FRONT PAGE STORIES - Page A1

BEIJING, PRC - The Foreign Ministry said it hoped 'rumours' of illegal Chinese contributions to US political campaigns would not spoil the long-anticipated state visit by Vice-President Al Gore in less than two weeks.

Ministry spokesman Cui Tiankai advised the Vice-President to ignore media critics and 'come to have a look at China. I think our bilateral ties should not be affected by rumours,' Mr Cui said.

'There have been rumours in the American press that China did this or that, but eventually these will all prove to be untrue. China has dismissed the accusation as slander, he insisted.

'We do not have the money to support US political parties. We'd like to have a normal relationship with the US Congress."' said Mr Cui.

Mr Gore is to arrive in Beijing on March 24 for closed-door talks scheduled before allegations of wrongdoing were raised involving Chinese campaign contributions.

Mr Gore is to spend four days in China as the most senior US administration official to visit the mainland since 1992.

WASHINGTON DESK - On Monday the White House revised its version of why a briefing given to two White House National Security Council staffers by an FBI official on June 3 was not shared at the time with Clinton or other top administration officials. On Tuesday the White House depicted the flap as an error by the FBI. Today the White House says the controversy may have resulted from a 'misunderstanding.'

On Monday night, after the FBI denial had been widely published, White House spokesman Michael McCurry changed his story. He had said the two NSC officials who received the briefing were '... adamant in recalling specifically that they were urged not to disseminate the information outside the briefing room.' As a result, he said, the FBI statement was 'in error.'

But by yesterday, the White House has offered another version of the facts leaving open the liklihood that at least one member of Clinton's staff did inform him of the Chinese attempt to subvert the election.

After a flurry of questions at McCurry's regular morning briefing for reporters, the White House counsel's office issued a statement saying that 'only one of the two' NSC staffers recalled being asked to keep secret the information about alleged Chinese government efforts to funnel campaign contributions to members of Congress.

President Clinton's denials during his press conference Monday suggests a lack of truthfullness. He did say he wasn't briefed by FBI on Chinese campaign contributions. As it now stands, when Clinton told reporters he should have been briefed by the FBI but that he was left out of the loop, appears to be contradicted by the current White House position on what the president knew and when he knew it.

Clinton comments were publicly aired over radio and television stations monitoring a joint White House news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak when questioning quickly shifted from the Israeli decision to construct housing in East Jerusalem. Clinton was also forced to publicly defended a U.S. veto last Friday of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel's action.

As if to quell mounting interest in what the president knew, and when he knew it, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that in June 1996, two National Security Council officials were briefed by FBI agents about 'allegations of Chinese attempts to funnel money to congressional campaigns.'

Avoiding the obvious implications of his incompetent leadership role in the debacle, Clinton claimed basic 'ignorance' of the facts which his staff failed to pass on to him. Ironically, the president did admit his responsibility for knowing such information, when he said he should have known, 'Yes!' He calmly looked into the CNN television camera, and said 'I believe I should have known.' Then, as if retracting what he had just said,he went on 'No, I didn't know.' And as if reading from a prepared statement, he told an incredulous American public, 'If I had known I would have asked the national security advisor and the chief of staff to look at the evidence and make whatever recommendations were appropriate.'

Attempting to take the edge off the shocking disclosure about the failure of the early-warning of possible Chinese efforts to subvert the presidential election in November 1996, McCurry said 'The FBI requested that the information not be disseminated up the higher chain of command in the White House.'

However, following president Clinton's Monday news conference, the FBI released its statement contradicting Clinton and McCurry's claim. 'The FBI placed no restrictions whatsoever on the dissemination up the chain-of-command at the NSC on any information provided to the NSC senior staff by the FBI during the June 3, 1996 briefing,' the written statement read.

White House press secretary Mike McCurry attempted to deflect criticism from the White House to the FBI when he told the press corps that Clinton's NSC staff were instructed by the FBI to withhold the information from the president.

Revelations that the FBI gave classified briefings to members of Clinton's NSC staff didn't appear to be a credible defense. Clinton's denials don't hold water in view of circmstances under which the FBI alert took place. The FBI timing coincided with the president's accelerating of political fund raising actiivities. All this was taking place in the White House when there were millions of dollars coming in to the Clinton-Gore Campaign from shadowed Chinese contributors. This, inspite of the FBI warning that China was trying to influence American elections and members of Congress with political campaign contributions.

Before the FBI issued its press release Monday, the president said that he should have been told by the FBI about the agency's suspicions. 'It didn't happen. It should have happened. It was a mistake,' Clinton said.

In the FBI statement released later Monday afternoon the agency wrote: 'The FBI placed no restriction whatsoever on the dissemination up the chain-of-command at the NSC on any information provided to the NSC senior staff by the FBI during the June 3, 1996 briefing.'

The FBI statement clearly implicated senior Clinton officials who were contacted and briefed about the possible covert activities of a foreign government in the United States. One of the people receiving the briefing was an FBI agent detailed to the NSC.

Government sources have fingered the two key players. One is an FBI detailee, Edward J. Appel. The other NSC staffer is Rand Beers. The Washington Post reported Monday that when it contacted Appel, he declined to comment on the matter. Beers could not be reached for comment.

