WASHINGTON — Despite Democratic howls, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, won subpoenas Thursday that may help show Attorney General Janet Reno ignored key evidence as she refused to appoint an independent counsel to probe possible Clinton-Gore campaign-finance abuses.
Hatch's success led to a partisan breakdown on the Senate Judiciary Committee he chairs. Democrats accused Republicans of a fishing expedition seeking to hurt Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign. Hatch accused Democrats of fighting a needed probe at every turn.
The committee empowered Hatch to issue the subpoenas, sought by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., head of a task force investigating the Justice Department. The vote on straight party lines was 10-8.
They seek access to memos sent to Reno by FBI Director Louis Freeh and Charles G. LaBella, chief of a Justice Department campaign-fraud task force, as well as documents used to prepare them.
The officials reportedly urged Reno to appoint an independent counsel because Freeh and LaBella felt evidence was strong that Gore and others violated laws during White House fundraising in 1996 and by taking money from Chinese nationals at a Buddhist temple.
However, Reno refused to appoint the independent counsel and said no credible evidence was found that high-ranking officials seriously violated any laws.
Hatch and Specter noted that the committee has asked that the Freeh and LaBella memos be turned over voluntarily, but they said officials either refused or offered versions that were so heavily edited "that they said nothing," Hatch said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Ver., the committee's ranking Democrat, said Democrats opposed subpoenas because it could compromise some secret grand jury testimony contained in them, and because to him it appears to be an election-year fishing expedition for data that could damage Gore's presidential campaign.
"You can turn this into a Republican investigation if you want," Leahy told Hatch, but he said Democrats won't support or help the probe because their concerns are not being adequately addressed.
"This committee has conducted some very significant bipartisan investigations," Leahy said. "But I am concerned this has not only not been non-partisan, but it has been partisan."
Hatch told the Deseret News that Democrats "have been trying to block us at every move." He said they blocked $2 million in funding for the probe, "even though half of it would have gone to their side." Hatch said Specter has been using existing committee staff and funding to piece together his investigation but has been slowed by lack of additional funding and staff.
Also, the committee earlier authorized Hatch to issue subpoenas for anything that Specter and Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., ranking Democrat on the task force, agreed was needed. "But we have not been able to get that concurrence" from Torricelli, Hatch said.
Torricelli dangled the possibility that he would agree with the subpoena requests made Thursday, but only if Specter would agree to suspend investigations into Gore and possible campaign-finance abuses from May until after the presidential elections.
Torricelli told the committee that delay would avoid the appearance that the probe was merely a political attack on Gore. But Specter said he would pursue the investigation "wherever it goes" and would not allow an election to interfere.
When Leahy and Democrats threatened parliamentary moves that could have delayed votes on the subpoenas, Specter noted that the more they delayed, the more it would move his investigation into the election season.
Democrats called a five-minute recess to discuss that potential. Leahy announced they would not delay the subpoenas in hopes that any probe may be concluded quickly, but also said Democrats would not support them.