WASHINGTON. May 4: A House subcommittee has opened its own investigation into the US trade embargo enforcement agency and is accusing the Clinton administration of stonewalling on documents, reports AP.

| Rep. Spencer ' Bachus. Irman of the House Bank-lubcommittee on Investiga-i. sent a sharply worded r Thursday to the Trea-

Department Remanding iments involving the Office ireign Assets Control that : first requested in Jan-

FAC. which is charged enforcing US embargoes those imposed on Cuba Libya, has been under tiny since a series of Associated Press articles in 1994 and 1995 citing documents suggesting investigators work

had been interfered with.

The subcommittee first requested documents by phone in January, then sent one let ter In March and two in April. So far. the subcommittee has been given a lengthy Investigative report but none of the underlying agency documents it had requested, by April 30. congressional officials said

Viewed most charitably to the department, the absence of a formal response to tl)e subcommittee's two document requests can be described as unprofessional.” Bachus wrote freasury officials. '

"At worst. It can lie construed as an effort on the part of the Treasury Department to obstruct the constitutional right of Congress to oversee the operations of an executive branch agency." he added.

TYeasury officials say they are not stonewalling, and have had numerous meetings and telephone contacts over, the last month to try to meet the requests

We have provided everything that we have lieen able to provide to date and are work to accommodate the rest of their request." Treasury spokesman Cnris Peacock said.

The ^Treasury inspector general, the department's internal watchdog, conducted an investigation ol OFAC Director R Richard Newcomb.

That investigation was completed last September, but Treasury officials have repeatedly refused to say what it found, what actions, if any, were taken against Newcomb or to release the report publicly.

Last summer. however, OFAC

was stripped of its criminal Investigations unit, which was transferred to the Customs Service in what was then described as an efficiency snove

The AP stories reported that documents Indicated New comb:

Repeatedly ignored stall recommendations, in 1992 and 1993 for criminal action against Texaco even after OFAC investigators concluded the oil company had paid the outlaw Haitian junta millions of dollars and distributed millions of gallons of oil despite the US embargo. TJocumefits quoted Newcomb as saying he was acting as he was in the case at the behest of former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. No penalty has ever been levied against Texaco, which denies wrongdoing.