The Olson Investigation
The Senate starts to ask questions.

May 23, 2001 6:10 p.m.

he Senate Judiciary Committee has begun to send interview requests to key figures in the fight over the

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nomination of Theodore Olson to be solicitor general, signaling that the battle will go on for an extended period of time — even as both sides prepare for the changes that will occur if Republicans lose control of the Senate.

The committee this week sent an interview request to former American Spectator writer David Brock, whose accusations began the Olson controversy. In conversations with committee Democrats, Brock raised questions about Olson's confirmation-hearing testimony regarding the so-called "Arkansas Project," the enterprise in which conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife funded a Spectator investigation of president Bill Clinton's past.

"We're in the process of dealing with" the interview request, says lawyer Richard Ripley, who is representing Brock. "He [Brock] is going to cooperate." Ripley says no date has been set for Brock's meeting with the committee.

The committee has also sent an interview request to Ronald Burr, the former Spectator publisher who left the magazine as a result of an internal controversy over the Arkansas Project. It is not clear whether any other requests have been sent. R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor-in-chief of the Spectator, says he has not received a request. David Henderson, also part of the Arkansas Project, says he has not received one, either.

As preparation for the investigation goes on, dispirited Republicans are getting ready for a Democratic takeover of the committee should GOP senator James Jeffords, as expected, announce his defection from the party. Most observers believe that the committee's current ranking member, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, will become chairman. But there is also a chance that Sen. Edward Kennedy, who chaired the committee two decades ago, will get the job.

Kennedy would normally be expected to take over the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, but if that chairmanship is offered to Jeffords as part of the deal to bring him to the Democratic party, Kennedy could find himself without a committee to head. First elected to the Senate in 1962, Kennedy could use his seniority to grab the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, if he chooses.

Now, some Republicans find themselves in the ironic position of hoping that Kennedy, long the liberal nemesis of the GOP, becomes chairman. "He's actually better than Leahy," says one senior Republican aide, expressing the hope that chairman Kennedy would be more moderate than chairman Leahy.

Whoever takes over, the nomination of Olson appears to be in serious jeopardy. Yesterday, Democratic committee member Joe Biden, who opposes the Olson nomination, told reporters that Olson "would be practicing law" if Democrats take over the committee.

In any event, a leadership change would mean more delay for Olson. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to have its regular weekly business session on Thursday, but there is no indication that anything will happen on the solicitor-general issue. "If I'm Leahy, I'm not in any hurry to do anything right now," says the Republican aide. "The Democrats have no incentive to do anything until [the leadership change] is over with."

Meanwhile, the committee has released 30 pages of excerpts from the Shaheen report, the investigation of the Arkansas Project conducted by former Justice Department official Michael Shaheen. The excerpts were given to the committee by independent counsel Robert Ray and have been heavily redacted to black out material that cannot be made public under federal rules of grand-jury secrecy. In some instances, the excerpts have been so heavily redacted as to make them nearly unintelligible. Whole pages have inked out, while other pages contain just a few lines of text. This is a representative paragraph:

[REDACTED] relayed [REDACTED]'s request, mentioning [REDACTED] by name, to [REDACTED] of the Washington Legal Foundation, [REDACTED] of the Institute for Justice, and [REDACTED] of the CIR. [REDACTED] stated that [REDACTED] declined [REDACTED]'s request but does not recall [REDACTED] or [REDACTED]'s response to the request.

It is not clear if Democrats will continue their pressure to see an unredacted copy of the Shaheen report. As for the Republicans, many are simply watching events unfold, preparing to lose the control over the committee that they have ruled since the 1994 elections. "All of us are sitting here stunned," says one aide, "trying to find some boxes so we can begin packing up."