From: http://news.excite.com/news/r/000625/15/campaign-gore Gore sees Bush's hand behind fund-raising leak Updated 3:29 PM ET June 25, 2000 By Alexander Ferguson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of presidential hopeful Al Gore hit back Sunday at allegations of illegal fund-raising that have hurt their candidate, saying George W. Bush's campaign may have orchestrated a damaging leak. Appearing on television talk shows, Gore's supporters said news that a Justice Department official had recommended a special counsel investigate whether Gore had lied under oath in an April 18 interview was timed for maximum political damage. "We still have yet to hear from the Bush campaign -- whether or not they were involved in moving out this story," said the vice president's adviser and former chief of staff Ron Klain. "It's a serious question I think they need to answer," he told CNN's "Late Edition" show. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter disclosed Thursday that Robert Conrad, who leads the Justice Department's campaign finance task force, had recommended to U.S. Attorney Janet Reno that the truthfulness of Gore's answers be probed by someone outside the department. Conrad's leaked recommendation could not have come at a worse time for Gore, who is trailing Bush in public opinion polls and has struggled to get his presidential campaign on track. Many of the questions in the April interview with a Justice Department prosecutor covered the campaign event that Gore attended at a Buddhist temple in California four years ago. The event raised more than $65,000 in illegal donations for the Democratic Party, but Gore has said he did not know it was a fund-raiser. "I'd like them (the Bush campaign) to come forward and say that when Senator Specter got this information, they didn't work with him on the release of it, they didn't coordinate the timing of it," Klain said. Republican presidential candidate Bush last week quickly seized on the disclosure to press one of his biggest campaign themes -- that Gore was fatally smeared by the scandals of the Clinton administration. In an attempt to contain the scandal, Gore released on Friday a sworn interview he gave the Justice Department in which he denied knowingly taking part in the illegal fund-raising event. But supporters of Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the Nov. 7 election, conceded that the latest revelation could damage their candidate. "Clearly having this debate while the vice president is trying to emphasize the prosperity of the country and where he wants to take the nation is not helpful," said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Robert Torricelli. "NOT FAIR" Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," he condemned the way the news emerged last week, saying it was a politically motivated leak that was "not fair to the vice president and not right in our electoral system". But Specter, while declining to disclose how he got the information of Conrad's recommendation for a special counsel probe, denied he was motivated politically in releasing it. The Pennsylvania Republican told ABC's "This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts" he may disclose how he got the information at future hearings on the scandal at which he hoped to have testimony from FBI Director James Freeh among others. The scandal surrounding Gore's 1996 appearance at the Buddhist temple has haunted him for the last four years and previous recommendations to hold an independent investigation have been turned down by Reno. Charles LaBella, himself a former leader of the Justice Department's campaign finance task force and who believed an independent counsel was the best solution, predicted that Reno would again turn the recommendation down. "I don't see her analysis changing," LaBella told CNN's "Late Edition". "I think she's going to focus on materiality, she's going to focus on motive and make the same conclusion that she made before." LaBella said the leak of the information could only have come from within the Justice Department. "Somebody obviously in the Department of Justice at a high level for some reason decided that this wasn't being fairly handled," he said. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html <A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
