Word: belled
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Attorney General Griffin Bell had argued for months that his own people in the Justice Department could objectively investigate the loans, upwards of $4.6 million, made by Bert Lance's Atlanta bank to the Carter peanut warehouse in Plains, Ga. It was a hard argument to sustain. Not only was Bell a Democrat, of course, but he was an old friend of the Carters' and of Lance. Faced with increasing criticism, Bell last week finally decided to put the probe into other hands. His choice was highly qualified: Paul Jerome Curran, 45, who not only is a Republican...
...turned out, Bell's problems were far from over. Trying to resist any comparison with Watergate, Bell made Curran a "special counsel," not a "special prosecutor," the title carried by Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski when they led the investigations that helped to bring about Richard Nixon's downfall. There was one important difference: unlike the special prosecutors, Curran would not have the power to charge anyone on his own. He would first have to get the approval of Assistant Attorney General Philip Heymann...
...Bell promised that Curran would not be overruled unless "the special counsel's decisions were grossly inconsistent with well-established prosecutorial standards." The Attorney General also said that any veto by Heymann of Curran's request would be reported to Congress and the public. In those circumstances-and the certainty that Republicans would be screaming, "Cover-up!"-Heymann would have needed very strong nerves indeed to veto any request by Curran to prosecute. Said Heymann last week: "I can't imagine...
Republicans in Congress, who had been complaining about the dawdling pace of the peanut probe all along, immediately protested Bell's action, saying that he had not gone far enough to free the special counsel from possible Justice Department interference. Republican Presidential Hopeful Robert Dole called the special counsel role "a perversion of the whole concept of an impartial investigation." Said Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, who is also expected to declare for the presidency: "It is not proper for the Administration to be dragged kicking and screaming into this investigation...
...criticism confined to the Republicans. None other than Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd took to the floor to express keen disappointment in Bell's action. He thought that the Attorney General should have named Curran as special prosecutor, and he asked that the appointee be given "explicit protection against removal except for extraordinary improprieties...