CONGREST MUST DO WHAT RENO WOULDN'T

Attorney General Janet Reno surprised almost no one last week when she announced her long-awaited decision against appointing an independent counsel to investigate President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary. To say the least, throughout her tortured deliberations -- and now with her decision -- she has distinguished neither herself nor the badly tarnished administration she serves.

Start with the fact that in making her decision, Reno explicitly rejected the strong, written recommendation of FBI director Louis Freeh to appoint an independent counsel. This directly contravenes her repeated assurances, made under oath in congressional testimony, that she and Freeh would make the decision jointly. Both Reno and Freeh are being called before a House investigating committee this week to explain their positions. Freeh's testimony, with his integrity on the line, should prove most interesting. CBS reported that Freeh was so distressed by Reno's decision that he discussed with associates his possible resignation. Congressional investigators are trying to obtain a copy of Freeh's memo to Reno urging her to appoint such a counsel.

It is known that at various crucial points in the slow-as-molasses investigation to this point, Reno has curtailed the extent of the FBI's inquiry, limiting who could and couldn't be interviewed. Moreover, when her Department of Justice finally got around to interviewing the president and vice president, neither was under oath.

It is also known that Reno's department tried to delay and obstruct the expansion of another independent counsel's probe into former Clinton Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Despite her obstruction, that prosecution resulted in conviction of Espy's former chief of staff on felony counts this week.

Then there is the White House dodge that the whole issue is whether we're going to have a prosecution of these officials for making some fund-raising telephone calls from government property. This is a cute diversion, when the real matter before the country is a massive conspiracy of unprecedented proportions to evade existing election laws and thereby literally to steal an election. It was a conspiracy hatched in the Oval Office with the participation of Clinton, Gore and their top aides. In this massive conspiracy, these questionable phone calls are only a tiny sliver.

As the New York Times said this week, it is up to Congress to press its inquiries as far as can be done. The Clinton-Reno Justice Department has forfeited whatever credibility it may have had.