Reprinted from The Washington Times, March 19, 1998
White House lawyers
may get the ax
By Paul Bedard
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Lawmakers said yesterday they plan to halt further taxpayer funding for the record number of White House lawyers helping President Clinton fight the personal scandals gripping his administration.
Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees told The Washington Times they are drawing up the unprecedented legislation to shut down the White House counsel's office until the administration proves the lawyers are no longer engaged in defending the president from sexual-misconduct charges.
"There's no question in my mind that there's taxpayers' money that's paying for the private defense for President Clinton's escapades, and that's wrong," said Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the White House budget.
"It just seems to me that it's wrong to use [White House lawyers] to defend him against sex scandals," said Mr. Campbell, the Democrat-turned-Republican who ordered aides to draw up punishing legislation targeted at the counsel's office.
House Appropriations Committee members backed Mr. Campbell's move and said they also were planning legislation to "fence" the counsel's office budget of nearly $3 million.
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The House panel is also considering asking the Justice Department to investigate concerns that Mr. Clinton is using tax dollars for his personal defense in the cases.
The White House had no immediate comment.
The Times reported March 11 that the counsel's office has grown from four to 34 lawyers and associates, with many being tasked to handle various scandals plaguing the president. It is the the largest and most expensive in White House history.
The team is paid $2.4 million annually and accounts for 10 percent of the White House budget. In addition, the White House has added 12 more lawyers from other federal agencies to the president's staff.
Justice Department rules bar government lawyers from handling personal business for government employees.
Under both congressional initiatives, the White House would not be allowed to spend money on salaries or office expenses until the administration could show that no tax dollars were being used to defend the president against charges in the Paula Jones sexual-misconduct suit or reports that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky and then asked her to lie about it.
Mr. Clinton has denied both women's accusations.
The move to cut off funding is without precedent. Past White House budgets for individual West Wing operations have been rubber-stamped by Congress.
White House spokesmen said the counsel's office has grown because many congressional committees are investigating the president.
But, Mr. Campbell said, "a lot of the stuff I think is strictly brought about by [Mr. Clinton] in the problems that have been created with women and I just think that money for his defense should be raised through a private source. ... To expand the counsel's office by 600 percent to defend himself against things that have nothing to do with the operation of the government, i.e. Monica Lewinsky and the other women, is wrong."
The president has established a new legal defense fund, but that fund has just started raising money to pay for Mr. Clinton's legal bills, which total $3 million.
In addition to helping write Clinton legislation and looking into the backgrounds of top nominees, the counsel's office helps White House employees find private attorneys when they are subpoenaed to appear before the Whitewater grand jury probing the Lewinsky matter.
The counsel's office then "debriefs" those attorneys to learn about the grand jury helping independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigation.
This week, the White House revealed that the counsel's office was in charge of implementing Mr. Clinton's orders to find and distribute fawning letters to him from a new accuser, former friend and aide Kathleen E. Willey.
The Times reported yesterday that Mr. Clinton, a lawyer, has moved to play a larger role in the campaign to undermine the credibility of Mrs. Willey and Mr. Starr.
The counsel's office has also distributed news reports and internal documents to reporters and supporters in an effort to help in defending the president against Mr. Starr's probe as well as the campaign-finance scandal.
Unexpectedly last night, an attorney for Mrs. Willey's Richmond, Va., friend Julie H. Steele released an affidavit apparently intended to undermine confidence in Mrs. Willey's testimony in the Paula Jones case and Sunday's interview on CBS' "60 Minutes."
In the Feb. 13 statement, Mrs. Steele said she lied to Newsweek at Mrs. Willey's request, three-and-a-half years after her purported sexual molestation in the Oval Office. She said Mrs. Willey never came to her house on Nov. 29, 1993 -- despite Mrs. Willey's sworn testimony that she did -- and that she never heard reports of misconduct by Mr. Clinton until March or April of 1997.
Mrs. Steele's sworn statement said she told Newsweek in late July 1997 that she lied to reporter Michael Isikoff that spring, to "set the record straight" before the first Newsweek story. That article did not include those contradictions when it was published in the edition dated Aug. 11, 1997.
"I proceeded to explain to him that Ms. Willey had asked me to lie to support her version of the event and that I had, in fact, done so. I told him that I had not seen Ms. Willey the day she claimed to have met with President Clinton and that I had never heard of any allegations of improper conduct by President Clinton until she called to tell me her story in 1997 as Mr. Isikoff was en route to my home," Mrs. Steele said.
Frank J. Murray contributed to this article.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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