-Caveat Lector-
NATIONAL ISSUE
CLINTON DOUBTS FBI'S MOTIVES Suggests Focus
On China Gifts Hides Waco Woes
Date: 9/28/99
Author: Paul Sperry
In what's turning into an internecine feud between the White House and the
FBI, President
Clinton charged that the FBI is trying to turn the spotlight away from its
new Waco troubles by
raising doubts about the probe into White House fund-raising.
Four career FBI agents told the Senate Wednesday that the Justice
Department has thwarted their
investigation of illegal foreign funds to the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election
effort.
''The FBI wants you to write about that rather than write about Waco,'' a
visibly angry Clinton
told Investor's Business Daily Friday night at the White House.
Justice earlier this month seized from the FBI videotapes that were
withheld from congressional
investigators after the agency's 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound
in Waco, Texas.
Attorney General Janet Reno has turned over the case to former Sen. John
Danforth, R-Mo., for
an independent probe.
The president's statement, called ''extraordinary'' by Hill leaders, marked
the first time he's
criticized his own bureau in public.
Asked about it, FBI spokesman Jim Davis said, ''I'm pretty confident we
have no comment,''
adding that FBI Director Louis Freeh is out of town.
Davis allowed that the FBI is aware that the ''relationship between the
bureau and the president
and (between the bureau and) the attorney general'' is drawing more and
more negative press.
Freeh butted heads with Reno in 1997 when he argued for an independent
counsel to probe the
fund-raising scandal.
Some compare the discord between Clinton and his chief law enforcement
agency to the one that
developed between President Nixon and Justice as the Watergate probe crept
closer to the Oval
Office.
In 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General
William Ruckelshaus
resigned after balking at Nixon's orders to fire Watergate special
prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Solicitor General Robert Bork wound up axing Cox and his staff of 60
lawyers in what's known
as the ''Saturday Night Massacre.''
Referring to Clinton, Brookings Institution presidential scholar Stephen
Hess said: ''The idea
that the president is acting as if the FBI is trying to do him in is pretty
fascinating.''
Clinton also lashed out at Republicans in responding to several IBD
questions about the
fund-raising probe, which has turned up at least $300,000 intended for
Clinton from the Chinese
military:
''The GOP wants that to be the story rather than guns'' and other issues
that ''people care
about,'' he said, adding that ''not one person has brought up'' the
Chinagate scandal on his
stops around the country.
''You want to know the only person who has been linked to money from
China?'' Clinton said.
''Haley Barbour and the RNC (Republican National Committee), that's who.''
''Bob Dole had more FEC (Federal Election Commission) fines than I did,''
he said.
Asked Monday if Clinton stands by his statements, White House spokesman
Richard Siewert
said: ''The president does not regret making those comments.''
Republicans say the reaction is typical for Clinton.
''He always likes to attack others more than defend his own positions,''
said a senior Republican
White House official.
''He has trouble with the facts and the truth,'' said House Government
Reform Committee
spokesman Mark Corallo. ''So it wouldn't surprise me, in this case, for the
president to be
ignoring the facts that his party and his re-election committee and his
legal defense fund were the
recipients of millions of dollars in illegal money from foreign sources
-much of it coming from
Communist China.''
The Democratic National Committee has had to return over $3 million in
illegal or improper
donations from the 1996 campaign. The RNC returned $102,400 in illegal
donations from the
Florida unit of a Hong Kong-based real- estate company.
The 1991-93 RNC donations are apparently the ones Clinton cited. Barbour
was RNC chairman
at the time, though Hong Kong was still part of Britain, not China, back then.
Barbour, now head of a Washington lobbying firm, is a target of Reno's
campaign-finance task
force. IBD was unable to reach Barbour for comment.
The impromptu interview with Clinton, conducted on the South Lawn not far
from the Oval
Office during a dinner for the press, lasted about 10 minutes and started
with a single and simple
question: ''When's your next formal press conference, Mr. President?''
Clinton was testy throughout. Observers say his face turned red when
questioned about the
Chinagate probe. The questions came only after Clinton asked why he should
hold another
formal news conference.
''He was pretty exercised, and I was surprised he'd get so exercised about
the campaign finance
stuff,'' said Washington-based Seattle Times reporter James Grimaldi, who
overheard the
exchange and filed a story Sunday. ''He actually blew up.''
Staffers for CNN and the Associated Press also witnessed the exchange.
The president's comments came just two days after three active FBI agents
-Roberta Parker,
Kevin Sheridan and Daniel Wehr - and one retired - 25- year veteran Ivian
Smith - told the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee that Laura Ingersoll, the former head of
Reno's task force,
blocked attempts in 1997 to question Clinton fund-raisers and seize documents.
Clinton scoffed at any suggestion that Reno is covering for him, or that
the White House is
colluding with her probe. He brushed aside the questions as ''accusatory.''
''We've spent $4 million and gave the (campaign- finance) task force
millions of records and
every shred of evidence,'' Clinton said, ''and they haven't found a thing.''
But in Wednesday's explosive testimony, Wehr swore that Ingersoll told the
agents they should
''not pursue any matter related to solicitation of funds for access to the
president.''
Also, 14-year veteran Parker said Ingersoll turned down a warrant she wrote
for possibly
incriminating documents at the Little Rock, Ark., offices of Clinton
fund-raiser and friend Yah
Lin ''Charlie'' Trie. Trie has pleaded guilty to breaking campaign-finance
laws in exchange for
no jail time.
The requested warrant included a mysterious FedEx package showing that 2
pounds of
documents had been sent by the White House to Trie on May 5, 1997 - just
two months before
the Senate's Chinagate hearings opened.
Agents also testified that the task force blocked them from getting
information from an informant
who claims seeing Trie toting in ''duffel bags full of cash'' for the DNC.
Parker told senators she kept a record of the FBI's disputes with the task
force in a spiral
notebook she uses for all cases. She turned it over to her FBI superiors.
When they returned it,
27 pages were missing, she says.
On Monday, GOP Sen. Fred Thompson, who heads the Senate Governmental
Affairs panel,
launched a separate probe into the missing pages. The panel plans to depose
both FBI and Justice
officials.
Ingersoll was replaced as task force leader in 1997 by Charles LaBella, who
left last year after
arguing for an independent counsel. LaBella said the American public knows
''only 1%'' of the
breadth of the Chinagate scandal.
Clinton would not say when he will hold his next formal press conference.
He's had fewer than
any recent president.
(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
Metadata: E/IBD E/SN1 E/FRT E/NISS
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