Reprinted from The Washington Times, March 9, 1998
Are tax dollars funding Clinton defense schemes?
By Paul Bedard
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Congressional appropriators are scrutinizing the White House scandal-fighting team to see whether the administration is misusing taxpayer dollars to defend President Clinton and discredit independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.
"There's a whole question of what taxpayer money is being used for these efforts," says a spokeswoman for Rep. Robert L. Livingston, Louisiana Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
The panel's subcommittee charged with overseeing the White House budget will question Clinton aides this week on how much time and money is being diverted to defending the president's personal affairs and fighting the Whitewater and Lewinsky scandals.
It is also expected to push for a General Accounting Office audit of the administration's spending of public dollars on the Clinton defense effort.
But the White House says it has a strong defense: It is merely responding to the crush of media queries about the scandals and the necessity of White House employes to find adequate lawyers.
"There are no large crowds" of White House workers involved in the effort, says deputy White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.
He finds "irony" in the fact that Congress, which has more than a dozen committees and subcommittees investigating the White House, now wants to investigate how the administration responds to those panels and the media.
"That's high on the absurd meter," says Mr. Lockhart.
At a hearing Thursday, Mr. Livingston, Rep. Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican, and Rep. Ernest Istook Jr., Oklahoma Republican, will focus on four elements of the White House legal and media defense team:
- Efforts by the White House counsel's office, headed by Charles F.C. Ruff, to refer Clinton aides to private lawyers, especially in advance of testifying before Mr. Starr's grand jury impaneled in Washington. The White House counsel's office spends more than $2 million a year on salaries.
- "Debriefings" by White House attorneys of those private lawyers after Clinton aides testify before the grand jury probing Whitewater-related charges and reports the president had sexual relations with a former intern and then told her to deny their relationship. Mr. Clinton has denied he had a "sexual relationship" with 24-year-old Monica Lewinsky.
- The involvement of Mr. Clinton's top legal team in his Jan. 17 deposition in the sexual harassment suit filed by former Arkansas state employe Paula Jones. The White House says Mr. Ruff and three deputies had access to the deposition.
- The sprawling communications shop effort to provide friendly reporters with unflattering information on Mr. Starr and his staff. That effort, in which Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal plays a role, includes distributing published reports about the prosecutors and other information found in the "public domain" by investigators hired by Mr. Clinton's private attorneys.
Former President Bush's chief counsel, C. Boyden Gray, says the Bush White House never provided legal referrals or debriefed attorneys for witnesses, such as those who may have discussed the Iran-Contra issue.
"I don't think it's legitimate. I don't think it is fair for the taxpayer to pay for private legal work," says Mr. Gray.
He says the White House legal office had eight staffers under Mr. Bush, compared with 32 staffers and 12 lawyers borrowed from other federal agencies under Mr. Clinton.
Congressional officials say they want to look at three branches of the White House -- Mr. Ruff's office, the scandal response team headed by Jim Kennedy and special counsel Lanny A. Breuer, and Mr. Blumenthal's operation.
The officials say it is improper for Mr. Clinton to be using taxpayer-funded employees to fight the personal charges in the Jones and Lewinsky cases.
They cite the July 27, 1993, Senate Whitewater report that said White House officials "violated ethical standards and abused their official positions of public trust to assist in the Clintons' private legal defense efforts."
They also cite a recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling scolding the administration for using "in-house attorneys" for personal defense in court cases.
Aides to the lawmakers say they are especially interested in examining the efforts by Mr. Blumenthal to place friendly stories about the White House or unflattering stories about Mr. Starr with friendly reporters.
A House Appropriations Committee aide says members want to determine how much money he spent collecting articles about Mr. Starr and Clinton critics and also if he or other Clinton aides ever verified the information in those articles and other items -- some of which wrongly suggested that one of Mr. Starr's deputies is a homosexual.
"What's appalling is the suggestion that the type of stuff that this team has been looking into includes attacks such as if somebody is gay," says a congressional official.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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