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'Do what's right' Hatch says he's not trying to interfere with Salt Lake case
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says he may have talked to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft about the Salt Lake Olympics bribery case, but he doesn't remember. "If I have, it's only been, 'Do what's right. Do what the law says,' " Hatch said Tuesday in an interview with Salt Lake television station KTVX. Hatch said he definitely was not trying to interfere with an ongoing prosecution. He also said Tuesday that he has not discussed the case with the judge who is handling it, U.S. Judge David Sam. The comments follow action by federal prosecutors Monday serving notice that they may appeal Sam's dismissal of the most serious charges in the case. Sam ruled Thursday that Olympic lobbying isn't organized crime and that prosecutors can't use a state commercial bribery law. He said it would be absurd to conclude the Legislature intended to criminalize the gifts and favors that Salt Lake bid executives Tom Welch and Dave Johnson showered on IOC members. Hatch long has held that Welch and Johnson should not have been indicted. "It [the gift-giving] wasn't right. It shouldn't have happened. I certainly don't believe it was criminal conduct," he said Tuesday. Welch, 55, was president of the Salt Lake bid and organizing committees, and Johnson, 41, was vice president. They spent $1 million wooing IOC delegates who voted in 1995 to award Salt Lake the 2002 Winter Games. Ten IOC members were ousted for receiving improper inducements. The fraud case accuses Welch and Johnson of hiding or disguising their dealings with IOC members from their own board of trustees.
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