Meese Mounts All-Out Drive in His Defense

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III Wednesday launched a full-scale defense campaign three weeks before an independent counsel’s report on his legal problems is scheduled to be completed, an aggressive drive that Meese aides say shows he intends to stay on despite widespread calls for his resignation.

“He’ll be the one to turn the lights off,” predicted one Justice Department official who contends that Meese will leave Washington with President Reagan next January.

Meese, who told conservative Republican senators last week that there is no reason for him to step down, had three separate meetings Wednesday to state his case. He first met with a group of GOP House members known as the Conservative Opportunity Society and then had lunch with the Wednesday Group, a Capitol Hill group of conservative congressmen and organizations.

Finally, Meese met at the Justice Department with the Washington Times’ editorial board, which broke with conservative ranks earlier this month by calling for Meese’s resignation.

“This is a prelude to the push we will make once the independent counsel’s report comes out,” said Patrick S. Korten, Meese’s new chief spokesman, who is mapping out the counteroffensive along with Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds and Meese aide Mark Levin.

However, many of the staunch conservatives who met with Meese, believing he faces an uphill battle, cautioned him that any counterattack he mounts must be “a big offensive.” Some members of his own party, including those close to Vice President George Bush, believe that Meese’s refusal to leave is harming Republican chances in the November election.

‘Political Liability’

“There’s no question that the political liability to the Republicans is serious,” said Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), a member of the Conservative Opportunity Society. “I couldn’t help but think as I heard him talk about his various initiatives, like the war on drugs, that while his goals are laudable, the hard, cold reality is that Ed Meese has become the issue.”

Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), another member of the society, said the effect of Meese’s legal difficulties on Bush’s presidential prospects was raised. “It was indicated to him that he has to understand that he is having an impact on the party and on the presidential campaign,” Walker said. “His offensive will have to be a big one, if it’s going to stem the damage that’s been done.”

Moreover, Meese’s strategy encountered an immediate problem with one of its key elements, a challenge to a recent Senate subcommittee report that was highly critical of actions he took while serving as Reagan’s counselor at the White House that benefited the scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp.

Challenge Outlined

Reynolds and Korten have maintained that the report, by the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, does not constitute an official report because the subcommittee did not vote on its issuance. Gunderson said that Meese showed congressmen a paper outlining this challenge that his lawyers had prepared.

But an aide to Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.), ranking minority member of the panel, said Republican members were given drafts of the report in advance and had the opportunity to request changes and write dissenting or concurring papers. The aide said that changes were requested and made but that none of the GOP members chose to dissent from the findings.

In addition to his involvement with Wedtech, Meese is being investigated by independent counsel James C. McKay for a number of other matters, including his role in a controversial Iraqi oil pipeline project.

McKay said April 1 that he was not planning to seek Meese’s indictment. But sources familiar with work on the report predicted that it would be critical of Meese’s actions and would refer some of his activities to other government units that deal with ethical issues.

Walker said Meese told the Conservative Opportunity Society that the release of the independent counsel’s report, expected next month, will free him “to talk about the situation from his point of view. He’ll go on the offensive, trying to correct what has been a very one-sided presentation of the facts up to this point.”

Korten said that Meese expects to be totally vindicated by the report, though he added that it would be “pointless to speculate” what would be done if it turns out to be anything less than that.

Upbeat Assessment

The spokesman was upbeat in assessing Wednesday’s sessions, saying that the Wednesday Group meeting had “an even more positive tone” than the earlier meeting with the Conservative Opportunity Society. At the conference with the Washington Times editorial board, Korten said: “We thoroughly aired the questions that have been raised by their editorial.”

The editorial, which said “Meese’s attempts to vindicate himself have destroyed his department,” was written after the attorney general unexpectedly fired Terry Eastland, his chief spokesman. Eastland said that Meese dismissed him because he believed the spokesman was not defending him aggressively enough.

However, Tony Snow, editorial page editor for the newspaper, said the meeting had not changed any minds about the editorial stand, which Meese made clear he did not like.