WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration has balked at a congressional request to make available classified National Security Council documents possibly tied to telecommunications trade and U.S. encryption policy that were removed from the Commerce Department after former Secretary Ron Brown’s death in April.
Republicans say the White House has claimed executive privilege, but an NSC spokesman disputes that characterization. He said the NSC is willing to give five House committee chairmen information within the 33 classified documents, but will not turn over the documents themselves. He said the request is politically motivated.
GOP congressional leaders believe the 33 NSC documents could aid investigations into the alleged link between Commerce Department trade missions and campaign contributions-domestic and foreign-to the ’96 Clinton-Gore campaign.
Attorney General Janet Reno has turned down two petitions for an independent counsel to investigate the controversy, one from incoming Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.). A second McCain request is under consideration by the Justice Department, which has appointed a task force to look into the matter.
However, there is a possibility Reno might expand the investigation any day.
Some trade trips to Russia, China, India and elsewhere included wireless executives and other telecommunications businessmen, including some who have contributed to the Democratic Party.
One document taken by Ira Sockowitz, a former Commerce general counsel attorney, and put into a safe at the Small Business Administration when he moved in May from Commerce to become senior adviser to the deputy administrator at SBA, involves a Motorola Inc. cellular encryption correspondence.
Sockowitz resigned from the SBA two weeks ago, about the time the Democratic National Committee relieved John Huang-another former Commerce official who joined the DNC-of his fund-raising duties. Sockowitz worked under Ginger Lew, who was Commerce general counsel, before moving with Lew to SBA where she became deputy administrator.
Jed Babbin, a lawyer for Sockowitz, said his client wasn’t trying to hide anything and planned to-did-use Commerce files in his new job at SBA. Babbin said Sockowitz’s transfer of classified materials from Commerce to SBA “is probably a technical violation” of some kind. Babbin could not explain why Sockowitz needed so much information on U.S. encryption policy at SBA.
President Clinton recently laid out his encryption export policy in an executive order, which Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), incoming communications subcommittee chairman and author of a deregulatory encryption bill, plans to challenge.
The DNC has returned $1.5 million in contributions to date, most of it solicited by Huang from Asian Americans who some believe benefited directly from Commerce trade trips. A few DNC contributions from wireless firms were given back for reasons unrelated to trade.
“There can be no doubt whatsoever, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, that Congress has the responsibility, indeed the duty, to the American public to investigate whenever there have been suggestions that power has been abused, appropriated funds have been misspent or wasted, or where existing laws need to be re-examined to prevent or to redress conduct that is inappropriate,” five House committee chairman said in letter to White House counsel Jack Quinn on Nov. 21.
“Congress does not need to explain this function in order to perform it. It is self evident.”
Quinn did not respond to a request for comment.
The Commerce Department inspector general is doing an internal investigation of Huang’s past activities. Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, has entangled Commerce in a lawsuit over Commerce trade missions under Brown. Brown and 24 others were killed in a plane crash in Croatia on April 3.
Congress, meanwhile, is expected to hold oversight hearings on the alleged connection between foreign campaign contributions and U.S. trade missions.
Signing the Nov. 21 letter were William Clinger (R-Pa.), outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee; Jan Meyers (R-Kan.), chairwoman of the Small Business Committee; William Thomas (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee; Larry Combest (R-Texas), chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), chairman of the Small Business subcommittee on exports.
