U-S Attorney General Janet Reno meets with Congressional leaders today to discuss the weekend raid in Miami which resulted in the reuniting of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez with his father. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the seizure was handled poorly and the I-N-S agents should not have gone in armed with machine guns.Senate Republican leader Trent Lott says Reno will face some “tough bipartisan questions” about the operation. Several lawmakers have promised to conduct public hearings on the issue. Grassley says the Attorney General and the Clinton Administration should be blamed for the debacle.Grassley, a republican, did not say whether he’d again push for Reno to resign. Iowa’s other Senator, democrat Tom Harkin, defended Reno’s order of the armed seizure. Harkin says “The boy’s Florida relatives’ disregard of the law left no alternative…It is time for everyone to put this child’s interests in the forefront and stop exploiting him.”
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