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House Committee Subpoenas Freeh's Memo To Reno

Memo Outlines Disagreement Over Independent Counsel

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Dec. 6) -- A House committee has subpoenaed a memo from FBI Director Louis Freeh to Attorney General Janet Reno in which Freeh argued in favor of appointing an independent counsel to investigate President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

The subpoena, issued late Friday by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, sets up a possible showdown between the Republican-controlled Congress and the executive branch.

Reno has refused earlier requests to produce the memo, and Justice Department sources suggest to CNN that she won't honor the subpoena. Freeh has also declined to turn over the memo.

The attorney general decided Tuesday that an independent counsel should not be appointed to investigate fund-raising phone calls made by Clinton and Gore. Freeh thought there should be an investigation and outlined his arguments in the memo that is being subpoenaed.

"The public has a right to know why the director of the FBI is concerned about the progress of the investigation," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the committee, in a letter to Reno Friday.

The disagreement between Reno and Freeh over an independent counsel will take center stage Tuesday, when both of them are scheduled to testify before Burton's committee. They are expected to be queried as to why they won't turn over the memo.

Reno's spokesman said Friday that her position is that it would be inappropriate to release information pertaining to an ongoing investigation.

"There has been a bipartisan consensus for half a century that Congress should not tamper with open criminal investigations," said spokesman Bert Brandenburg. "And the reason prosecutors don't hand out open investigation files is they don't want to hand road maps to criminals so that they can beat their raps."

Tussles over documents between the executive and legislative branches are nothing new, and "what tends to happen throughout history ... is that one side or the other backs down because it is politically unpopular to go that far," said Paul Rothstein of the Georgetown University Law Center.

In the 1920s, Congress sought documents from the Justice Department regarding the Teapot Dome scandal then engulfing the White House. In a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Congress won.

Saturday, the White House had no comment on the subpoena. But some congressional Democrats expressed support for Reno's stand.

"In an ongoing criminal investigation, you don't make available to potential criminals all of the thinking of the FBI," said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., on CNN's "Inside Politics Weekend." "Her judgment on that score is correct, and, may I add, Louis Freeh fully agrees with her."

On Saturday, Republicans used their weekly radio address to again criticize Reno's decision against calling for a special prosecutor, and called on her to reconsider.

"Somebody has to break through the wall that this administration has erected between itself and the truth," complained Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. "Reno should reconsider the sound advice of ... Freeh and seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate all elements of campaign fund raising in the 1996 presidential elections."

CNN Correspondent Jonathan Karl contributed to this report.