Reno Cited For Contempt
A House committee voted Thursday to cite Attorney General Janet Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over a report recommending that she seek an independent counsel to probe campaign fund-raising abuses.
The panel moved to the extraordinary confrontation on a 24-19 vote. All Republicans supported the motion. Eighteen Democrats, joined by Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont, opposed it.
"The committee has a need to see these documents," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
Burton added, "I regret that we have to meet today under these circumstances. I had really hoped that we could work out an agreement so this wouldn't be necessary."
Early in the committee meeting, he said, "How can [Reno] credibly conduct an investigation of the president of her own party? That's why we created the [independent counsel] law in the first place."
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., denounced the action as "political theater." He said that "this odious threat of contempt is beneath contempt."
"We're continuing to talk to see if we can reach an accommodation," Reno said before Thursday's committee vote.
The full House would have to endorse any contempt citation in a vote that would not occur before September, when the lawmakers return from their August recess. That leaves time for a resolution of the confrontation.
If the House approves the contempt citation, the matter will go to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to determine if a contempt order should be issued. If the court issues a contempt order, Reno could be subject to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Burton has been demanding Reno turn over the report from the former head of a Justice task force that is probing alleged fund-raising illegalities by the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Reno resisted the committee's subpoena, saying that releasing such sensitive information would damage the investigation and discourage line prosecutors everywhere from candidly assessing cases in memoranda to their superiors.
The attorney general received support for her position from the very advisers who have urged her to name an independent counsel, FBI Director Louis Freeh and Charles LaBella, the former head of Justice's campaign fund-raising task force.