Panel Finds 'Credible Evidence' Cranston Violated Ethics Rules

No Further Action Sought Against 4 Other Senators in Keating Case

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics yesterday found "substantial credible evidence" of ethics violations by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) but concluded that four other senators broke no specific rules in their dealings with savings and loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr.

In a unanimous conclusion to a rancorous 14-month investigation that opened the Senate's ethical standards to unprecedented public scrutiny, the panel criticized Sens. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) and used relatively mild language in describing the dealings of Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Glenn (D-Ohio).

The committee said it could not condone the conduct of DeConcini and Riegle, which it said "gave the appearance of being improper" and was marked by "insensitivity and poor judgment." It said McCain and Glenn "exercised poor judgment" in some of their actions.

No further disciplinary action against the four senators was warranted, the committee said, effectively closing the case against them.

But the committee's findings could result in Cranston, the 76-year-old former Senate Democratic whip, who is in California recuperating from treatment for prostate cancer, being censured by the full Senate later this year.

The committee said it found grounds to believe that Cranston "engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct in which fund-raising and official activities were substantially linked," citing several cases in which Cranston solicited funds from Keating while helping Keating in dealing with federal thrift regulators.