Reply #21: Reno held in contempt in 1998

[Mandate My Ass]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/stories/burton080798.htm

Panel Votes to Hold Reno in Contempt

By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 7, 1998; Page A01

A House committee voted yesterday to hold Attorney General Janet Reno in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Justice Department memos subpoenaed in a dispute over her failure to appoint an independent counsel to investigate 1996 campaign fund-raising abuses.

It was the first time a full House committee had ever voted to hold an attorney general in contempt. All 24 Republicans on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted for the resolution. Eighteen Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders (Vt.) voted no.

Republicans on the panel hailed the move as historic and said it was soundly based on precedents dating to the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal. Democrats denounced it as an exercise in "raw intimidation" aimed at forcing Reno to turn over her department's investigation of 1996 presidential campaign financing to an independent counsel.