Molly Ivins December 16

AUSTIN — How pathetic. How ridiculous. How mean, sorry and sad. After a three-year investigation that cost taxpayers more than $4 million, Henry Cisneros has been indicted on 18 counts for failing to confide the details of his private life to the FBI.

He now faces 90 years in prison. This is a man who served so honorably and so effectively in public office that even Republicans in Congress who had wanted to dismantle the Department of Housing and Urban Development were won over. He took what had been a demoralized and scandal-racked agency, notorious for its arrogant way of dealing with local governments, and made it into a model of efficiency and integrity.

According to syndicated Washington columnist Neal Pierce, Cisneros reduced the staff of HUD by more than half (from 13,300 to 7,500), saved the government $1.3 billion by selling off defaulted multi-family mortgages and made tremendous progress in replacing decayed and dangerous public housing. The worst public housing projects, places that breed crime, drugs and isolation, are already gone, replaced by mixed-income communities, and another 100,000 units will be replaced by 2000. Cisneros said when he first came under investigation, "I regret any mistakes that I have made but affirm once again that I have at no point violated the public's trust."

He is accused of lying to the FBI, not a good thing to do. Ninety years in prison? Did Cisneros turn a blind eye while his staff was giving contracts to his friends, like President Reagan's HUD secretary, Samuel Pierce? No. Did he have three undersecretaries and an executive assistant all convicted of influence-peddling, as happened under Pierce? No.

According to the indictment, Henry Cisneros did not tell the FBI how many extramarital affairs he had had. And while he did tell the bureau he was making payments to his former mistress, he did not tell it the correct amount he had paid her.

The obvious question is: Why was the FBI even asking about such things? Why did it need to know? What did the answers have to do with Henry Cisneros' qualifications to serve as secretary of HUD?

Twice this past weekend, I heard "journalists" refer to Cisneros' payments to Linda Jones Medlar, with whom he had an affair in 1987, as "hush money." Texans will recall that Cisneros acknowledged the affair in 1988 amid a storm of publicity.

All the papers carried the story, Texas Monthly gave us an in-depth account of the whole mess, and Cisneros came out of it saying he just wanted to keep his marriage intact. He and Mary Alice are still married. There was nothing to hush up; there was no secret. Cisneros agreed to help Jones financially, and that is their business. Not many men would have done as much.

Linda Jones Medlar has since sold tapes she made of conversations with Cisneros to a trash tabloid TV show, sued Cisneros for not giving her more money and, after originally having received immunity from prosecution from the special counsel, now stands accused of having altered the taped conversations. She has been indicted on 26 counts of conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and obstruction. All those stem from the purchase of a house she bought with her sister and brother-in-law, who are accused of having acted as "straw purchasers." Both of them have also been indicted on numerous counts.

Cisneros does stand accused of one violation of the public trust: According to the indictment, he asked two former employees at a private company he ran to lie about his extramarital affairs and promised them government jobs in exchange for doing so. Both followed him to HUD, and both former employees have also been indicted on conspiracy charges and face heavy penalties.

If true, that is a grave matter. How are such things judged by the courts? Well, former Interior Secretary James Watt was charged with lying to a federal grand jury and Congress about his alleged use of HUD contacts to influence lucrative housing contracts during the Reagan administration. Watt was allowed to plea-bargain 18 felony counts down to a misdemeanor charge and given 500 hours of community service.

Three years. Four million dollars. It seems safe to say Henry Cisneros will never serve in public life again.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. You may write to her care of this newspaper or via e-mail at mollyivins@star-telegram.com.

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