Good News for Meese

By Ed Magnuson

A report says the nominee for Attorney General broke no laws

After Washington Attorney Jacob Stein took on the court-appointed task last April of investigating Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese's tangled personal finances, Democrats promptly asked him to assess Meese's fitness to serve as Attorney General. Meese's lawyers, on the other hand, urged Stein to declare that "the evidence does not substantiate the loose charges of moral turpitude against Mr. Meese." Stein refused to take either course. In a 385-page report, which was made public last week, Stein concluded that he found no evidence that would support any criminal charges against the President's choice to become the nation's highest law-enforcement officer.

At a White House briefing, Meese happily embraced the Stein report. He said it confirmed that he and his wife "have never taken advantage of an official position to obtain private gain." His ordeal, Meese said, had taught him "the need for constant vigilance and sensitivity, not only to actual conduct but also to how conduct may be perceived." President Reagan said that if reelected, he would resubmit the Meese nomination when the new Senate meets in January.

Stein, a prominent defense lawyer, had considered eleven allegations against Meese. Many of them involved his acceptance of personal financial favors from people who later acquired federal jobs. Repeatedly, Stein concluded that there was no evidence showing a direct connection between the generosity to Meese and the appointments. In most cases, those who acquired the Government posts, Stein noted, were supporters of the President who may have gained their positions without any help from Meese.

Meese clearly did select Edwin W. Thomas as an aide to his White House office after Thomas had offered Meese's wife an interest-free $15,000 loan. The loan was later granted, but Meese failed to report it on his financial-disclosure statements. Stein concluded that Thomas got the job because of his longstanding personal and professional relationship with Meese, rather than as a result of any transaction. While "an inference of willful nondisclosure arguably could be drawn," Stein wrote, he could find no motive for Meese to conceal the loan and therefore he accepted Meese's claim that the omission was "inadvertent." Still, the report does show that Thomas told Stein that he had reminded Meese of the loan shortly before Meese filed his disclosure form.

Although Meese failed to make mortgage payments for 15 months on his California house and on a home he purchased in Virginia in 1981, Stein called the circumstances "not unusual for 'preferred' customers" of a bank. Four officers of the Great American Federal Savings Bank of San Diego, which made the loans, got federal jobs with Meese's help, Stein found, but might have done so without his aid.

The Stein report portrays Meese as a sloppy and disorganized administrator who suffers from a bad memory. It does not, however, deal with Meese's ethics, as TIME had earlier been led to believe it would, and so reported. The special prosecutor makes no comment on Meese's judgment in accepting interest-free loans or skipping mortgage payments and then helping some of his benefactors, even if needlessly, to get federal jobs. It will be up to the Senators to decide whether Meese, on balance, is fully qualified to run the Justice Department.

--By Ed Magnuson.

Reported by Hays Gorey/Washington

With reporting by Hays Gorey/Washington