The Nuns Will Talk

WASHINGTON, D.C.: He let Reno have John Huang. But Fred Thompson clearly wanted immunity for four Buddhist nuns who were at the infamous temple fund-raiser attended by Vice President Al Gore. So on Wednesday, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's first order of business was to give the Justice Department the brush-off. All nine Republicans and a handful of Democrats on the committee supported granting immunity to the nuns over the objections of Janet Reno, who claimed it would hamper her investigation. TIME's Viveca Novak doubts that the nuns' testimony will be worth the commotion. "Remember, we already had (DNC Finance Director) Richard Sullivan testify that John Huang assured Gore's staff that this wasn't going to be a fundraiser," she said. "People tend to forget that if the nuns' contributions went into a soft money account, they're perfectly legal even if they are foreign contributions. The nuns will provide some interesting testimony which will look bad for Huang," she said. "But so far as nailing Gore or anybody else, I don't think that's going to happen."