Just Us Vs. Justice Rift With Fbi Director Could Be Final Straw For Her

Her hands shook slightly with tremors of Parkinson’s disease. But Janet Reno was solid as granite.

Her eyes glinted defiantly behind hornrims as she said, firmly, “The decision was mine.”

She was utterly alone. Isolated from the president who hired her. Vilified by Republicans in Congress. Coldly feuding with an FBI director who leaked his second guesses to the press. You can’t get more solitary - White House, Congress and FBI, three of the most powerful forces in Washington, in battle array against you. When Reno faced the news horde to reveal her decision - no special counsel to dig into campaign phone calls of Bill Clinton and Al Gore - the missing person was Louie Freeh.

The FBI boss watched on TV from his seventh floor office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building just two blocks away. Yet, the distance between Reno and Freeh is a gulf. Given their explosive differences about handling the campaign finance scandal - a split to be exploited by Republican critics - either Reno or Freeh will probably resign in 1998.

Either would be a loss. They’re much alike, survivors from crime’s trenches: Reno from Miami’s drug wars, Freeh rising from FBI agent to U.S. judge in Manhattan. Oddly, what drives their rift is fierce independence. But a presidential investigation is an electric wire - touch it, somebody gets burned.

Freeh, scarred by FBI brushes with the Clinton White House, tells Reno repeatedly to dump the campaign money mess onto an outside gumshoe: “You and I have a conflict of interest.” Reno stubbornly argues she must see evidence of laws busted.

Now, it’s hard to see how Reno and Freeh, her No. 1 law enforcer who supplies FBI manpower for Justice probes, can function as a team.

Depend on Republicans, who are cozy with Freeh but detest Reno’s icy feistiness, to light matches under the bonfire. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., will call Reno and Freeh before his panel “to explore their differences.” (Translation: Let’s paint the attorney general as a lady kook who won’t listen to the FBI’s Mr. Clean.) “The spectacle of division between chief law enforcement officials is a blow to public confidence,” fumes Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

OK, predictable treacle. Frustrated Republicans’ tactic - portray Freeh as embattled hero, Reno as tool of the president - was transparent after Freeh’s rebellion surfaced.

“Director Freeh couldn’t let history reflect he sat by silently. The attorney general has hamstrung the FBI,” charged Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. He added with comic accuracy, “As long as Reno has Congress as an enemy, she’s OK.”

One Republican ploy: Nitpick Reno’s promise she wouldn’t cut off any inquiry unless Freeh concurred. Now she insists the FBI can keep chasing leads - “this is a snapshot, not an ending.”

Ironically, Reno and Freeh have one thing in common - they trust Clinton & Co. like a nest of cobras. Reno, almost dumped a year ago, is frostily aloof from the White House. She and Clinton rarely speak - a schism that makes laughable GOP charges she’s in Clinton’s pocket.

Freeh has been nicked by Clinton’s amateurish hirelings. He took over an FBI shattered by Waco and Ruby Ridge. He was blindsided by farces - an FBI official covering up the White House travel office purge, Clinton staffers wheedling FBI files, a flap over the FBI not tipping off the China Connection. So, Freeh’s wary of the FBI’s onceshiny image being tainted by a political investigation. But the stiffly principled Reno tells him: “Show me the evidence, Louie, the broken laws.”

Reno’s right, despite the Republican firestorm. Lawyerly Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Reno “has a blind spot to the entire scandal.” Judiciary chairman Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., blamed Reno’s “personal loyalty to the president.” Republican chairman Jim Nicholson thundered Reno must resign.

“Impeach Reno!” bumper stickers will probably bloom. So who’ll go? I suspect Freeh, gifted with Republican support and a 10-year contract, will survive. Reno has reasons to escape the pressure cooker - her health, her urge for a wanderlust vacation, her unrelenting enemies. Those stresses may have caused last week’s hospitalization. Some time in ‘98, Reno will stuff her backpack and kayak in her pickup truck and hit the road.

A tough lady will say to hell with Washington, a city where integrity makes you Public Enemy No. 1.

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Pro: Reno decided on the basis of facts and law. For opposing view see headline: Freeh’s advice wasn’t music to White House ears by Cal Thomas