Clinton Passport Probe Clears Bush Aides : Investigation: Special counsel refers to ‘stupid, partisan’ actions during 1992 search but finds no wrongdoing. He apologizes to those ‘unjustly accused.’

WASHINGTON —  George Bush Administration officials did “stupid, dumb and indeed partisan things” in searching Bill Clinton’s passport files during the 1992 presidential campaign but committed no crime, an independent counsel concluded Thursday in a report on a major election-year controversy.

Joseph E. DiGenova sharply criticized as incompetent and naive the initial investigation of the matter conducted by former State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk, which led to DiGenova’s appointment as independent counsel.

At the same time, he apologized “on behalf of the United States government” to former presidential assistant Janet G. Mullins, the only named target of the investigation, and to others he said had been “unjustly accused” of wrongdoing.

DiGenova’s investigation covered whether Mullins or other officials violated any laws in searching Clinton’s passport files to check on a rumor that he had tried to renounce his citizenship while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in order to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. The inquiry included whether Mullins lied or otherwise impeded Funk’s investigation or conspired with others to commit any offense against the United States.

DiGenova’s investigation “found no evidence of any nature that would even suggest that any renunciation rumor concerning Clinton was accurate or true,” the 454-page report noted.

“While it is true that there were some stupid, dumb and indeed partisan things done by Bush Administration people in this case,” DiGenova said, “it is also true that no crimes were committed by any of those people who were so publicly identified.”

While DiGenova’s decision to seek no prosecutions had been known for nearly a year, the long-awaited report turned up several intriguing elements, including:

* Ross Perot allegedly recording telephone conversations that he had with former Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft--without telling them--and then providing transcripts of the conversations to DiGenova. Perot was looking into a report that his passport files had been searched. DiGenova, citing a Washington Post report that such a search took place, said he could find no evidence of it.

* Eagleburger sending word to then-White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III that Eagleburger was “not going to mention the telephone conversation” he had with Baker about Clinton’s passport file if he were asked about it. Baker later told Eagleburger that he had to describe the conversation if investigators asked about it, the report said. Eagleburger, who made his comment known to DiGenova’s investigators, later described the remark as “not the smartest thing.”

* Baker offering to resign from the White House in November, 1992, partly because of the harmful effect he thought the passport affair had on Bush’s reelection prospects. After being appointed independent counsel in December, 1992, DiGenova, a Republican and former U.S. attorney here who had been highly critical of the time taken by other independent counsel investigations, vowed to handle the matter thoroughly but speedily.

DiGenova blamed his long inquiry partly on the need to create two teams of investigators because of a federal court’s ruling on State Department conversations that were sometimes recorded. The court said that practice violated the federal wiretap law. So one team investigated the passport issue without access to the recordings to avoid later legal difficulties and the other team was made aware of the recorded conversations. This posed “an enormous investigative burden,” DiGenova said.

The report concluded that Baker “may have indirectly contributed to the impetus of the search for Clinton’s files, although the independent counsel does not believe he did so with criminal intent.”

This took place when Baker asked Mullins to check on the “status” of freedom-of-information requests that several media organizations had filed for Clinton’s documents, which “triggered a series of actions that led in part to the expedited search for Clinton’s file.”

“Baker surely wanted the State Department to locate the Clinton files sooner rather than later,” the report said. “Baker believed that the American people should know whether Clinton had tried to renounce his citizenship before they voted in the election on Nov. 3. . . . Baker recognized the partisan value of the information.”

But his partisan motives “did not amount to criminal motives,” DiGenova said.