Gingrich Seeks Hearings on Brown’s Complex Finances : Politics: GOP pressure on commerce secretary over ethical questions mounts. Many expected him to head the President’s ’96 campaign.

Turning up the political heat on Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday called for congressional hearings into Brown’s complex financial affairs.

The Georgia Republican’s call for hearings on Brown’s finances and whether he has disclosed enough about them marked the fifth step in recent weeks by GOP leaders to direct attention to the ethics of the man who many were expecting would head President Clinton’s reelection campaign next year.

“I think there should be hearings . . . and we ought to get the record out,” Gingrich told reporters at his daily news briefing. But he added that “I don’t know enough on the surface” to pass judgment on Brown’s financial activities.

The simmering controversy involves Brown’s business activities chiefly in communications and investments before he joined the Cabinet in early 1993. Questions have been raised about a large buyout he received from a former business partner, Nolanda Hill, when he severed his connections with their Washington-based First International Communications Corp., which owned television properties and was involved in investment banking.

The buyout included Hill’s repayment of a $190,000 loan for which Brown was responsible, and which she made while defaulting on a $26-million obligation to the government by another of her companies.

Critics have charged that Brown failed to report accurately and fully the financial benefits he received from his former partner. Hill was a political fund-raiser when Brown served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Others have criticized Brown for waiting until December, 1993--nearly a year after taking the Commerce post--to divest himself of his interest in First International. But Brown has denied that there was any conflict with his government duties, saying the department’s ethics officer had cleared him to retain his holdings.

His divestiture came after disclosure that Corridor Broadcasting Inc., another of Hill’s firms, had failed to repay a $26-million debt to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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In response to Gingrich’s remarks, White House spokeswoman Ginny Terzano said: “Secretary Brown is a valued member of the President’s economic team and the President has high confidence in his work. Secretary Brown has been forthcoming in providing information to Congress and if Mr. Gingrich has legitimate questions I’m sure the secretary will continue to be forthcoming.”

Twenty-two House Republicans had written Clinton on Thursday demanding that he fire Brown. Other moves have also been made by the GOP-controlled Congress.

Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, announced last month that his staff has begun an investigation of Brown’s affairs. In addition, Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) has asked the FDIC to investigate whether Hill violated agency rules in helping Brown settle an $87,000 loan from the National Bank of Washington, which wound up in the hands of the FDIC after the bank failed.

Late last month, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said she was reviewing a letter from 14 Republican senators asking her to recommend appointment of an independent counsel to look into Brown’s affairs.