President Clinton expressed confidence Monday that neither he nor his campaign broke “the letter of the law” when raising funds.
But the chairman of the Senate committee investigating the question says everything he has found points toward the need for an independent counsel.
In Clinton’s first public response to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s call for a review of the legality of White House fund-raising calls during the 1996 campaign, the president, in New York to address the United Nations, defended the legality of his actions and those of Vice President Al Gore.
“I believe that what I did and what the vice president did was legal,” Clinton said at a news conference. “I’m absolutely positive that we intended to be firmly within the letter of the law when we were out there campaigning and raising funds.”
Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an interview that his panel’s investigation ultimately would demonstrate the need for an independent counsel because “people with access to the White House” had engaged in the “raising of illegal funds.”
Thompson also said the purview of an independent counsel investigation would almost certainly be wider than the narrow legal issue of whether fund-raising calls made by either Clinton or Gore violated a federal law barring solicitation on federal property. “If an independent counsel is appointed,” Thompson said, “it will be broader than the phone calls. It should be.”
Reno has ordered a preliminary inquiry to determine if any fund-raising calls made by the president and vice president violated a federal law barring fund raising on federal property.
The 30-day review could be the first step leading to the appointment of an independent counsel. The president vowed on Monday to cooperate fully with the Justice Department.
“I want to cooperate however I can to establish the facts,” Clinton said. “But I think it’s important that you and the American people understand that I believed then and I believe now that what we did was legal.”
Senate Republicans have intensified the pressure on Reno to appoint an independent counsel, particularly since it was disclosed that some of the money raised in telephone calls made by Gore ended up in the Democratic Party’s “hard money” account for direct spending on campaigns.
The attorney general has maintained that money raised for party-building activities, known as “soft money,” falls outside the reach of federal election laws.
But “hard money” solicitations would fall within the scope of federal campaign finance laws.
Clinton has said he cannot remember making telephone calls to ask for donations, although Gore has acknowledged that he made such calls. Neither has indicated that he was aware that some of the donations would land in a “hard” account.
Clinton’s choice of words, particularly his emphasis on acting “within the letter of the law,” was reminiscent of a phrase used by Gore, when, at a tense news conference last March, he defended calling donors and maintained that there was no “controlling legal authority,” barring such fundraising.
Thompson has called the White House’s fundraising efforts in 1996 “unprecedented,” but he, too, has been on the defensive of late. His panel’s hearings have failed to capture the public’s attention, and last week he and his Senate colleagues decided to change course. During the next few weeks, the Senate panel will focus on fund-raising abuses, particularly in the area of “soft money,” by both parties as well as on legislative remedies to overhaul the election laws.
Thompson said the shift would help efforts in the Senate to pass a bipartisan campaign finance overhaul bill introduced by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). Thompson, one of the only Republicans who has endorsed the McCain-Feingold bill, also said he thought there was a good chance the Senate would pass some form of campaign finance overhaul legislation.
During Monday’s interview, Thompson played down the importance of the shift, emphasizing that he always intended to explore broader campaign finance areas and was simply accelerating his timetable. He denied that the change in agenda was influenced by public apathy, although he conceded that he was disappointed that there had been little television coverage devoted to the substance of the testimony given by scores of witnesses.
On a subject that has attracted considerable speculation in Washington, Thompson said it was likely that Harold Ickes, the former White House deputy chief of staff, would be called to testify before the panel.
“The theater of it may make him irresistible,” Thompson said of Ickes, a feisty New Yorker. In private questioning, Ickes has been combative with Senate Republicans and has cited GOP fund-raising excesses when questioned about the zeal of the Democrats and the Clinton White House. Ickes was questioned in closed session by lawyers for the panel on Monday.
Deadline pressures have forced Thompson to pick and choose how to allocate his remaining investigative resources. He said he would like to hold hearings on an alleged fund-raising scheme between the Teamsters union and the Democratic National Committee. But the panel must complete its work by Dec. 31, and Thompson has not yet decided whether to continue public hearings after Congress goes into recess in November.
