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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1984)
Friday, September 21,1984/The Battalion/Page 13 rrero’s sinjlt □red Amefc ched safely (i Davis' error nado then ss Prosecutor finds no crime Edwin Meese is clear United Press International WASHINGTON — A special prosecutor Thursday found no criminal wrongdoing in an investiga tion of Edwin Meese, and President Reagan said if re-elected he will re nominate Meese to be attorney gen eral. Special prosecutor Jacob Stein, in a 385-page report to a special court, said an exhaustive 5-month investi gation of the White House counselor concluded there was “no basis” for prosecuting Meese for any of the 11 allegations against him. The White House issued a written statement by Reagan. At the same time, Meese appeared in the White House press room to say “it’s been a long ordeal over several months.” Meese, who refused to take ques tions after making his statement, said he looks forward to the resump tion of the Senate confirmation pro ceedings on his nomination. “The experience has been a diffi cult one,” Meese said. “But it was es sential for it cleared the air and af firmed what my family and I have always known: that we have lived honorable lives, that we have paid our debts with our own money, and that we have never taken advantage of official position to obtain private gain.” PUF (continued from page 1) L are eligible for PUF and AUF pro ceeds. Those A&M institutions are Texas A&M-Galveston, the Texas Engineering Experiment Station at locations other than College Station and the Texas Transportation Insti tute. The UT units to be added to the PUF will be UT-Arlington; UT-Dal- las; UT-Permian Basin; UT-San An tonio; UT-Tyler; UT Health Cen- ter-Tyler; UT Health Science Center-Houston including the Medi cal School, the Allied ITealth Sci ences School, the Nursing School and the Speech and Hearing Insti tute; UT Health Science Center-San Antonio and the UT Institute of Texan Culture. While A&M is spreading its one- third portion of the fund over 12 in stitutions with only one additonal academic unit, UT will be spreading its two-thirds portion over 15 units with 14 new academic units, three of which are medical schools. The usage of PUF bond proceeds will be expanded to include major repairs and rehabilitation of existing buildings, purchase of capital equip ment, purchase of land and acquis- tion of library books and materials. Prairie View A&M also will re ceive added benefits if the amend ment is approved. Prairie View will receive a special appropriation of $6 million each year for 10 years to be Reagan told reporters, “It’s always gratifying when the honor of a just man is vindicated and that’s exactly what has happened with the report of the independent counsel on Ed Meese.” Reagan said that Meese “is one of the most decent and honorable men I’ve ever known so I’m not surprised by the outcome .... “I intend, if I am re-elected, to re submit his nomination as soon as Congress convenes in January.” Reagan nominated his longtime friend for attorney general, but con firmation hearings were delayed when questions were raised about his finances and friends in government. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond, R- S.C., postponed the confirmation hearings until next year because of the political overtones. Stein found no criminal wrong doing in Meese’s activities — includ ing his failure to report on his finan cial disclosure statement a $15,000 loan from a personal friend, Edwin Thomas, who later got a White House post. The report disclosed that Thomas, on his second interview with investigators, acknowledged that he had told Meese in February 1981, when they were preparing drawn from the UT portion of the AUF. If the new amendment passes, the state legislature also will provide $100 million from general revenues to be dedicated for use by the 26 state universities not receiving PUF money. Any excesses, up to $2 billion, may be placed into a permanent Higher Education Fund structured like the PUF, Southerland said. “The goal is to have another PUF,” he said. Before 1981, state universities other than A&M and UT received funding from a state ad valorem (property tax), but in 1981 the tax was repealed and the institutions lost their dedicated source of funds. Since that time, the schools have had to make special legislative re quests each time funds are needed to build classrooms or laboratories. Since there is no assurance that money will be available when needed, non-PUF schools have not been able to develop long-range plans. Non-PUF schools are Angelo State University, Corpus Christi State University, East Texas State University, East Texas State Univer sity at Texarkana, Lamar State Uni versity, Lamar State University at Port Arthur, Laredo State Univer sity, Midwestern State University, North Texas State University, Pan American University at Edinberg, and Pan American University at Brownsville. their financial statements, “not to forget” the loan to Meese’s wife. It said Meese did not recall the re minder. Stein stressed in the report that it was not his job to draw conclusions about the propriety of Meese’s activ ities or his fitness to serve as attorney general. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D- Ohio, who spearheaded the effort to block Meese’s nomination in the Senate, said the Stein report is “re plete with contradictory statements” and added there appeared to be “numerous cases” where testimony given to Stein was at variance with testimony given to the Judiciary Committee. He said, however, that the “ques tion of criminality and the pressing of charges are matters which have now been determined by Mr. Stein. “However, there is no doubt in my mind that the sum total of the report fully confirms my previous statements that Mr. Meese should not be confirmed to be attorney gen eral of the United States of Amer ica,” Metzenbaum said. The five-month investigation in cluded questioning 200 witnesses. Other non-PUF state universities include Sam Houston State Univer sity, Southwest Texas State Univer sity, Stephen F. Austin State Univer sity, Sul Ross State University including the Uvalde Study Center, Texas A&I University, Texas Col lege of Osteopathic Medicine, Texas Southern University, Texas Tech University, Texas Tech Health Sci ences Center, Texas Woman’s Uni versity, University of Houston-Uni- versity Park, University of Houston- Clear Lake City, University of Hous- ton-Victoria, University of Houston- Downtown and West Texas State University. II the proposition fails, the non- PUF universities again will have no dedicated fund to lean on for long- range planning. There also is the possibility that an injuction would be brought against the PUF, freezing any spending and halting all con struction, Southerland said. “We would have a crisis in higher education,” he said. Southerland also said that if the proposition was defeated, higher ed ucation possibly would be put under a scrutiny that it has never had be fore, much like the scrutiny of public education by the committee headed by H. Ross Perot. So far, the Texas A&M Board of Regents, the University of Texas Board of Regents, the Coordinating Board of the Texas College and Uni versity System, Governor Mark White and several other public offi cials have come out in support of Proposition 2. LEGEND f/te best of BOB MARLEY and rfieWAILERS CASSETTE 1 ARISTA, SELECT TITLES ONLY SALE PRICES GOOD FOR ONE WEEK MMMaaaa lltiillll HONEYMOON SUITE SPANDAU BALLET PARADE including; Only When You Leave/Highly Strung CBS Records ITROPOLIS \L MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK featuring: TYLER — Here She Comes ERSON — Cage Of Freedom NATAR* — Here's My Heart IE MERCURY' — Love Kills SQUIER*’ — On Your Own Metropolis WE SPECIAL ORDER MUSIC!