Deposition Shows Gore in a Less Than Flattering Light
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday
July 8, 2000 ; A07
When prosecutors asked Vice President Gore about a fundraising
breakfast for Asian Americans at the Hay-Adams Hotel here in
February 1996, Gore had to resort to an old briefing paper before
he could remember that the guests included an old friend,
Democratic fundraiser Maria Hsia.
"What is your recollection of any conversation you had with Ms.
Maria Hsia at that event?" Gore was asked.
"I have none," the vice president said.
"Do you recall being seated at her table?"
"No, I don't," Gore said, "but I would have been glad to see her
and would have said, 'Hello, how are you?' But I don't have any
specific recollection of it."
In fact, as photos show, Hsia, who was recently convicted of
illegally raising $25,000 for the Democratic National Committee
at the breakfast, was seated right next to Gore. To his left was
another since-admitted fundraising felon, Pauline Kanchanalak.
Directly opposite the vice president at the breakfast table was a
third future felon, Charlie Trie.
That was not the only topic on which Gore's memory failed him at
the April 18 deposition conducted by the chief of the Justice
Department's campaign finance task force, Robert J. Conrad Jr.
Stung by Conrad's conclusion that an outside investigator is
needed to see if he was telling the truth that day, Gore last
month took the bold step of releasing the full transcript. "The
truth is my friend in this," he proclaimed.
Gore's strategy succeeded in quieting some of the initial
reaction to the disclosure that yet another Justice Department
official had urged the appointment of a special counsel. The
transcript did not offer any evidence of criminal activity or
even divulge much in the way of new facts. Gore communications
director Mark Fabiani said, "It's all information that's been
hashed and rehashed for the last four years." Even Gore's
opponents do not claim the session in itself could form a basis
for prosecution.
But the four-hour session also presents a less-than-flattering
portrait of the vice president for his critics to mine: Gore as a
Clintonian hairsplitter debating the meaning of words and
contesting conclusions that seem fairly clear, such as whether
the president's coffees at the White House were fundraising
efforts.
To Gore's critics, the deposition reinforces earlier images of
Gore seen during the campaign finance controversy--his assertion,
following the disclosure that he made fundraising calls from the
White House, that there was "no controlling legal authority" to
prevent them, or his seemingly picayune distinctions--repeated
during the April session--between events that are "community
outreach," "finance-related" or true fundraisers.
Republican National Committee communications director Clifford
May said that, by the GOP's count, "Gore claimed he couldn't
remember more than 80 times. I don't think anyone believes that
Al Gore has that faulty a memory."
Often, as the questions and answers show, the vice president,
known as a stickler for detail, waved off document after document
as something he never read.
At another point, Gore's lawyer had to correct him as to when he
actually learned that the famous luncheon at the Hsi Lai Buddhist
Temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., was a fundraiser.
Under questioning about the DNC's decision months later to start
sending back contributions raised in connection with the April
1996 event, Gore said this was when "I first found out that--that
it was a fundraiser." He repeated that point, or started to, when
his lawyer, James Neal, interrupted him.
"I thought you said previously you didn't, you still don't know
whether it was a fundraiser," Neal noted.
"Well, that's right," Gore said. "That is more accurate. Let
me, let me amend that. That was the first time that I learned it
was alleged to have been a fundraiser. And, again, I still do
not know that any funds, any money changed hands there."
Perhaps the most revealing exchange involved not the Buddhist
temple event but a series of questions about White House coffees.
Gore flatly denied ever having attended any White House coffees,
prompting a letter from his lawyer two days later saying that
Gore had played host to 21 of them in the Old Executive Office
Building and, records suggest, had attended four others at the
White House. (He actually attended nine others and played host
to two more in the White House Map Room.)
Gore, Neal explained, had not expected the coffees to be among
the topics and so was unprepared for that line of inquiry. "He
did not understand your question to include OEOB Coffees," Neal
added in the April 20 note to Conrad--referring to the Old
Executive Office Building, which is generally considered to be
part of the White House complex.
Indeed, Gore tried to leave the impression that that he had
nothing to do with the coffees at all. Asked what their purpose
was, he said, "They were for the president to meet with people
who were interested in supporting his policies and his politics.
But that was more or less on his side of the house, and I'm not
the best source of information about that."
A Feb. 26, 1996, briefing memo for Gore suggested more direct
involvement. One section on fundraising detailed the importance
of having the president and vice president personally involved.
"So we can raise the money--BUT ONLY IF--the President and I do
the events, the calls, the coffees, etc.," the memo states.
Gore said those weren't his words, but rather were a set of
talking points prepared by his chief of staff, Ron Klain, for
Gore to use at a meeting that he didn't think he attended. He
acknowledged that the memo generally reflected his views about
his and the president's fundraising potential, but he added:
"[T]he coffees were in a somewhat different category. . . .
I may have attended one. I don't know what the record reflects."
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee said that White House
officials held 103 coffees between January 1995 and August 1996,
including 23 that Gore held at the OEOB and at the White House
and four others that Tipper Gore held at their residence at the
Naval Observatory. Those attending the coffees gave $7.7 million
to the DNC within a month of the event, and 12 individuals gave
at least $100,000 "on or around the dates of the coffees they
attended."
Although White House and DNC officials later resisted using the
term "fundraiser" to describe the coffees, the Senate majority
report said, then-White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes
described them at the time, in messages to the president, as
"political/fundraising coffees."
Gore said he didn't see it that way. Gore said he had never
heard of them "described as fundraising tools." He said he
regarded them as "events that allowed the president to spend time
with influential people who wanted to talk about policy, who
would at some later time possibly be asked to financially support
the DNC."
In any case, Gore said, he did not remember taking part in any.
"Sitting here today, you don't have a concrete recollection of
your attendance at any particular coffee, is that correct?"
Conrad asked.
"No, I don't," the vice president replied. "This was on the
president's side of things. That's my memory and impression."
Trie told House investigators on Feb. 29 that DNC finance
officials informed him it would take "a $50,000 contribution to
the DNC" to attend a 1995 coffee with Clinton. He said he put up
the money for a Taiwanese businessman whose friends were anxious
to have him meet the president. Asked why he didn't go, too,
Trie said he didn't want to pay another $50,000.
Gore said he had "never heard" of a price tag and was "shocked"
by the idea.
Question: "You are not familiar with the cost of $50,000 being
the cost to attend . . . a coffee?"
Gore: "Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And it is my belief that
would have been considered wildly inappropriate, if not worse, by
those who talked about those coffees. . . . I would be
shocked if, if any of my colleagues who participated in the
meetings I was at, or any other meetings at the White House that
I was not at, thought of the coffees in that way."
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