you drop whatever you're doing and do them," said Supervisory Special Agent Jill Stillman. "It's not a normal situation, but we're not panicked."
Both the Gore and Bush campaigns may be sending in quite a few names that do not require extensive checks, because they have been recently checked already. Vice President Al Gore may promote some officials serving in the Clinton administration, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush may name some top figures from his father's administration, which left office eight years ago.
Justice officials said that in 1992 the first requests for background checks came in by the first few days in December.
Prior to the election, the Bush team requested information from the Justice Department and was sent a sample of the form for nominees, a GSA SF86 form, and an instruction sheet, the Justice official said. There have been no similar requests from the Gore camp, the official said, but pointed out that the forms are available on the Internet at the GSA Web site.
On the Net: General Services Administration: www.gsa.gov