Independent Counsel Urged By Gop Vote Resolution Requests Probe Of Allegedly Illegal Fund Raising

The Senate on Wednesday brushed aside Democratic objections and approved a Republican resolution seeking an independent counsel to investigate allegations of illegal fund raising in the 1996 presidential election.

The nonbinding resolution, approved on a party-line vote of 55 to 44, calls on Attorney General Janet Reno to ask a federal court to appoint an outside prosecutor because of what it described as strong evidence of possible official wrong-doing on behalf of President Clinton’s re-election.

Democrats complained that the Senate should not be telling Reno what to do and that Congress should also be investigated if an independent counsel is appointed. They proposed a resolution of their own to that effect but it was rejected, 58 to 41.

“The attorney general should appoint an independent counsel to investigate alleged improprieties by Democrats and Republicans” in presidential and congressional campaigns, said Moynihan. It is the only way to conduct a probe without “dissolving into partisan bias” and the “appearance of a conflict of interest,” he added.

In excluding Congress in the resolution, Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., said Republicans were trying to “protect themselves” from an inquiry that they wanted to limit solely to high-level Democrats in the executive branch. But Republicans argued that Congress should not be included because the Justice Department does not face the same conflict of interest in investigating the legislative branch that it does in investigating top administration officials.

Reno has deployed a Justice Department task force to investigate allegations of illegal fund raising. But she has resisted pressure to seek an outside counsel, saying conditions for invoking the counsel law - including “substantial, credible evidence” of wrongdoing by high officials and of a conflict of interest in the Justice Department’s conduct of the probe - have not been established.