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HenchPAC NewsALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A probe into lucrative stock option trading by Rep. Rick Lazio, Hillary Rodham Clinton's Republican opponent in New York's Senate race, ended Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission taking no action.
''This is to advise you that the above-captioned inquiry has been terminated, and that no enforcement action has been recommended to the commission,'' said a one-paragraph letter to Lazio from Dorothy Heyl, a senior trial counsel with the SEC's Northeast Regional Office in New York City.
The SEC declined further comment.
''I am pleased that this matter has been quickly settled,'' the congressman from Long Island said in a statement issued by his campaign office. ''I hope Mrs. Clinton will now join me in a campaign about issues and finally abandon her tactics of personal attacks and innuendo.''
There was no immediate comment from the Clinton campaign.
The SEC probe began in June after New York state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, a Democrat and supporter of Clinton's candidacy, wrote to SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. requesting the commission look into news accounts of Lazio's stock option trading profits.
Records showed that Lazio spent about $2,300 in early August 1997 for options on stock of Quick & Reilly, a Long Island-based brokerage firm. On Sept. 17, 1997, the firm was bought by the Fleet Financial Group. Lazio sold his stock options that same day for almost $16,000.
Peter Quick and Christopher C. Quick, former senior executives of Quick & Reilly, who along with other company executives have donated at least $35,000 to Lazio's campaigns since 1995, said they had never discussed the company's stock or possible sale with the congressman. Lazio denied any insider knowledge.
When Lazio announced the SEC was looking into his stock option trading, his campaign and his supporters attacked the first lady and the SEC for what they said was a politically motivated probe.
''The Clinton administration has a long history of abusing federal authority and using government bureaucracies to attack their political opponents,'' Lazio campaign manager Bill Dal Col said at the time. ''Today, they reached a new low.''
All four of the members on the SEC were appointed by President Clinton.
The questions raised by Lazio's stock option profits did give the Clinton campaign an opening to step up demands for the release of his income tax returns. Lazio has said they will be made available before the end of this month, but he has been dogged at campaign stops recently by ''Tax Man,'' a Democratic operative dressed up in an Uncle Sam outfit.
The first lady has faced questions about her own financial investments.
She turned a $1,000 investment in the cattle futures market into nearly $100,000 during a nine-month period in 1978 and 1979, when her husband was attorney general and then governor of Arkansas. She denied any wrongdoing in those transactions. She was assisted in her trades by an executive of Tyson Foods, which had extensive business before Arkansas state regulators.
On Tuesday, the first lady campaigned in Rochester where she spoke to a group of women supporters and visited the home of suffragette Susan B. Anthony.
Clinton used the opportunity to once again boost her abortion rights credentials while questioning the congressman's. While Lazio has said he is an abortion rights supporter, he is against Medicaid funding to pay for poor women's abortions and has refused to join Clinton in pledging not to support nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court who are anti-abortion.
Clinton was to speak at a Democratic Party picnic later Tuesday in Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River that separates New York from Canada.
HENCH adds: Sorry B!tch, but abusing the Federal government in a vain attempt to help your failing Senate campaign is illegal. Time for ANOTHER investigation into YOUR illegalities.
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