Washington — The latest Democratic mantra is that Republicans are more interested in investigating than in legislating, and if the GOP isn't careful, the public will soon be saying the same thing.
At last count, the Republican-led Congress had 38 ongoing inquiries to root out possible wrongdoing by the Clinton administration. Congress has a legitimate responsibility to act as a watchdog, but the proliferation of investigations suggests a partisan agenda in addition to a genuine search for truth. Several new investigations launched this fall could tar Vice President Gore's quest for the presidency, but they could also backfire and create problems for the GOP.
Here's the likely fallout from the current round of investigations:
- Russian money-laundering: Iowa Republican Jim Leach, chairman of the House Banking committee and a veteran of the Whitewater scandal, is back with his worn sweater and folksy style. This time he's trying to untangle rubles from dollars, and get to the bottom of an alleged money-laundering scheme. The charge is that the Clinton-Gore administration looked the other way while the Russian oligarchs and the Russian Mafia looted the treasury and might have made off with International Monetary Fund (IMF) dollars.
The upside for the GOP: Raising questions about Gore's Russian connection neutralizes the vice president's advantage on foreign policy in the upcoming election.
The downside: Corruption is not new in Russia, and there's no evidence that IMF funds were diverted. In their zeal to get Gore, the GOP will make claims it cannot support. New York Republican Peter King said it best when he warned his colleagues to stick to policy questions and not veer off into scenarios that feature "black helicopters" and Gore as a Russian agent.
- Waco: Republicans realize that Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who is leading the investigation, is not their best spokesman, so they're talking about creating a joint House and Senate task force to examine the government's role in the conflagration that took the lives of the Branch Davidian cult members.
The upside for the GOP: There are serious questions that need to be answered about the bungled operation.
The downside: Former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., a man of impeccable integrity, is asking those questions, and he should proceed without a bunch of partisan sleuths on his heels. Danforth complains that Senate investigators recently traveled to Waco without even giving him a courtesy call. The anti-government sentiment generated by Waco benefits Pat Buchanan's rump candidacy.
- FALN: Offering clemency to jailed members of the Puerto Rican nationalist group was not President Clinton's most popular act, but the GOP is on shaky ground when it demands the president turn over private documents from former White House counsel Charles Ruff, who recommended the clemency. It is Clinton's constitutional obligation as president to withhold those documents, and he is on strong legal ground in doing so.
The upside for the GOP: Suspicion that Clinton was trying to help his wife with the Hispanic vote in New York could boost presumed Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani's chances in next year's Senate run.
The downside: Republicans will never find out if the Clintons talked about the clemency ahead of time, and Hillary is going to win the Hispanic vote in New York anyway. Ongoing hearings could look like piling on to Hispanics and undermine George W. Bush's out-reach effort to the growing Hispanic vote.
-- Jack Anderson and Douglas Cohn are columnists for United Feature Syndicate.
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