Assails Federal Prosecutor : Wallach Says He’s Target of Those Out to Get Meese

E. Robert Wallach, the longtime friend and former lawyer for Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, views himself as a victim of an “enormously ambitious” federal prosecutor in New York, where he is under indictment for racketeering and conspiracy, and “a pervasively cynical attitude” in Washington.

Wallach, interviewed this week in his law office here, said that he is being targeted by those intent on harming Meese.

He said that he had followed his friend to the nation’s capital in 1981 because Meese valued his liberal views as a counterbalance to the conservative advice of Meese’s White House colleagues and had urged: “Don’t abandon me when I get to Washington.”

Wallach is openly bitter about his upcoming New York trial in the Wedtech fraud scandal and about an independent counsel’s examination of his role in Meese’s controversial affairs and said that he may seek government reimbursement of the sizable legal fees he has incurred in the just-concluded inquiry of Meese by independent counsel James C. McKay.

He estimated his legal costs from that investigation and the one conducted by U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York at $300,000.

As to what his future legal costs might run, Wallach said: “I try not to think about it.”

Wallach, who was a confidant of Meese during the seven years Meese served as White House counselor and attorney general, is charged in New York with fraudulently obtaining money from the now-bankrupt Wedtech Corp. by allegedly promising to influence Meese on the company’s behalf, along with other activities. His trial is to open on Jan. 3.

In the independent counsel’s investigation of Meese, Wallach was scrutinized for allegedly lobbying Meese to help get Wedtech a $32-million Army contract and soliciting his influence on behalf of a $1-billion Iraqi pipeline project.

At the time, he was a supporter of Wedtech and later became a paid consultant for it. He was an attorney for the pipeline promoter.

‘Matter of Fairness’

Wallach said “we think as a matter of fairness” that the three-judge court that oversees independent counsel operations should order reimbursement for him. But he added that his lawyer, George Walker, “has to make a legal judgment as to the efficacy” of asking for the taxpayer funds.

Such reimbursement has never been sought by someone who was not the target of an independent counsel’s investigation. The 1978 Ethics in Government Act, which provides for the special investigations of executive branch officials, authorizes government reimbursement for the legal costs of a public official who is investigated by an independent counsel but not indicted.

Wallach, in one of his most extensive interviews since the investigations began, complained that his prosecution in New York centered on U.S. Atty. Giuliani’s intense dislike of Meese and his determination to implicate him in wrongdoing.

Shortly before Wallach, former Meese financial adviser W. Franklyn Chinn and a Chinn associate were charged in December, Wallach said, his attorney was given a draft of the indictment, and “and it was made clear to him that I would be given a chance to plead guilty (to reduced charges) and deliver Ed Meese.”

Wallach acknowledged that the proposal was not made “explicitly” by prosecutors. He said he rejected the purported overture because he is convinced of his own innocence and that of Meese. Wallach said of Giuliani: “I was dealing with an enormously ambitious man who was antagonistic to Meese.”

Testimony Questioned

Wallach contended that former executives of Wedtech who provided incriminating testimony in the case did so because they are seeking leniency in return for their statements.

“I believe the inducement to get me and, through me, Ed Meese was a primary motivation in everybody’s mind in the Southern District (of New York),” Wallach charged.

McKay, in an 814-page report made public Monday, found insufficient evidence to prosecute Meese on Wedtech charges or for his involvement in the Wallach-promoted effort to build the $1-billion Iraqi pipeline, which was never constructed. McKay did conclude that Meese probably violated federal conflict-of-interest and tax laws in four instances but decided against prosecuting the attorney general.

Wallach likens his going to Washington with Meese early in the Reagan Administration to those who flocked to Washington at the start of the New Deal or when President John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960. “I believed I had been granted a moment in time,” he said, referring to his ability to present different viewpoints to Meese.

Meese ‘Open’ to Ideas

“Ed Meese, who has been so horribly portrayed, is actually a man who is conservative but is open to the combat of ideas,” Wallach said. “Look, I did not malevolently set out to profit from my relationship with Ed Meese.”

Wallach said he does see things differently now than when he went to Washington. “But I don’t see it differently because of any wrongdoing. The real question is what kind of an environment exists in Washington that permits people who come with good motives to be ensnared by that particular atmosphere.”

“There is no forgiveness in Washington,” Wallach said. Reporters covering the federal government “have so skillfully trained yourselves to look for evil motives . . . that it has blinded you to innocent mistakes’ being viewed as totally malevolent . . . . After 30 years of being an honorable lawyer, nobody gave me the benefit of doubt.”

Wallach said that the memos he wrote to Meese at the White House and his home urging help for Wedtech’s efforts to land an Army engine contract constituted “a fairly small percentage of the communications I directed to him.”

Memos Often Not Read

He said he was “not really” surprised to learn that Meese, according to his lawyers, did not read many of the memos Wallach sent him.

“I knew he would try reading them but wouldn’t always get around to them,” Wallach said. “You have to understand the nature of the friendship. It wasn’t necessary for him to report on the contents of memos to demonstrate his friendship.”

Wallach said that he did not learn of the scope of Meese’s work as counselor to the President until he represented him during Meese’s stormy 1984 Senate confirmation hearings for the post of attorney general.

“I was embarrassed because I had not realized the volume and extent of Ed’s work,” Wallach said. “I frankly felt I had been imposing on him with those memos. It was more a matter of his being overburdened than being incapable” of dealing with administrative work.

Wallach dismissed the suggestion of some of Meese’s aides that he “did in” the attorney general with his activities in Washington.

‘I Know the Facts’

“I understand those loyal to Ed need to look for a reason other than Ed for his problems,” he said. “But I know the facts and Ed knows the facts and neither of us believes our activities were wrongful or improper in any way.”

Robert L. Jackson reported from San Francisco and Ronald J. Ostrow reported from Washington.