Word: reno
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Newly-released court documents show that the president's attorneys are beating back Ken Starr in Judge Norma Holloway Johnson's investigation into alleged grand jury leaks. But though legal victories have been few and far between for the White House lately, don't expect its spokesmen -- or Janet Reno, Starr's nominal boss -- to do any crowing about this...
...guilt as to the leaks are already something of an open secret in Washington. "They're blatant," says TIME Washington correspondent Elaine Shannon, "But he's already offending everybody from prosecutors to the public. Any attack on him now would only give him the moral high ground." Certainly Reno, though she could technically fire Starr if a leaks verdict reflected "moral turpitude," is too embroiled in her conflict-of-interest fight with Dan Burton to ever discipline Starr. As for the White House, the time for spinning against Starr is over; now it's keep quiet and cross your fingers...
WASHINGTON: The contempt is running both ways between Dan Burton and Janet Reno. After Burton's House Oversight Committee finally voted to cite the attorney general for contempt for refusing to play ball with Burton, Reno was icily defiant at an afternoon Q&A, calling the citation "a form of political tampering that no prosecutor in America can accept." In this case, the tampering shouldn't run very deep. The full House would have to endorse any contempt citation, and that vote wouldn't come at least until September. The next stop? Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, who would supervise...
...Holder, says TIME Washington correspondent Elaine Shannon, is one of Janet Reno's staunchest defenders. "Holder's a Republican, but he's stood with Reno through all this. When [task force head Charles] LaBella was insisting on an independent counsel, Holder argued that Justice was able to do the job itself. He abhors independent counsels as much as Reno." Burton and Reno may yet come up with a compromise. But Reno has said she simply wants three more weeks to review LaBella's memo before she makes a decision. Far be it for Burton to shy away from a scrap...
...Confidentiality is a religion to the Justice Department, and they'll go to the wall for it," she says. "Reno doesn't want a bunch of yahoos from Congress rifling through her files." Reno's reticence about appointing independent counsel has nothing to do with loyalty to Bill Clinton, as Burton alleges, but from the fiercest of antipathies for Ken Starr. "Justice is always biased against special prosecutors," says Shannon, "and Ken Starr is Exhibit A. To Reno, he's abused his power, and the last thing she wants to do is unleash another...