The Nation - News from Jan. 8, 1988

An independent counsel has been investigating the stock holdings of Edwin Meese III in the regional Bell telephone companies, officials said, in the latest probe ensnarling the attorney general. Meese has refused to remove himself from the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to supervise its breakup of AT&T.; Last year, the department urged lifting some restrictions on the businesses that the regional Bell companies could engage in. Meese and his wife held telephone stock worth $9,600 a year ago when Meese approved Justice Department recommendations that generally supported seven regional phone companies’ requests that they be permitted to offer long-distance phone service in certain areas. The independent counsel, James C. McKay, has been investigating Meese since last May for his involvement with scandal-plagued Wedtech Corp., a New York defense contractor.