
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 7, 1994                   TAG: 9403080024
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEEPER INTO WHITEWATER

WITH EVERY new revelation, the Clinton administration's handling of the Whitewater affair looks worse. A bonfire of legal records on the White House lawn could hardly do more to fuel suspicions that the president has something to hide. Perhaps White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum's resignation will help. Perhaps it won't. Anyway, he had to go.

In addition to inviting his attorney's departure last week, Clinton ordered his staff not to meet with Treasury Department officials about the status of the Resolution Trust Corp.'s investigation of Madison Guaranty, an Arkansas savings and loan that failed while Clinton was governor. Also, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Altman has recused himself from the RTC inquiry.

All good moves. Though not accused of any wrongdoing, Bill and Hillary have been named as possible beneficiaries of illegal activities by Madison Guaranty. It's hard to believe the president's men were so lacking in common sense about conflicts of interest that they had to be told not to confer with officials overseeing the investigation.

Last month, the public learned that Altman had briefed Nussbaum and other aides about the probe. Altman has been acting head of the RTC, an independent regulatory agency that investigates and shuts down insolvent thrifts.

Last week, in what proved the last straw for Nussbaum, it was revealed he also had met with Treasury's top lawyer. They reportedly discussed the RTC's referral to the Justice Department of information suggesting possible criminal activity connected with Madison. Such referrals are supposed to be strictly confidential; a chummy briefing hardly conveys arm's-length independence.

The Clintons insist they are guiltless in Whitewater (so named because their business partner in the failed Whitewater real-estate development company was also Madison Guaranty's owner). They insist that a Clinton-appointed regulator did not give the S&L special treatment because of its owner's connections with the governor; that Madison did not convert Clinton's campaign funds to his personal use; that Hillary Clinton's law firm did not deal improperly with thrift regulators or the savings and loan; that there is no cause for suspicion in Nussbaum's removal of White House aide Vincent Foster's Whitewater files from his office, just after his suicide and before investigators arrived.

The hope is that the special prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department will get to the bottom of all this. The irony is that nothing thus far revealed comes close to demonstrating wrongdoing. Indeed, it is hard to understand quite what the fuss is about - except that, if the Clintons have nothing to hide, they aren't acting like it.

With the "fire wall" Clinton says he has now installed between his aides and independent investigations, perhaps the administration can get on with pressing affairs of state. Let's hope so.

Alfonse D'Amato, a U.S. senator from New York with enough ethical lapses, confirmed and suspected, to make his continuation in office a joke, used his position as ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee to elicit Altman's admission of his meeting with Nussbaum. It's not a good sign that the Clinton White House can make D'Amato look like a moral crusader.

by CNB