Reid blasts Hyde panel’s ‘witch hunt’

Thursday, Dec. 3, 1998 | 11:04 a.m.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's newly elected minority whip, has joined a growing list of Democrats blasting the House Judiciary Committee's handling of impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

Reid criticized the Republican-controlled panel for expanding the inquiry into Clinton's campaign fund-raising at the last minute beyond the report of independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

"They're off on this witch hunt," Reid said Wednesday, following a White House meeting with Clinton and other Democratic leaders. "It's crazy. Let them at least stick with Starr's stuff."

Reid, now the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate, said 80 percent of the American people want the impeachment inquiry to end.

"People want this thing over with," Reid said. "I'm not defending the president. I think what he did was wrong. But let's get it over with."

The Democratic strategy appears to be to portray the impeachment hearings, expected to wrap up at the end of next week, as veering out of control.

House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt charged this week that "chaos is reigning" in the probe and that "partisanship, not statesmanship" seems to be ruling the day.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also have complained about the way Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., has handled the hearings.

Hyde, however, has defended the decision to look into Clinton's campaign fund-raising.

"I won't look away from any substantial and credible allegations of criminal wrongdoing by the president," he was quoted as saying in Washington.

But Reid said Republicans are making the same mistake they made a year ago when they turned campaign fund-raising hearings into a partisan battle.

"That's what destroyed (Sen.) Fred Thompson's presidential aspirations," Reid said. "He was their fair-haired boy, and he went down in flames.'

Thompson, a Republican from Tennessee, chaired the televised hearings that failed to capture the public's interest.

"We need campaign finance reform, not these silly hearings," Reid said. "We need to change the law."

The senator said Republicans appear hypocritical going after the president's campaign finances.

Federal Election Commission auditors this week recommended that Clinton's Republican opponent, former Sen. Bob Dole, pay back $17.7 million in taxpayer money he received for his campaign. That's more than double the $7 million the president was ordered to return.

Reid, who just completed the most expensive Senate race in Nevada history, said campaign reform will be high on the Democratic agenda next year.

Millions of dollars in "soft money" were poured into Reid's race by both parties in Nevada and Washington. Reid won by only 401 votes, and his defeated challenger, Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., has asked for a recount.

Reid said the Democratic Party, once viewed as too far to the left, has become the nation's mainstream party.

"Republicans now are seen as extremists," Reid said. "People don't care about a lot of the things they're pushing."

House Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned last month after Republicans lost seats in the November election. Observers attributed the losses to a backlash from voters unhappy about the GOP's strategy to capitalize on Clinton's personal troubles.

Reid made history this week when Senate Democrats elected him their whip, the No. 2 leadership position behind Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. It made Reid the highest-ranking Nevadan ever in the Senate.

Reid, who will spend most of his time next year in his new office in the Capitol Building, said he plans to be more active on the floor of the Senate, rallying his Democratic colleagues, than previous whips have been.

Health care and education reform, he said, also will be high on next year's Democratic agenda.

"We'll be talking about issues that affect the American people," he said.