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

DATE: MONDAY, January 10, 1994                   TAG: 9401100125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By The Boston Globe
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SENATOR SUGGESTS PROSECUTOR

Sen. Patrick Moynihan of New York on Sunday became the first prominent Democrat to join Republicans in calling for a special prosecutor in the Whitewater case involving President Clinton's finances.

Moynihan, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who could make or break the administration's effort to overhaul health care, said mounting questions about the president's and Hillary Rodham Clinton's investment during the 1980s in Whitewater Development Corp. were diverting attention from the president's congressional agenda.

"Do it. Do it," he said about appointing a special prosecutor. "Come on. Get on with other things."

Whitewater has become the focus of a Justice Department investigation into Madison Guarantee Savings & Loan, a failed thrift institution owned by one of the Clintons' partners in Whitewater, James McDougal.

Republicans have called on Attorney General Janet Reno to turn the investigation over to a special prosecutor to avoid a possible conflict of interest.

Democrats have complained that the White House has botched its damage control of the matter.

Moynihan stressed that he felt Clinton had "nothing to hide" and was an "honorable man." But the senator's comments stunned the White House, which has in recent days begun a counteroffensive by saying that only Republicans are interested in Whitewater.

Also on Sunday, Vice President Al Gore asserted that no special prosecutor was necessary.

"There has been no specific allegation of criminal wrongdoing," Gore said. "What there has been is a series of political attacks."

by CNB