No one in Congress these days is a more ironic champion of campaign-finance reform than “The Torch.” Nicknamed for his aggressive and abrasive style, Torricelli broke records last year as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, raising $103.5 million that helped lift his party into a 50-50 tie with the GOP. That followed his 1996 jump from the House to the Senate, when he amassed $10 million to replace the retiring Bill Bradley. Torricelli sees himself as belonging not just to New Jersey, but to history. He invoked Lech Walesa when he announced for the Senate (“We either walk the path before us or scale the shipyard wall”) and has had his eye on bigger things–possibly a run for the White House in 2008 after a second Senate term.
But Torricelli could be consumed by the fund-raising beast he’s helped to create. The investigation into Don, which began in 1997, helped to trigger a federal probe of Torricelli’s 1996 campaign that is now reaching a critical juncture. So far, six people, including Chang, have pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions. In January prosecutors issued “target letters” to three young Torricelli aides warning that they could soon face criminal charges. The problem lies not just with the original transgressions–the questionable contributions (including use of Chang’s private plane and an unpaid hotel catering bill) amount to about $60,000–but a possible cover-up. The government is looking at allegations by Chang that Torricelli or those around him obstructed justice by pressuring him not to cooperate with the investigation. To corroborate Chang’s charges, NEWSWEEK has learned, prosecutors have taken the unusual step of obtaining records from Chang’s former defense attorney. Torricelli isn’t talking about the case, but his lawyers say Chang is a liar (even prosecutors concede in court papers that he’d lied about his background) and that the government’s case is based on naive and distorted notions of how campaigns operate. There is “nothing approaching a criminal case,” says campaign attorney Robert Bauer. Chang lawyer Bradley Simon says Torricelli didn’t consider Chang a liar when he was taking his money.
Until January, the case had been conducted by the Justice Department’s campaign-finance task force. But the Bush administration disbanded the unit and handed the Torricelli matter over to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, a Clinton appointee who is also investigating the ex-president’s controversial pardons. In addition to deciding whether Chang is a credible witness, she’ll have to weigh other allegations, including one from a disgruntled former Torricelli aide that some staff did campaign work on government time. If White decides that she has a case, she’ll probably ask top Justice officials for a review, and that could be awkward. Michael Chertoff, the New Jersey lawyer named by President George W. Bush to head Justice’s Criminal Division, represented Chang’s former lawyer, Michael Critchley, in his dealings with prosecutors. He’ll almost certainly have to disqualify himself from the case.
Torricelli probably increased McCain-Feingold’s chances for passage this week. His amendment, which eases the money chase by tightening rules requiring stations to offer their lowest ad rates, passed 70-30. Backstage, a possible compromise is taking shape around the bill that bans the vast sums of unregulated “soft money” raised from unions and corporations. In exchange, the deal will most likely increase limits on more closely regulated “hard money” from individual donors. Torricelli isn’t saying how he’ll vote. But with his own fund-raising under scrutiny and a re-election campaign in 2002, The Torch may decide that he’s seen the light.
