Bill Clinton: “I can assure you that based on my criteria I think she's the best. Somebody else might have other criteria. My criteria…”

“I can assure you that based on my criteria I think she's the best. Somebody else might have other criteria. My criteria were the ones that I outlined. I wanted to bring someone to the Justice Department who had had both management experience and legal experience. I want to bring someone to the Justice Department who had dealt with a wide range of real-world problems and who had a keen eye for excellence and talent, to restore a sense of movement and energy and vitality. There are an awful lot of good people at the Justice De- partment who want to be part of a Department on the move and feel good about it. And the one thing I thought--I can tell you this--this is ironic since I'm now naming Janet Reno. I want to be forthright and answer the question fully. In the beginning of my deliberations weeks ago, the one reason that I did not pursue this more was because Janet Reno had always been a State prosecutor and not a Federal U.S. attorney or not a higher Justice Department official. But the more I dug into it and the more I talked to people about it, the more I realized that you couldn't be the State's attorney in Dade County for 15 years without having enormous exposure to a wide range of issues that the Justice Department deals with and without working with the United States attorney. You might want to ask her for some specifics. So finally, I said, well, why don't I just call and explore this. And I did, and I was fully satisfied that she had more than enough familiarity with the Federal system to do the job.”