Did political pressure from Washington halt a drug investigation of Rap-A-Lot Records president James Prince?

The House Committee on Government Reform will try to answer that question at a December 6 hearing in the United States capital. The committee has subpoenaed five Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and three Houston police officers have been subpoenaed to testify at the hearing, according to spokesperson Sean Spicer.

Houston police and the DEA had been investigating the Houston label, home to Scarface and the Geto Boys, since 1988.

Spicer said Monday (November 27) that the committee is concerned about several "coincidences" surrounding the investigation's cancellation. In August 1999, California representative Maxine Waters sent a letter on Prince's behalf to Attorney General Janet Reno alleging that DEA agents engaged in racial profiling, racial slurs and harassment in their investigation.

The lead investigator on the case, Jack Schumacher,

was transferred to a desk job March 14, two days after a visit by Vice President Al Gore to the Church Without Walls in Houston, according to Spicer. Prince is a member of the parish and has donated more than $1 million to the church, according to a spokesperson for the music executive.

Houston DEA head Ernest L. Howard told the House committee in July that the investigation was open, but internal agency e-mails explicitly state that the case had been closed because of political pressure, Spicer said.

Rap-A-Lot spokesperson Phyllis Pollack said she's outraged by the suggestion of a link between Gore and the record label. "Mr. Prince has never met, written to or donated a dime to Al Gore," Pollack said.

"When you're talking about a major drug investigation being halted because of political pressure, that's an issue that's of interest to all Americans," said Spicer, who insisted that the upcoming hearing has not been motivated by partisan considerations. "We want to

find out what political pressure was applied and by whom.

Indiana Republican Dan Burton chairs the committee, which is made up of 24 Republicans, 20 Democrats and one independent representative.

The investigation has resulted in more than 20 drug-related convictions. Prince has not been charged. In an October statement, Prince accused the DEA of employing "Gestapo-type methods, creating crimes and using criminal tactics."

DEA administrator Donnie Marshall is among the agents subpoenaed, along with Howard and Schumacher. Marshall told the Dallas Morning News in October that he was not pressured to close the investigation, nor did he put pressure on Howard to shut it down.

Calls to the Houston police and DEA were not returned by press time. Spicer said more subpoenas could be issued before the hearing, but he declined to speculate on who else could be called to testify. Waters and Gore will not be called, he said.

The DEA's investigation began

when authorities found 76 kilograms of cocaine in a car from Prince's used car dealership; Scarface criticized the investigation on his album Last of a Dying Breed, released in October.

In the song "Look Me in My Eyes", Scarface (born Brad Jordan) mentions Schumacher by name: "I can't get no peace/ 'Cause Schumacher's been chasin' me.... F*** the DEA."

In "The Gangsta S***", the rapper boasts, "I can't be stopped/ Not even by a badge."

Scarface's former group, the Geto Boys, criticized police brutality in their 1993 song "Crooked Officer." MTV refused to play the video, which featured footage of police officers assaulting blacks.