WASHINGTON-Franklin Haney, a Tennessee developer closely tied to Vice President Gore and a central figure in Portals investigations, was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on charges of setting up straw donors to contribute to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and the campaigns of two Democratic Tennessee senatorial candidates.
Though the 42-count indictment-handed up last Wednesday in U.S. District Court here-involves many of the same players in the Portals scandal, the charges are restricted to possible violation of federal election laws between 1992 and 1996.
Haney, through a spokesman, said “he was confident he would be found innocent of a series of charges.”
The Portals supplemental lease, which will cost taxpayers $400 million over 20 years, was signed in January 1996, or about the time Haney handed a $1 million check to Peter Knight, a lobbyist before and after he ran the ’96 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.
Some lawmakers argue the General Services Administration could have found less expensive real estate for the new Federal Communications Commission headquarters.
“This is the 14th person charged by the task force. We’re going to keep pressing on,” said Attorney General Janet Reno.
Despite the 14 indictments by Justice’s Campaign Finance Task Force, House and Senate Republican leaders remain furious at Reno for refusing to appoint an independent counsel to fully investigate a host of alleged abuses.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee that investigated the federal lease to house the FCC in the Portals, declined to comment on the Haney indictment. Barton is expected to send a report to the Justice Department by year’s end.
Republicans suspect the $1 million Portals-related payments made to Knight and James Sasser, former Tennessee senator and lobbyist and current U.S. ambassador to China, may have been illegal.
Sasser and Jim Cooper, a former Tennessee congressman, lost Senate races in 1994.
Knight and Sasser have denied any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, the FCC has begun moving into the Portals even though some Republicans wanted the agency to sit tight until congressional and Justice investigations were completed.
The commission has said it expects the relocation to be completed by March.
