ASHCROFT HITS CLINTON ON PARDON, DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON - John Ashcroft used his first interview as attorney general to
take out after Bill Clinton over the war on drugs and his pardon of
fugitive financier Marc Rich.

In a television interview Wednesday night, the new attorney general said
his top three goals were to increase gun prosecutions, reinvigorate the war
on drugs and to stamp out racial discrimination.

But he also looked back at some of former President Clinton's most
controversial moves, including his pardon of Rich on his last day in office.

"A pardon should be reserved for a situation where there is a manifest
sense of injustice," Ashcroft said Wednesday night on CNN's "Larry King
Live" program. "The American people are troubled whenever they think a
pardon would be associated with political support or financial support."

Although expressing "surprise" with the pardon, Ashcroft nevertheless said
the Constitution gives a president a "pretty unfettered right" to pardon
anyone.

Clinton's pardon has been criticized because Rich has stayed in Switzerland
rather than returning to face 51 counts of tax evasion and fraud filed
against him in 1983.

In addition, the pardon was requested by his ex-wife, Denise, who has given
Democrats about $1 million since 1993. Clinton has denied any political or
financial motivation.

The new attorney general also blamed Clinton in part for a rise in
marijuana use during the 1990s. In the 1992 campaign, Clinton said he once
had smoked marijuana, but didn't inhale. He later told an MTV town forum
that if he had to do it again, he would inhale "if I could; I tried before."

"I think that sends the wrong signal," Ashcroft said. "It's so important
you have a president who will speak forcefully against drug use, rather
than wink and give the nod in some sense, saying 'I didn't inhale, but I
wish I had."'

Ashcroft said he and President Bush want to "concentrate on educating
children away from drugs."

Listing his three top priorities, Ashcroft said, "I want to stop gun
violence, to reinvigorate the war on drugs, to end discrimination wherever
I find it."

He particularly mentioned enforcing voting rights, fair housing laws and
putting a stop to racial profiling by police. "It's wrong for police to
stop people based on race."

After his civil rights record was bitterly attacked during a stormy Senate
confirmation battle, Ashcroft is inviting Justice Department's civil rights
division officials to a brown bag lunch in his private department dining
room next week, chief spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said. Civil rights will be
first, but he plans to hold these lunches with each division.

With every news organization clamoring to talk to him, Ashcroft unveiled
his priorities in an interview with King, known for polite questioning
rather than hostile cross-examination.

Ashcroft has three main civil rights issues in mind, Tucker said.

"He wants to make sure no American feels outside the protection of the
law," she said. "He wants to make sure all people have access and that no
voting rights are violated."

This includes the department's ongoing investigation of the presidential
election in Florida, where black voters have complained were systematically
turned away from the polls, but also reports of ballot access problems and
voting fraud in other locations, she said.

He also wants to "take a serious look at hate crimes," Tucker said. He
previously opposed legislation backed by the Clinton administration to
expand the federal hate crimes law to cover attacks on homosexuals and to
remove a requirement that a federally protected right be involved, which
has been an obstacle to some prosecutions.

One of the biggest backers of that legislation, Ashcroft's predecessor
Janet Reno, was invited to visit on Thursday. Reno, Ashcroft and his top
aides will hold a private lunch in his dining room.

Earlier, Ashcroft reached out for advice to a batch of his predecessors,
including Republican Attorneys General William Barr, Richard Thornburgh, Ed
Meese and Democrat Griffin Bell.

In an effort to reduce the incidence of gun crimes, Ashcroft said he wants
to expand a federal antigun effort used in Virginia known as Project Exile.
Under the project, federal prosecutors handle most gun crimes and seek
stiff sentences. The National Rifle Association strongly backs the program.

"There has been a lack of gun prosecutions in recent years," Tucker said,
echoing a recent Republican criticism of the Clinton administration.

Reno's aides acknowledged that federal gun prosecutions dropped for two
years during the mid-1990s as they focused federal efforts on the biggest
gun traffickers and referred smaller cases to local prosecutors. Combined
federal and state gun prosecutions rose through the 1990s. The federal
prosecutors also handled gun cases in states where federal statutes were
tougher than state gun laws. And federal gun prosecutions rose for the
final few years of the Clinton administration.