Busy news day around Capitol Hill, this February 25, 1987
Starting off with Michael K. Deaver, the former White House deputy chief of staff and a close friend of President Reagan, has been warned that he must plead guilty to criminal charges c or face indictment by a federal grand jury, people y with knowledge of the investigation said Tuesday. They said that the government’s independent counsel in the case, Whitney North Seymour Jr., had asked that Deaver plead guilty to two felony counts, one involving violations of federal ethics law in his work as a Washington lobbyist. The other charge, one source said, could be perjury. The informants cautioned, however, that the Federal grand jury overseen by Seymour might reject the prosecutor’s argument and refuse to indict Deaver.
One said he understood that Deaver had refused to plead guilty, opening the way for Seymour to seek an indictment from the grand jury empaneled here. Asked about the reports Tuesday night, Randall J. Turk, Deaver’s defense lawyer, refused comment. “Deaver’s home phone number is unlisted and he could not be reached for comment. No one answered the phone at the home in New York of Seymour.
Meanwhile: With government rolling today on Washington’s presses, forthcoming best seller the Tower commission report – President Reagan plans a televised speech next week to further explain the scandal that has left the White House in turmoil. The president’s speech, which would be the first Nov. 19, may provide a hint of whether * Reagan intends to take decisive action in response to the report and whether chief of staff Donald T. Regan will soon step down, White House officials told Newsday. Reflecting a deeply troubled White House, one ranking official said: “No one knows exactly how this report is going to come out, but the story takes so many twists it never seems to end.
So maybe it’s better that it comes out now and maybe we’ll escape the torture of dying a thousand deaths.” Reagan, who appointed the special review board headed by former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, will get his first look at the report at the moment it is made public – 10 a.m. Thursday. Tower and the other of the panel, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and former national security adviser Lt. Gen.
Brent Scowcroft, are to present it to Reagan in the Oval Office. At 11 a.m., Reagan is expected to introduce the board and the e report at a press conference. The president is not expected to make a lengthy statement or reply to questions. Instead, the White House – anxious to convey the impression that it is hiding nothing and is doing nothing to censor the report or interfere with its impact said it will reserve explanation for later, when Reagan speaks more extensively on the issue.
And finally – The federal government is calling the Northwest’s bluff, insisting it will make good on its threat to cut off emergency management funds to states that refuse to take part in a nuclear war drill. The region’s top federal civil defense officer said Tuesday the mock nuclear attack planned for the Northwest next month has turned into “an anti-nuke media event” and he hopes Washington state and Oregon will reconsider their decision to boycott the exercise. If they don’t, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will follow through with its threat to cut off $2.4 million in civil defense funds earmarked for the states, FEMA regional Director William Mayer said. 6 “There is a lot of misunderstanding.
All we are trying to do is run a communication exercise,” Mayer said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his office in Bothell, Wash. “It has turned into an anti-nuke media event. We, ran an identical exercise 1982. Nobody knew about it. It went off very nicely and was a good learning experience.’
All that, and a lot more for this February 25, 1987 as reported by CBS Radio News.
