U.S. to Probe Lowered Request in Tobacco Case

WASHINGTON —  At the urging of Democratic lawmakers, the Justice Department agreed to look into whether political interference influenced the government’s decision to lower a potential penalty in the trial against major cigarette makers.

The department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, said Monday that the requests of six senators and two House members fell outside the jurisdiction of his office. He said H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, had agreed to look into the lawmakers’ allegations.

The lawmakers, including Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), questioned how prosecutors had decided to slash the $130-billion, 25-year national stop-smoking program suggested by one of their own witnesses, University of Wisconsin medical professor Michael C. Fiore. As the trial came to a close last week, government lawyers proposed a $10-billion, five-year program.

“The administration’s cave-in to the tobacco lobby was nothing short of legal malpractice,” Lautenberg said. “I’m glad the Department of Justice will investigate this sellout of the American people.”

In a civil racketeering lawsuit filed in 1999, the government alleged that major cigarette makers had conspired for decades to mislead the public about the health risks of smoking.

After an appeals court in February barred the government from seeking $280 billion in allegedly ill-gotten tobacco profit, Fiore’s proposal carried the largest price tag in the nearly nine-month trial.

Prosecutors said they revised Fiore’s plan to focus on tobacco companies’ future wrongdoing and to better meet the strict standards of the racketeering law.

Lautenberg’s letter -- also signed by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- asked Fine to investigate “whether improper influence by political appointees” had pushed prosecutors to propose the smaller program. The letter cited news reports that Associate Atty. Gen. Robert McCallum, a political appointee, had played a role in the decision.

Democratic Reps. Martin T. Meehan of Massachusetts and Henry A. Waxman of California raised similar concerns in a letter to Fine last week.