How the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the independent counsel law screwed Bruce Babbitt.

• Author: Worth, Robert

Republican congressman rearely wax rhapsodic about The New York Times in the middle of a committee hearing. But that is exactly what Rep. Christopher Cox did on Jan. 21, during the House investigation of Bruce Babbitt. He singled out the Times for "bringing out the facts in connection with this matter, which have led most people to predict that an independent counsel will be required to investigate" Babbitt's role in the alleged sale of a Departmental decision on an indian casino for Democratic campaign donations.

Congressman Cox didn't know how right he was. When Attorney General Janet Reno submitted her request for an independent counsel three weeks later, she referred twice to news reports as the basis for her decision. The AG is forbidden by a provision of the independent counsel statute from using any of the traditional fact-finding methods -- subpoenas, grand jury, and immunity -- in determining whether allegations against public officials have any merit. Working under these constraints and the 90-day time limit imposed by the statute, Reno was scarcely better informed than the ordinary citizens who have read about the accusations against Babbitt in the Times and The Washington Post.

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the Times and the Post, which determine newspaper and television news coverage throughout the country, helped to squeeze the notorious "hair trigger" of the independent counsel (IC) statute. In so doing, they opened up the third major investigation of the Babbitt affair -- an investigation that is certain to be far longer, more costly, and more destructive to the people involved than either of the previous two. As one senator said about IC investigations: "Reputations are savaged, effectiveness in office is crippled, and there is lingering suspicion even though an investigatory target is exonerated." Most important, from the perspective of the Republican congressmen who targeted him, is that Babbitt will in all likelihood be struck from the top of Clinton's list of replacements for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is likely to retire from the Supreme Court soon.

That would be appropriate if any of the evidence uncovered so far pointed to malfeasance on Babbitt's part. After all, everyone agrees that the 1996 campaigns hit a new low in money-grubbing by both parties. If there were indications that a Cabinet official had actually altered policy in exchange for donations, it would be worth every penny spent to find the culprits and punish them severely. There's just one problem: There is no such evidence. The House and Senate investigating committees have ascertained that lobbyists tried to influence the decision about the casino. But as the Monthly reported last December, the civil servant who made the final call -- George Skibine -- appears to have done so on the project's merits, without political interference.

That hasn't stopped the Times and the Post. In the past six months, the Times has run 23 stories and editorials about the Babbitt affair, the Post 24. The Skibine explanation appears in only three stories in the Times and three in the Post, almost always in the last paragraphs. Both papers have also ignored or underplayed a considerable body of other exculpatory evidence about the casino decision. The overwhelming impression has been of a "torrent of memorandums and testimony that strongly suggest," as one Times story put it, that Babbitt was complicit in a quid pro quo. The editors of the Times appear to want blood from the Clinton administration, and they are not particular about how they get it.

"Look Beyond Bruce Babbitt," opined the Times editorial page after Reno announced her decision. Apparently the editors of our paper of record believe Clinton's cabinet is so thick with guilt that there's no need to even aim: Just keep firing, you're bound to hit someone guilty sooner or later. Never mind that the casualty, in this case, is a public servant legendary for his honesty, or that the potential beneficiaries of Reno's decision include the gambling industry and the shady financiers who hide behind the facade of "indian gaming." The story of Bruce Babbitt's downfall is a morality tale about how our obsession with political scandal blinds us to the real dangers of bad law and bad policy.

Dangerous Gaming

There's no question that the Babbitt affair looks fishy when viewed from the outside. The undisputed facts are as follows: On July 14,1995, the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs denied an application by three indian tribes to take land in trust for an off-reservation gaming casino in Hudson, Wis., at the site of a failing dog track. The casino was opposed by several other tribes with lucrative casinos in the same...