Cranston Wants PAC to Pay Lawyers : Keating Five: The senator has asked the Federal Election Commission if he may use political action committee money to satisfy legal bills for his son.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) has asked the Federal Election Commission for permission to use funds from his political action committee to pay legal costs incurred by his son during an investigation of the so-called Keating Five scandal.

In a letter to the FEC dated March 2, Bruce H. Turnbull, a lawyer representing Cranston, said the senator wants to reimburse lawyers for his son, Kim, with funds from the Committee for a Democratic Consensus, a PAC operated by the California Democrat.

Last year, after a two-year investigation, Cranston was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for improperly soliciting contributions from Charles H. Keating Jr. between 1987 and 1989, at the same time that he intervened with federal regulators on behalf of now-defunct Lincoln Savings & Loan, which was owned by Keating. The case also was investigated briefly by the FBI.

Kim Cranston said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he ran up large legal bills when he was questioned by FBI agents and the Senate Ethics Committee.

Investigators asked Cranston’s son about his role in soliciting contributions from Keating for the now-moribund Center for Participation in Democracy, a voter registration group established by the senator. Kim Cranston serves on its Board of Directors.

Kim Cranston, who serves as chief of staff in Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy’s Los Angeles office, said that--even though he already has paid some of his own legal bills--he still owes $5,000 and the center owes $50,000 to a Washington law firm that represented them during the investigations. He declined to identify the firm or to disclose how much of the bill he already had paid.

In his letter, Turnbull asked FEC attorneys to advise Sen. Cranston whether it would be legal under federal election laws to pay the remaining legal bills from the Committee for a Democratic Consensus, which Cranston established while he was assistant majority leader of the Senate. Although the PAC has raised little money since Cranston became involved in the scandal, it had a cash balance of $120,541 at the end of 1991.

Roy Greenaway, Cranston’s administrative assistant, said that the senator’s legal bills and those of his Senate staff stemming from the Keating inquiries were paid from a separate legal defense fund that Cranston established for that purpose. Under Senate rules, Greenaway said, Kim Cranston’s legal bills could not be paid from the legal defense fund, which can only be used for the benefit of senators and their aides.

Cranston was one of five senators investigated by the Ethics Committee for allegedly intervening improperly with federal regulators in exchange for contributions. While the committee criticized the behavior of all five senators, its rebuke of Cranston was the harshest punishment.

Cranston solicited about $1 million in contributions from Keating at a time when Lincoln was under investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Cranston denied that his influence delayed the seizure of Lincoln by federal authorities. About $850,000 of the money he got from Keating went to voter registration groups established by the senator, including the Center for Participation in Democracy. The remainder went to his campaigns and to the California Democratic Party.

Kim Cranston helped his father solicit funds from Keating during a dinner on Jan. 8, 1988, at Jimmy’s restaurant in Los Angeles. After asking Keating for contributions at the dinner, according to investigators, Sen. Cranston then agreed to intervene on Lincoln’s behalf with M. Danny Wall, then chairman of the bank board.

Cranston, who will retire at the end of the year after four terms in the Senate, has said repeatedly that he did nothing wrong in his relationship with Keating. He also has said that he regrets any adverse impact the scandal has had on his son.