The Senate Select Committee on Ethics last month dropped its investigation of U.S. Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Oreg.) after finding no evidence worth pursuing. Hatfield cast his fate to the committee in August after allegations of a conflict of interest made nationwide headlines (CT, Sept. 21, 1984, p. 76).
Two syndicated columns written by Jack Anderson charged Hatfield with promoting a trans-African pipeline project while his wife received real estate fees from the project’s chief proponent, Greek financier Basil A. Tsakos. Hatfield says there was no connection between his wife’s business transactions with the Greek businessman—totaling $55,000—and his support for Tsakos’s project.
But at a press conference in Oregon, Hatfield said there was the “appearance of impropriety.” As a result, he and his wife, Antoinette, donated $55,000 to a children’s hospital. The incident appeared not to have damaged Hatfield’s reelection chances in Oregon, where he is running for his fourth Senate term.
Exoneration by the ethics committee came in a way that assures Hatfield a clean bill of ethical health. The committee’s bipartisan staff arrived at a verdict of “insufficient evidence” after questioning Tsakos and his wife, as well as several former employees of theirs who had charged that Mrs. Hatfield performed no consulting services for the Greek couple.
“There was no information available to us to justify opening a formal inquiry,” said committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). A unanimous committee vote affirming the staff report came after a closed briefing by a U.S. Justice Department official who is continuing an investigation into Tsakos’s business affairs.
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