Trent Lott can jaw all he wants — Janet Reno is stayin’ put. "This is certainly a very serious matter," says TIME Justice correspondent Elaine Shannon. "The FBI’s inability to get its Waco story straight undermines faith in not only the FBI but the entire criminal justice system, and that’s her responsibility." But Reno considers herself an honest victim of bad information, and she’s not a believer in the captain taking the fall for the mistakes of her mates. "She absolutely won’t resign unless she’s found to have lied," says Shannon, and Clinton, still mired after all these years of scandal in an I’m-not-Nixon impotence, doesn’t have the political credibility to fire her. And so the investigation into what the FBI knew and when it knew it is a job for Mr. Credibility, the Warren Rudman of law enforcement: John Danforth.

"Danforth, who spent his career addressing the integrity of the system, is the perfect person to do it," Shannon says of the morally rigorous ex-senator whom Reno introduced on Thursday morning as her special counsel for the outside probe. Clearly "Saint Jack," as colleagues called him, has a good idea of what to give a public whose faith has been shaken: transparency and due dispatch. He’ll use his own investigators – not FBI agents. Though he’ll have a grand jury at his disposal, Danforth promised to use it as little as possible, so that whatever he digs up can be made public legally (without leaking). He won’t tackle the FBI’s tactics during the raid – highly questionable, but a job for Congress – just whether the agency broke any serious laws in the siege, and why it’s been so foggy about accounting for its actions. And he’s eager to have the whole thing wrapped up by the 2000 election – hopefully much sooner. So, is there any there there? "I’m very excited to hear what he finds," says Shannon. "There’s six tons of evidence just sitting around waiting to be gone through, and a lot to learn." You can bet Janet Reno is as curious as the rest of us.