Justice

By Elaine Shannon

If Attorney General Janet Reno had a least-wanted list, former campaign-finance-task-force chief Charles LaBella would be on it. Republicans regularly bludgeon Reno for rejecting LaBella's call for an independent counsel to follow the trail of alleged campaign violations into President Clinton's inner circle. Next week LaBella returns to Washington in triumph. FBI director Louis Freeh is staging an invitation-only ceremony at which he intends to bestow upon LaBella a "Director's Award for Excellence."

Some at Justice and on the Hill regard Freeh's move as a taunt at Reno, who's resented by senior FBI executives as too solicitous of the White House. There's speculation that the LaBella award is a classic Freeh maneuver, a signal to the G.O.P. majority in Congress that Freeh is no Clinton-Gore lackey and would be a good fit in, say, a George W. Bush Administration. "Freeh is widely seen by the Democrats as grandstanding and being far too political for that job," says a congressional Democratic staff member. But Freeh associates insist he has no ulterior motive. "He's just giving an award to Chuck LaBella, a person he admires, for a job well done," says an aide. Freeh's term officially must expire after 10 years, on Sept. 1, 2003--though he can be asked to resign sooner.

--By Elaine Shannon/Washington