Ex-Reagan Aide’s Advice on Deaver Hit : Assisted Probe While Discussing Possible Job, Congressmen Say

WASHINGTON —  Former White House counsel Fred F. Fielding showed the same ethical insensitivity as Michael K. Deaver by discussing possible employment with Deaver’s lobbying firm while helping investigate Deaver, several congressmen said today.

Fielding, questioned for nearly three hours by members of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, was “insensitive to the differences of serving in government and serving after government,” Rep. Thomas A. Luken (D-Ohio) told reporters after the closed hearing.

Fielding, now a private attorney, was questioned about letters he sent to the Office of Government Ethics that gave advice favorable to Deaver, who was being investigated about his role as a lobbyist for Canada.

Timing of Letters Studied

The panel was looking into whether Fielding wrote the letters while discussing possible employment with an executive of Michael K. Deaver & Associates.

“He has shown by the letters . . . a great insensitivity, which places him in the same category as Mr. Deaver,” Luken said.

“He was not responsive, he was not doing his job” of properly advising the ethics office, Luken said.

One letter Fielding wrote was dated Feb. 28, the day after he had lunch with William Sittman, vice president of Deaver’s lobbying firm. Deaver has acknowledged that Sittman and Fielding discussed the work of the Washington-based public relations firm.

Offering of Job Denied

Fielding, who declined to talk to reporters today, and Deaver have both denied that a job offer was ever made.

But Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.) said “in that lunch there was a remark concerning employment.”

“I get the impression that in some of these cases people skipped Common Sense 101 in school,” said Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Mr. Fielding certainly did. I think the President was poorly served.”

Wyden said he got the impression that “cash-it-in cronyism” was governing the behavior of some former Reagan Administration officials.