That Mishandled Marston Affair

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The Justice Department probers promptly announced that Bell and Carter were cleared of any charge of obstruction of justice in the affair. But the Republican partisans on Capitol Hill had no intention of letting the Administration off so easily. Thundered Utah's Orrin Hatch: "That two-day whitewash [the Justice Department's inquiry] isn't going to satisfy anybody!" O'Neill fumed that Marston was "a Republican political animal" who took office "with viciousness in his heart and for only one reason—to get Democrats." In response, Delaware G.O.P. Congressman Thomas Evans pointed out that Marston had nailed two Republicans along with several Democrats, and had urged an independent congressional investigation "of this increasingly sordid affair." Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members are planning to keep the controversy boiling at confirmation hearings later this winter for Civiletti as Deputy Attorney General and Baker as U.S. Attorney for Baltimore.

Thanks to the Administration's ineptness, a martyr's image has been created for Marston, himself an outright political appointee who hunted headlines as vigorously as he hunted official corruption in both parties. Despite Marston's protests that the inquiry into Philadelphia-area wrongdoing may be sabotaged by his ouster, the whole brouhaha almost certainly guarantees forceful pursuit of the probe to its end. That assignment will be carried out by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Lieberman, who did most of Marston's actual courtroom work, and hard-driving FBI Agent Neil Welch, who is rated the most effective bureau field commander in the country.

Whatever the outcome in Pennsylvania, Jimmy Carter has some fresh tarnish on his escutcheon—with nobody but himself to blame for it.