Clinton Defends Political Donors’ White House Visits

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton declared on Tuesday that major political contributors get no more than a “respectful hearing” when they visit the White House and defended his practice of hosting them at a series of coffee receptions set up by the Democratic National Committee in 1995 and 1996.

“I can tell you categorically--no decisions came out of those coffees where I or anyone said: ‘This person is a contributor, see what you can do,’ ” Clinton said at a press conference during which he was peppered with questions about the continuing controversy over Democratic Party fund-raising practices in the recent campaign.

The president agreed that it was wrong for the nation’s top banking regulator to have been invited to a White House gathering for bankers arranged by the DNC, even as he defended his own participation in the event.

Clinton also said he did not “know anything” about the decision of an Indonesian firm that figures prominently in the fund-raising furor to hire Webster L. Hubbell, an old friend of his who quit the Justice Department in 1994 and has figured in the scandal surrounding the Whitewater land deal.

Still, he acknowledged problems in a campaign financing system that he said has outpaced reforms adopted 20 years ago and is open to abuse “because of the sheer volume of money that is raised today.”

“Anyone who is involved in politics must accept responsibility for this problem and take responsibility to repair it,” he said. “That is true for me and true for others as well.”

He reiterated his call for new reforms, a subject he began to emphasize late in his reelection campaign as initial questions about his party’s fund-raising activities were surfacing.

Yet even as Clinton sought to lessen the flak that he has taken over the issue, the potential political cost on Capitol Hill was becoming clear.

Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) indicated that the nomination of Alexis Herman as secretary of Labor would face scrutiny in the Senate because of her role, while serving as the White House director of public liaison, in setting up White House coffees for big Democratic donors.

“This latest information that has come out about arranging for meetings, appointments to the White House . . . gets awfully close to the edge of violating the Hatch Act,” Lott said, referring to a law barring government officials from political activities.

Meanwhile, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who will lead a congressional investigation into the fund-raising controversy, warned the White House that he is prepared to go to court if administration officials do not fully cooperate with his inquiry.

“The extent to which we can have a thorough, bipartisan investigation without many of the recriminations we have seen in the past is going to depend in large part upon the attitude of those in the White House and the executive branch,” Thompson said on the Senate floor.

At his press conference, Clinton said that well-heeled contributors enjoyed no special influence over policy decisions. “I never made a decision for anybody because they were contributors of mine,” he said, later adding: “Nobody buys a guaranteed result--nor should they ever.”

Clinton defended the White House coffees that included major donors to his party, saying that they were “a very good device” for a president to “keep in touch with the people.”

The Times reported this week that guests at those gatherings during 1995-’96 donated a total $27 million to the Democratic Party, prompting criticism that access to the White House essentially was for sale.

Clinton also noted that he has sat in on many other similar receptions at the White House that did not involve Democratic Party officials or donors.

But he agreed with criticism of the coffee klatch attended by more than a dozen bank executives and one federal regulator, Comptroller of the Currency Eugene A. Ludwig, who did not know that the Democratic Party had set up the event. “Regulators should not come to meetings . . . that have any kind of political sponsorship, I don’t think,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s response was more terse and defiant to a question about the relationship between Hubbell, his longtime friend from Arkansas, and the Lippo Group, an Indonesian-based conglomerate that figures prominently in Democratic Party fund-raising controversies.

Hubbell was a former Justice Department official who resigned and later pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion from his days as a lawyer in Little Rock, Ark. Lippo briefly hired Hubbell before he went to prison, paying him more than $200,000 for undisclosed responsibilities.

Asked Tuesday if there was anything unusual about the job arrangement, the president responded: “I knew nothing about [the hiring], none of us did, before it happened. And I didn’t personally know anything about it until I read about it in the press.”

In response to a question about speculation that the job was a way to purchase Hubbell’s silence on certain matters of interest to prosecutors investigating Clinton’s involvement in the failed Whitewater real estate deal and related matters, the president let loose some of his frustration over the catalog of embarrassing fund-raising tales that have created a cloud over the White House.

“I think when somebody makes a charge like that, there ought to be some burden on them to come forward with some evidence to substantiate their charge instead of saying: ‘We’ll make a charge--see if you can disprove it.’ That’s not the way things work. And that’s a pretty irresponsible charge to make without knowing, having some evidence of it.”

Republican critics also have asked whether Clinton changed his position on an immigration reform measure last year as a reward to Asian American donors to the Democratic Party and his own reelection campaign.

But Clinton also said: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with raising money for the political process.”

Tuesday night, in fact, he was the featured speaker at a Democratic Party fund-raiser expected to bring in about $1 million.

Times staff writer Mark Lacey contributed to this story.

* ARKANSANS AND ACCESS: Import-Export Bank attracts former Clinton associates. A12