◆ SpookStack

- activities Inst S.F. SUNDAY FXAMINER & CHRONICLE ‘Lawmakers offended by the FBI HE “ABSCAM"” investigation, in which some “Ht congressmen may have been caught grabbing -for bribe money, has hit Washington like a ton of “bricks. Some of the variegated responses are noteworthy — especially the reactions of two ‘members of Congress from California. Obviously, many members are furious at the FBI, but very few are proposing, out loud, to ‘crack down on it. Among those few, though, Is Rep. Don Edwards, D-Hayward, who chairs a House subcommittee with considerable Jurisdic- tion over the agency. And Alan Cranston js quite critical of the FBI, The latter says that the FBI improperly dangled temptation before some of the Jawmak- ers and that it should focus on known crimina} les inst f hearing in upon pubite officials in this way. The FBI, Cranston says, was ot created to “test the integrity of members of Congress...” . * From what we know of how the investigation came out, however, we must say that somebody, . needs to test the Integrity of at least some of the ey OF at Teast some of thi FEB. 17, 1980 members. The FBI fs the federal agency created to ferret out crime under federal law. Should it draw back if jt sees some threads leading up to tol Hin? Rep. Edwards says that reins are needed to prevent the FBI from undertaking some types of “sting” operations in which people are nabbed for accepting payoffs or committing other crimes. “We don't want them to use any entrapment or enticement in these operations," said the California legislator. He indicated that his subcommittee might put a brake on such things in a new charter it's drawing up to regulate the FBL Rather than reining in the FBI very much, . we think that the House would do well to put a rein on Rep. Edwards, if he goes very far with his notion of imposing further investigative restric- tions. The le are interested criminals caught, and are not ded _by the fact that the G-men have intruded into some of the richer and more imperious precincts in that assignment.