Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 7, 1994 TAG: 9403070105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From Knight-Ridder Newspapers, The Associated Press and The New York
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Such rules appear to contradict Nussbaum's steadfast denial in his resignation letter that he acted unethically by meeting with Treasury officials about an investigation involving President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Any exceptions to those rules would have to be cleared by the White House counsel's office, senior administration officials said Sunday, acknowledging for the first time that such rules exist.
White House officials said Sunday they did not believe Nussbaum violated the rules. One official said that if Nussbaum was involved in the meetings, he must have cleared them, believing they were proper.
The White House insisted Sunday that there is no evidence of wrongdoing in the Whitewater affair and blamed Republican sniping for much of the furor that GOP Sen. Phil Gramm said is getting President Clinton "deeper in a hole" that threatens his presidency.
Three top administration officials - Vice President Al Gore, Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and White House adviser George Stephanopoulos - appeared on Sunday news programs to say that while mistakes have been made, the White House is cooperating fully in the investigation.
They said Republicans are trying to exploit the issue because of the successes of the president's programs and his rising popularity.
"What would you do if you were in the opposition and you saw an opportunity to make a dent in this growing popularity?" Gore said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Of course you would try to exploit it."
But Republicans charged that the administration was involved in a cover-up with overtones of Watergate.
"Richard Nixon turned a third-rate burglary into a constitutional crisis by not leveling, by interfering with the investigation," Gramm, R-Texas, said on ABC.
"If the president wants to serve this term out, he is going to have to begin by leveling with the American people," Gramm said. Clinton "is getting deeper in a hole."
McLarty, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," said he didn't think the Clintons were aware of the meetings between White House officials and investigators.
Nussbaum's ethics rules appear to be similar to longstanding codes of conduct used by previous administrations that prohibit contacts between White House staffers and agencies involved in regulations or pending investigations. The rules stress the need to avoid "the appearance of impropriety," one administration official said.
Nussbaum, 57, is the highest-ranking administration official to be forced from power and the first to fall over the federal investigation into the Clintons' involvement in a real estate venture in Arkansas.
On three separate occasions, from September to February, Nussbaum and other White House senior officials met privately with Treasury officials who had been briefed on the status of the Resolution Trust Corp.'s investigation of the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.
The RTC is an agency charged with cleaning up the financial mess caused by failures of savings and loans. The Clintons and James McDougal, Madison's owner, were partners in Whitewater.
Friday, the FBI subpoenaed 10 White House and Treasury aides, ordering them to testify Thursday before a federal grand jury.
Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Sunday that he would "take a look" at holding hearings on the contacts between White House and Treasury officials over the investigation. Appearing on ABC-TV, Rostenkowski became the first Democratic committee chairman to show willingness to consider a public airing of the controversy.
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by CNB