Fourteen Republican senators asked Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate whether Commerce Secretary Ron Brown cheated on his income taxes and/or misled Congress about his business dealings. A Brown aide calls this part of a "smear campaign."
There have been unfounded allegations against the secretary, and we don't doubt some Republicans in Congress will try to make political hay out of this situation. Indeed, Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican with a reputation for seeking confrontation, has already asked that President Clinton remove Mr. Brown from office while the Criminal Division at the Justice Department and congressional committees look into the matter.
Removing the secretary now is, at the very least, premature. There has been no convincing showing in any responsible forum that the secretary deserves such a rebuke. Having said that, we have to say also that there is enough smelly smoke surrounding some recent reporting about Mr. Brown's finances that there may -- may -- be a very hot fire burning somewhere.
The story is too complicated to be summarized in a paragraph or two. In fact, investigators for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee say that in some cases the trail of loans, payments, defaults, etc. from private entities through government agencies and back again is so convoluted that they "can barely figure out where [a check] went, let alone why."
Taxpayers have an interest in this, since some of the people Mr. Brown had some involvement with cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Resolution Trust Corp. $44 million -- while he himself was profiting. So the FDIC, the RTC, the Justice Department and, yes, Congress have an obligation to get to the bottom of it all.
As a successful Washington insider and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Brown is a natural target for partisan attacks by the new majority Republicans. There is a huge potential for raw politics. But Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman William Clinger (an old Hopkins man) has a pretty good reputation for fairness, and he is familiar with this story. He has been corresponding with Mr. Brown about some aspects of it for a year. His responsibility now is to get the whole story out without grandstanding and without smears.