Word: smaltz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...even now, Smaltz's performance--on top of Kenneth Starr's--has changed the dynamic at Janet Reno's Justice Department. Officials there tell TIME that her reluctance to call for counsels to look into Vice President Al Gore, former deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes and the President in connection with the campaign-finance mess comes in part from seeing what other prosecutors have done...
Still, while Starr and his investigation are better known, it is Smaltz who is cited as the best example of the statute's weaknesses by those who closely follow the law. In September 1994 he was assigned to investigate whether Espy, the first black to hold the job of Agriculture Secretary, illegally accepted gifts--luggage, sports tickets, entertainment--from people and agribusinesses he regulated. Smaltz was almost immediately criticized for his freewheeling tactics. His team asked former friends and employees of chicken king Don Tyson whether they knew of any hookers or homosexual activity at events that took place long...
...indictment itself showed a prosecutor pushing the envelope. Smaltz said Espy illegally took $35,000 in gifts--but Smaltz valued at $6,000 four tickets to an inaugural ball that Espy could have had free, and he chalked up against Espy $3,200 given to Espy's girlfriend for a plane ticket. Smaltz even hit Espy with criminal charges for mailing reimbursement for some gifts he acknowledged he shouldn't have accepted...
...Smaltz's case was so weak that Espy's lawyers decided not to put on a defense. Douglas, an old friend of Espy's who was meant to be the prosecution's strongest witness, turned on Smaltz on the stand and said he'd agreed to become his "puppet" only after three years of "storm-trooper" tactics by the independent counsel. "God knows, if I had $30 million, I could find dirt on you, sir," Douglas told Smaltz in front of the jury. (The amount Smaltz actually spent, through March, was $17.5 million...
...course of his investigation, Smaltz did gain 15 convictions or guilty pleas from individuals and companies, including Tyson Foods, which agreed to pony up $6 million for giving Espy things like two football play-off tickets, a couple of limo rides and a $1,200 scholarship for his girlfriend. Smaltz uncovered evidence that at least one of the firms that provided benefits to Espy did so hoping to curry favor with him. And there is no doubt that Espy shouldn't have taken some of the gifts. But Smaltz's critics maintain that Espy's misguided behavior hardly warranted such...