Altman Denies Lying to Senate, Hindering Probe : Whitewater: Embattled Treasury official says some of his past statements to Congress may have been ‘incomplete.’ Republicans challenge his truthfulness.

WASHINGTON —  Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, fighting to save his job amid mounting criticism of his role in the Whitewater affair, acknowledged Tuesday that some of his past statements to Congress may have been “incomplete” and misleading.

But in his long-awaited appearance at the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee’s Whitewater hearings, Altman continued to insist that he never intentionally lied to Congress and never sought to interfere with federal regulators investigating the failure of an Arkansas thrift owned by a business partner of the President and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I did not do it myself, and I am not aware of anyone else doing so,” Altman told the committee.

With Republican lawmakers angrily calling for his resignation--and even Democrats expressing reservations about his conduct--Altman passionately defended his reputation at what was the dramatic high point of the weeklong Senate and House hearings focusing on whether confidential information was improperly conveyed to the White House about an investigation in which the Clintons had been named as possible witnesses.

“I read that I have already been convicted and sentenced before a trial has even taken place,” Altman said of the GOP demands for his resignation, which have been multiplying in the wake of allegations that he misled the Senate Banking Committee in testimony Feb. 24 about the extent of the contacts that Treasury Department officials had about Whitewater with the White House since the previous September.

Altman admitted that his previous testimony appeared to him in retrospect to have been “too narrow or perhaps incomplete” and he said that, if he had “to do it over again, I would have added more information.”

But with the dramatic aid of a videotape, he sought to shift some of the blame for his earlier omissions on Treasury Counsel Jean Hanson, who sat behind Altman at the Feb. 24 hearing but failed to correct him even when she knew, according to her earlier testimony, that the answers he was giving were not complete.

Looking directly at his chief critic, New York Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, the Banking Committee’s ranking Republican, Altman said he “never intended to mislead” Congress and that D’Amato was flat “wrong” in questioning his veracity.

A close friend of Clinton since their college days together, Altman was also serving as acting head of the Resolution Trust Corp. last September, when federal regulators were examining allegations that federally insured deposits from the failed thrift, Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, had been illegally diverted to Whitewater, an Ozarks resort development that the Clintons owned jointly with James B. McDougal, Madison’s chairman.

Whitewater special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr., who has been investigating the Whitewater affair since January, has already concluded that White House and Treasury Department aides violated no criminal laws in the 40-odd meetings, phone calls and other discussions they had about Madison over a six-month period that began in the fall of last year, when the Whitewater affair was unfolding.

But citing damaging references to Whitewater in memoranda, diaries and notes kept by many of those involved in the discussions, D’Amato and others have alleged that the contacts nevertheless represented an attempt, in violation of RTC procedures, by Altman and other political appointees at Treasury to keep the White House informed of the status of the investigation.

Like other Administration officials who have testified before him, Altman stressed that neither he nor any one else at Treasury ever sought to interfere with the RTC investigation, which has since been turned over to Fiske.

To the “best of my knowledge,” no confidential information relating to the probe was ever imparted to the White House and no “criminal or civil aspects” of the case were ever “compromised, delayed or altered in any way,” Altman said.

But Altman’s recollection appeared at times to falter when it came to recalling disputed details of several events, and his explanation of why he gave seemingly misleading testimony at the Feb. 24 hearing was greeted with disbelief by Republicans and barely concealed skepticism by even many of the panel’s Democrats.

Asked pointedly about the discussions at the February hearing, Altman testified that there had been only one “substantive” contact--a Feb. 2 meeting at which he briefed White House officials on the RTC’s procedures for filing civil claims in the Madison case.

In fact, as other officials have since acknowledged, there had been as many as 40 meetings, telephone conversations and other Whitewater-related contacts in the months preceding Altman’s first appearance before the Banking Committee, including at least four involving Altman personally.

Most of the questions from skeptical senators on Tuesday centered on why Altman neglected to mention the other contacts when he testified in February. They also demanded to know why he failed to mention a key exchange during the Feb. 2 meeting when he informed White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum that he had decided to disqualify himself as acting RTC chief from further consideration of all Whitewater-related matters.

White House officials have since conceded that Nussbaum opposed the decision and after the meeting Altman seemed to waver, telling senior aides that he had decided “to sleep on it.” He finally announced his decision to disqualify, or recuse, himself on Feb. 25, a day after the Senate hearing.

Altman testified on Tuesday that he didn’t tell the senators about the decision or his conversation with Nussbaum because they never asked him about it.

“Had I been asked about recusal, I would have responded forthrightly,” he said. However, he added that he did not deem it relevant at the time because he had already made a “de facto” decision to recuse himself from Whitewater matters, rendering a formal recusal irrelevant. “Whether I recused myself or not would have had no impact on the case--none whatsoever,” Altman insisted.

Some of the most heated exchanges came when Altman disputed the Republicans’ assertions that he sought to conceal the extent of the Whitewater contacts he had had with White House officials before the Feb. 24 hearing.

“You did not tell the truth!” shouted Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) at one point. “Senator, I told the truth,” Altman responded in a voice edged with anger.

As the tone of the hearing turned more partisan, tempers flared between Democrats and Republicans when D’Amato pointedly accused Altman of lying to the committee about a meeting he had with White House Deputy Counsel Harold M. Ickes on Feb. 3, in which Altman informed Ickes of his decision not to immediately disqualify himself from matters relating to Madison.

But Democrats joined in the criticism of Altman’s insistence that he could “not recall” asking Hanson, the Treasury Department’s top lawyer, to tell the White House last September that nine RTC referrals mentioning the Clintons as potential witnesses were being forwarded to the Justice Department.

Hanson has said she relayed the information to Nussbaum at a Sept. 29 White House meeting because Altman had instructed her to do so. Her own credibility called into question on several counts, Hanson insisted during seven hours of grueling testimony on Monday that she did not know Nussbaum personally and would never have approached someone so high up in the White House on such a sensitive matter without Altman’s authorization.

Altman said he did not believe that he asked Hanson to brief Nussbaum, but indicated that she could have “mistakenly inferred” that she should do that.

Several Democrats found that explanation difficult to accept, however. “It’s hard to believe that counsel for the Treasury is going to wind up at the White House in such a meeting unless someone asked her to go,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told Altman pointedly.

“It’s clear that there is a discrepancy between your testimony and that of Ms. Hanson,” added Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), who likewise indicated that he was troubled by Altman’s answers.

Indeed, the daylong hearing served less to restore the luster to Altman’s tarnished credibility with the senators than it did to underscore the many discrepancies between his recollection of events and Hanson’s.

Hanson testified that she knew Altman was giving incomplete answers to the questions about the White House-Treasury contacts but was given no opportunity to correct him at the time.

However, a videotape of the hearing that was replayed on Tuesday showed that Altman turned to consult with Hanson after responding to a question about the contacts by saying that the only “substantive” one he was aware of was the Feb. 2 meeting to brief White House officials on RTC procedures.

The tape did not reveal what Altman whispered to Hanson, but it shows her a moment later vigorously shaking her head in the negative.

Altman indicated that she was confirming to him with that gesture that he had not omitted anything from his answer.

But while insisting he had testified truthfully, Altman acknowledged that he had made some mistakes in not disclosing more information--an error he blamed on his misunderstanding of some of the questions put to him at the earlier hearing.

However, his biggest mistake, he indicated, was in not disqualifying himself from the Whitewater case sooner. “In retrospect, I should perhaps have recused myself right off the bat and then some of this controversy would have been avoided,” he said.