6.28.00
Reno's Other Scandals

6.28.00
Back to the Fatherland

6.28.00
Disclose This

6.28.00
Ruling without Mercy

6.28.00
RU-486 Is No Boon for U.S. Women

6.27.00
Bush Does the Lulac

6.26.00
Loud and Proud

6.23.00
Dr. James Boice, R.I.P.

6.22.00
Hate (Crime) Cannot Wish Thee Worse

6.20.00
Murder in California

6.20.00
Collective Oblivion

6.19.00
Stand There and Enjoy It

6.19.00
Justice Should Be Color-Blind

6/28/00 7:15 p.m.
Reno's Other Scandals
A busy Justice Department — but little justice.

By Dan Mindus, NRO

anet Reno's Justice Department has been hit hard recently, for the right reasons. But not all the right reasons. A few of Justice's active misdeeds surpass the scandal du jour — Reno's passivity with respect to Al Gore's '96 fund-raising — in audacity, insidiousness, and stupidity.

The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have long engaged in a massive surveillance operation of pro-life groups, including the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Christian Coalition, and Concerned Women for America. When FBI officials objected to the use of "intrusive investigative activity" in the "Full Investigation" of these non-violent organizations, higher-ups in the Justice Department overruled them. The data-collection operation, in which four federal agencies participated, is called VAAPCON: Violence Against Abortion Providers Conspiracy. In effect, Reno directed her minions to spend their time writing the unauthorized biography of Cardinal John O'Connor and the Reverend Jerry Falwell — all in the hopes of defusing the violent conspiracy of which they are the masterminds. Judicial Watch, which obtained the VAAPCON files through the freedom of information act, is still waiting on tens of thousands of documents, yet to be released.

How come Judicial Watch hasn't been more successful publicizing this massive, illegal, and politically motivated operation? A previous version of this article suggested that they were too busy working to protect Elian from returning to Cuba. That is not in fact the case. Rather, Judicial Watch blames the lack of media attention on a presses' insensitivity to the civil rights of pro-lifers.

Regardless, Elian is now where Janet Reno wants him. The Attorney General has been a leader in the send-Elian-home movement ("setting [him] free," as the New York Times and others have dubbed it). But today's agreement among House Republicans to allow the export of food to Cuba reveals just what sort of place Elian has been set free to return to.

Although the food-to-Cuba arrangement has been cast as a victory for the agriculture lobby, the only reason that particular industry won the prize of a new market is that its product is required for survival. Like the oil-for-food deal with Iraq, this was a humanitarian gesture. Would Janet Reno have returned an Iraqi Elian to Saddam? How about a North Korean Elian, to that other workers' paradise? Both countries have had sanctions on them partially lifted because their people were starving. Cuba too can hardly feed herself, but Reno seems not to have considered that fact when she liberated Elian.

A final example of malfeasance can't be pinned on Reno and her Justice Department, but they benefit from it: A private investigator in the pay of Microsoft combatant Oracle (whose CEO, Larry Ellison, surpassed Bill Gates as the richest man in the world briefly, following an adverse ruling in the antitrust case) offered to bribe janitors for the trash of a not-for-profit organization friendly to the computer giant. The PI firm had gone so far as to rent a suite on the same floor to facilitate the transaction. Several conservative groups funded by Microsoft, including the Independent Institute and the National Taxpayers Union, have also been targeted.

There is no evidence that data from these heists ended up in DOJ files. But Oracle is known to have consulted with Joel Klein's antitrust team in the case against Microsoft, and all involved, through their actions, reveal a belief that the outcome of the case depends as much on public opinion as on any courtroom action. According to Oracle, "left undisclosed, these Microsoft front groups could have improperly influenced the outcome of one of the most important antitrust cases in U.S. history." (By the way, Oracle funds the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a libertarian group that shocked its colleagues by attacking Microsoft.) So, to influence DOJ's antitrust case against Microsoft, Oracle hired private investigators and a public relations firm to find and then publicize Microsoft's charitable giving. These revelations, exactly what Reno needed, were immediately broadcast to counter an effort to slash the antitrust division's budget, and then invoked again when the time came to increase the budget for the coming fiscal year.

Oh yes, and she also blocked the merger of Sprint and WorldCom yesterday.

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