RENO GIVES FBI FILES CASE TO INDEPENDENT COUNSEL.

Byline: David Hess Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Attorney General Janet Reno washed her hands Thursday of the investigation into why White House security officials obtained confidential FBI files on former Republican presidential aides, handing over the probe to an independent counsel.

As she moved to avoid what she called a potential ``conflict of interest'' in the case, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from a Secret Service deputy casting doubt on a White House explanation of what happened.

Richard Miller, an assistant director of the Secret Service, said that he hadn't the slightest idea where the security officials got the names of former presidential employees whose FBI files were turned over to the Clinton White House.

The White House earlier had indicated that the more than 400 names were on a list provided by the Secret Service and that the security office had blundered in requesting the FBI files.

On Thursday, however, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said officials there have been unable to determine the origin of the list because it is leaving that investigation up to the appropriate outside authorities.

``Frankly,'' he said in response to the Secret Service official's comments, ``that has left us even more confused.''

Asked about disclosures on Wednesday that young White House interns had access to the FBI files, McCurry said, ``There is no explicable explanation.'' He said President Clinton had been informed of that on Wednesday, pronounced it unacceptable and was assured that new security procedures now guarantee that ``only qualified professionals'' can review the files.

The flap has raised partisan temperatures in the capital with some Republicans charging that the White House abused a long-standing arrangement with the FBI to run background checks on presidential appointees and others needing access to the White House.

``It's a deeply disturbing and flagrant abuse of power,'' steamed Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as the Senate hearings got under way.

Later, Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., said it was ``clear that partisan political motivation was at the core of these requests (to the FBI).''

But Sen. Joseph R. Biden, D-Del., warned against jumping to any conclusions before the facts were ascertained. ``We should have the trial before we have the hanging,'' he said. And Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said the Republican-led hearings ``are obviously driven by presidential campaign politics.''

In requesting a federal court here to expand the mandate of current Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr to look into the FBI files case, Reno said: ``I have concluded it would constitute a conflict of interest for the Department of Justice to investigate the matter involving an interaction between the White House and the FBI, a component of the Justice Department.''

Starr earlier had said his investigative mandate was not broad enough to encompass the so-called ``Filegate'' case. But prominent Republicans, including presumptive GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole, had called for an independent prosecutor, saying the Justice Department - headed by the president's appointee - would not be perceived as even-handed in conducting such a politically sensitive investigation.

Even as Reno defused that political grenade, more confusion was sowed in Congress over just exactly how the White House's security office got the list of former presidential aides - and why it asked for their highly sensitive and confidential background files from the FBI.

Miller, an assistant director of the Secret Service, which issues passes for access to the White House, said his agency routinely - almost on a monthly basis - updates the access list, now numbering some 24,000 people, and passes it along to White House personnel and security officials.

But he said he could not explain the origin of an outdated list that was apparently used by Anthony Marceca, 54, a temporary security office investigator, who initiated the requests to the FBI.

Marceca has told investigators he got the list from his predecessor, Nancy Gemmell, who served in the office during previous Republican administrations but was asked to leave the Clinton administration in August of 1993.

In testimony before a House committee earlier this week, Gemmell said she recalled handing over a computerized list of people who had been cleared for access by the Secret Service, but could not say whether it was the same list used by Marceca.