Will Democrats turn Harken into Whitewater?

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has called for an independent investigation of Bush's and Cheney's business dealings. Will other Democrats follow suit?

By Anthony York

Jul 27, 2002 | Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., stepped up the political attack on the Bush administration when, last weekend, he called for an independent investigation into President Bush and Vice President Cheney's business dealings before they came to the White House, a call he reiterated Thursday night on CNN's "Crossfire."

So far, Conyers is standing alone. Democrats have yet to follow the congressman's lead and, in fact, other Democrats have backed away from Conyers' comments, eager to criticize Bush and Cheney's ties to big business, but hesitant to reignite the constant independent investigations that came to define the Clinton years. At least for now.

No other Democrats have echoed Conyers' call for an independent investigator to look into Bush's Harken/Rangers deal, but many seem to be testing the waters to see if the public would embrace such investigations. Democratic National Committee spokesman Bill Buck said the president should allow the Securities and Exchange Commission to release its file from the commission's 1991 investigation of Bush for possible insider trading of Harken stock. "If Bush released his Harken documents and there was nothing there, it would give him a lot more credibility when he talks about corporate crime," Buck said.

But Buck backed away from a call he made in an earlier Salon story, when he said a special prosecutor should take over the SEC's investigation of Cheney. When asked about the SEC's Halliburton probe then, Buck said it was "of serious concern that the SEC, an agency which sits under the vice president, would be called on to investigate. For the sake of investors in Halliburton and confidence in the system, there should no doubt be an independent investigation."

But given the chance to reprise that call this week, Buck demured. His hedging shows just how cautious some Democrats are being as election season officially begins. There is a danger, Democratic strategists say, in becoming too shrill, or making the attacks on the administration too personal.

"Shrill and personal" does not seem to be a concern for Al Gore, who has called for the resignations of SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt and the entire Bush economic team, accused Bush budgeters of "doing essentially the same thing as Enron" by raiding the Social Security Trust Fund, and accusing Bush and Cheney of lying to the American people.

Thursday, in his first return to Capitol Hill since Bush's inauguration, Gore too stopped short of calling for an independent investigation, but called Pitt "a continuing embarrassment to the administration." He also suggested the administration's influence over Pitt could prove damaging. "President Bush announced that the SEC will clear Vice President Cheney," Gore told about 500 members of a Democratic youth group. "I'm sure Mr. Pitt made note of that." But Gore did not go any further, and through his spokesman Jano Cabrera declined to answer further questions.

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