Carla Hills Denies Any Ties to Scandal Plaguing HUD

WASHINGTON —  U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills, a former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, denied to a House panel today any link to the scandal plaguing the housing agency she once headed.

But she was questioned about her role representing a mortgage firm that has become a major player in the multibillion-dollar scandal.

Hills, a lawyer who was HUD secretary from 1975 to ’77 under President Gerald R. Ford, told a House Government Operations subcommittee that while representing clients before HUD after leaving the agency she rejected as improper a developer’s offer to pay her $1,000 per unit for helping get HUD approval for a 250-unit subsidized housing project.

In contrast, former Interior Secretary James G. Watt and other high-level former HUD officials and Republican political consultants earlier testified before the panel they got $1,000 per unit for helping developers win scarce HUD funds from the scandal-plagued moderate rehabilitation program.

Hills admitted appealing some HUD staff actions personally to HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., who served during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan Administration, or other top agency officials.

But she said all cases she argued before HUD officials were “on the merits, not on party affiliation, personal relationship or pecuniary interest.”

“When not able to obtain what I considered to be appropriate action at a lower level within HUD, I occasionally appealed to the appropriate higher level,” Hills said. “In each instance, I argued my client’s case strictly on the merits. And, as far as I know, the decisions were rendered strictly on the merits.

“As for the allegations of fraud and abuse that are the subject of this committee’s investigation, I have no personal knowledge.”

Hills, named earlier this year by President Bush to be the country’s trade representative, said she waited a year after leaving HUD to resume her law practice and that she never sought nor received special consideration from agency officials because she was a former HUD secretary.