E D I T O R I A L The Long Arm Of Clinton Politics Date: 11/5/96 Back in 1992, the editors of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette warned that then-Gov. Bill Clinton would transplant to Washington the oligarchy he'd set up in Little Rock. Tragically, it turns out they were right. Not a month goes by, it seems, without news that another federal agency has been politicized - exploited for the president's protection against corruption probes, for his political gain or for the punishment of his enemies. Internal Revenue Service: The IRS is going after nonprofit groups critical of the Clinton administration. The conservative Western Journalism Center, for one, is being audited for the first time in its five-year history. The news organization supported investigative reporting by Christopher Ruddy into the odd events surrounding White House lawyer Vincent Foster's death. It was targeted in a White House damage-control memo in December 1994. The IRS also reportedly is auditing or probing the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association and state and local chapters of the Christian Coalition. Post-Watergate reforms banned White House-IRS contacts. But a politicized IRS may not even need specific orders to do the president's dirty work. Politicized? IRS chief Margaret Milner Richardson, a Clinton appointee, attended the Democratic convention in Chicago in August. It may be a first, and it's certainly unusual. ''At a time when the IRS is under attack, it's bizarre to see the commissioner subject herself to the appearance of being an active Democrat,'' the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics fumed. The IRS audited at least two ex-workers at the White House travel office, thus aiding Clintonites' effort to make the firings seem to be for cause. (The true motive was a desire to use the once-nonpartisan slots for patronage.) It also audited the Tennessee-based airline that served the White House press corps. From internal FBI memos, we know that a White House lawyer discussed the option of using the IRS to probe allegations of Travel Office wrongdoing. One White House lawyer said IRS Commissioner Richardson was ''on top of it.'' Immigration and Naturalization Service: An immigration-policy expert recently told Congress that an aide to Vice President Al Gore acted as a liaison between the INS and the White House on a project to register more than a million new voters before the election. The drive was cunning politics, but dangerous policy. The administration may have waved in more than a million immigrants this year to boost the Democratic vote in key election states like New York, Illinois, Florida and California. But the effort led to mass naturalization of immigrants whose criminal backgrounds had not been thoroughly checked. As many as 100,000 criminals may have been cleared for citizenship. (Ironically, that's one for each new cop Clinton wants to put on the street.) INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, another Clinton appointee, admitted that at least 1,300 cases ''contain information which is criminal and could result in deportation.'' Justice Department: In March 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno fired all sitting U.S. attorneys and replaced them with Clinton loyalists. Reno had just been confirmed, and the move was unprecedented. It's hard to believe she did it without White House pressure. The move let Clinton friend and campaign worker Paula Casey take over the Little Rock district. She then refused to plea-bargain with fraud defendant David Hale, who said he could implicate the president in the growing Whitewater scandal. Hale is now cooperating with Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and is under witness protection. Clintonite Webster Hubbell, then No. 3 at Justice and an ex-partner of Hillary Clinton, stayed in constant contact with the White House and the Resolution Trust Corp. about Whitewater investigations. Starr later sent Hubbell to prison for fraud. Top Clintonites such as James Carville are now calling for Reno's ouster on the grounds that she won't fire Starr. The West Wing: In 1993, three of Hillary Clinton's lawyer pals - Bernie Nussbaum, Vincent Foster and William Kennedy - headed up the White House counsel's office. (The first lady set up her own office next door.) In effect, they set up their own law firm inside the White House, spending an inordinate amount of public time and money protecting the Clintons from Whitewater and other inquiries. They're all gone now - one dead, the others pushed out for ethical reasons. But they've been replaced by new Democratic loyalists with more Washington experience, like Whitewater point man Mark Fabiani and Jane Sherburne. A month after the GOP won Congress (and subpoena power), Sherburne drafted a memo listing 39 Clinton scandals and dispatching lawyers and top presidential aides to put out the spreading fires. Energy Department: After a newspaper listed several donors to the Western Journalism Center in 1995, at least one - a major corporation - got a call from Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary. She told the company's founder that his federal contracts would be canceled if he continued to support the center, according to the center's director. This is the same Clinton appointee who spent more than $43,000 of public money compiling an enemies list of reporters critical of her department, and who took 16 overseas junkets, costing taxpayers $5 million. Resolution Trust Corp.: RTC field investigator Jean Lewis testified that top administration officials made ''a concerted effort to obstruct, hamper and manipulate'' the probe of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, the Little Rock thrift run by the Clintons' business partner. She tape-recorded an RTC supervisor saying ''the head people would like it if Whitewater did not cause a loss to Madison.'' Lewis was later pulled off the investigation without warning or explanation. Treasury Department: Lewis wanted to send to the Justice Department criminal referrals that named, among others, Bill and Hillary Clinton as witnesses. Treasury counsel Jean Hanson, who reported to Deputy Treasury Secretary and RTC chief Roger Altman, gave the White House counsel's office a ''heads up'' on the matter. That was one of at least 40 improper contacts on the matter between Treasury and the White House. Discovery of this conduct later forced Hanson and Altman to resign. The Treasury Department is butting into another White House scandal -Filegate. The department's inspector general is investigating two Secret Service agents for ''potentially criminal'' acts. In fact, the two agents gave testimony that blew a hole in the White House's ''bureaucratic snafu'' story on Filegate. Now top Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos claims the agents may be to blame for the Clintonites' grabbing of hundreds of FBI background files on former Bush and Reagan aides. Commerce Department: Clinton appointed John Huang, one more Arkansas pal, to a top Commerce post. He and late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown brokered deals that, as it turns out, benefited (to the tune of $1 billion in one case) foreign-based donors to the Democratic National Committee. For the 1996 election, Clinton moved Huang to a top DNC fund-raising job. Huang was the conduit for millions of dollars in questionable donations, including cash from Lippo Group, his former Indonesian employer. Some Huang-brokered donations were clearly illegal and have been returned. To guard against conflict of interest, federal law requires the DNC to operate at arm's length from the White House. But White House logs show Huang paid some 65 visits in the first nine months of this year. Clinton aides now say some visits were by a different John Huang -but won't release the data it has on who either Huang saw. Huang's lawyer is John C. Keeney Jr. - son of the acting head of the Justice Department's criminal unit. Federal Bureau of Investigation: The White House counsel's office systematically stymied efforts by two White House FBI agents to thoroughly check staffers' backgrounds. (As late as mid-1994, more than 100 lacked final security clearance.) After one agent, Gary Aldrich, resigned and wrote a book about the problem, FBI General Counsel Howard Shapiro - another Clinton appointee - promptly shipped a copy of the manuscript to the White House. It was another ''heads up'' that allowed the White House to launch a smear campaign against the book and its author before it hit bookstores. Shapiro also sent two agents to interrogate the other White House FBI agent, Dennis Sculimbrene, about Aldrich. And the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility investigated Sculimbrene for alleged misuse of a government parking pass. (He was cleared.) The White House got Sculimbrene's own FBI background file, no questions asked. In April, Sculimbrene was transferred. No FBI agents are stationed inside the White House now. In the Clinton era, no government bureau seems truly independent. At any time, any agency may be working on the president's private or political goals, rather than for the country's general good. How long might Clinton's arm grow in a second term? The biggest checks on his power are Starr and the GOP Congress - neither of which may be around much longer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (C) Copyright 1996 Investors Business Daily, Inc.