During his news conference on Monday, Clinton depicted the staff as keeping him in the dark about the FBI alert. He then shifted tense, without further explanation, as he stunned his listeners with the words: 'I absolutely did not know it was done.'

The president said on Monday that his legal counsel, Charles F.C. Ruff, and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, have been directed to find out more about why '... the FBI alert to NSC staff was not passed along to the White House.'

The disclosures prompted a new round of calls by Republicans for a special prosecutor to look into campaign finance abuses.

'I thought maybe we had seen the worst part some time ago, but I think it could get worse,' Senator John McCain(R) told reporters over the week-end.

Senator Orrin Hatch(R), who also wants a special prosecutor appointed, suggested that if members of Congress were warned, the White House ' ...certainly had to be warned, too. And if that's true, that makes these charges or these allegations even more serious than before.'

WASHINGTON DESK - First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had knowledge in February, 1995, of the intention by White House officials to create a computer system to coordinate information on Democratic political and financial supporters of President Bill Clinton with official activities at the White House, documents reveal.

For example, White House memoranda show that on Feb. 28, 1995, Hillary Clinton was present and participated in a White House training session on how to use the software to run the database of information on early financial and political supporters of the president, White House events, 'state directors' associated with the Clinton campaign, and White House telephone banks.

In January, the first lady was defensive about her involvement in the design and operation of the computer when the plan by White House officials was concocted to create a campaign database with taxpayer money.

'I'm not aware of any specific uses and I would doubt if I was the person who ordered it,' she said. 'I certainly thought the White House needed a computer database. But the design of it, the use of it, that was for other people to figure out. I didn't know anything about that.'

However, White House computer expert Erich Vaden wrote in a Feb. 27, 1995, memo to Marsha Scott, a deputy assistant to the president, that 'the first lady has set up an appointment to see the software tommorrow at 11:45.'

Then in a March 2nd follow-up memo, Vaden wrote to Scott that 'during the demo, the first lady mentioned that she would like to see the Miles Rubin rapid response list in the database.' That was a reference to a political telephone call list developed by Rubin, longtime Clinton fund raiser.

The information, coming as the president and Vice President Al Gore face embarrassing disclosures concerning their fund-raising activities, raises new questions about the administration's truthfulness in response to allegations that it ignored warnings from its own attorneys and illegally employed public resources for political purposes.

'Using the White House and taxpayer-funded resources for partisan politics cheapens and demeans the office of the presidency,' Rep. David M. McIntosh(R) said yesterday. McIntosh is chairman of the House oversight subcommittee that has been investigating the $1.7-million political database.

The creation of the 'Big Brother' taxpayer-financed database on the White House computer has been described by the designer of it as a key to president Clinton's plan to track donors and their White House access as Clinton smoozed them for more political contributions to his re-election campaign, according to memoranda just obtained.

The revelations were found in document data that had been witheld from congressional investigators for the past year but turned over uncensored late Monday afternoon.

The White House has repeatedly said the database was used solely for official purposes, Using the government 'Big Brother' database for political fund raising purposes would be illegal.

'This is the president's idea and it is a good one,' says one memo by White House aide Marsha Scott entitled 'Early Supporter Outreach Proposal.' It recommended as the No. 2 goal that the names of donors be placed in the White House database. 'As these supporters are identified and located, the president has asked that they be included in White House social functions as well as policy briefings,' Scott wrote on Nov. 1, 1994, noting that Clinton wanted it to be 'an immediate effort.'

What were they after? Among the goals of president Clinton's 'outreach effort' Scott wrote was to 'recreate the primary campaign structure' and to identify 'all those folks who we will be working with in '96.'

An AP story on Tuesday reported that White House spokesman Barry Toiv said Monday night tried to depict the situation with this explanation '...the passages in the memo do not contradict his earlier assertions that the database was used legally.The database was used entirely for official purposes. There is no information to suggest otherwise.'

He said the donors whose information was in the database were just a small portion of the overall data. But he clarified his remarks with the admission that 'Clearly, in some of these memos the database is envisioned as a way of inviting people, in this case supporters, to events at the White House.'

Congressman David McIntosh(R) chairman of the House subcommittee investigating the database, said the White House had submitted earlier versions of the memos with large redacted portions in them. He said the earlier deletions from the memos were part of 'effort to cover up' a key intention for the database.

He called the new information the 'clearest evidence we have that the White House, from the beginning, was intending to use the White House database to keep track of its donors and help the campaign.'

Scott's memo, obtained by the AP on Monday, suggested that the White House needed to take on such an effort because the Democratic National Committee had failed to develop the system in the private sector.

'There is very little outreach to early supporters coming from the DNC,' Scott wrote in a memo on the eve on Democrats' painful 1994 election losses. 'Until they are better organized and can do more, the need is there and the job must be done.'

Clearly the goal of the effort, that memo said, was to 'recreate the primary campaign in addition to using DNC-campaign records.' Another was to 'identify by March 1, 1995, key financial and political folks who will work with us in '96.'

The memo was written to then-White House deputy chiefs of staff Harold Ickes and Erskine Bowles. Bowles now is chief of staff.

Late last month, Clinton admitted that he authorized his aides to bring donors into the White House for coffee klatches and overnight stays as a way of encouraging them to support him in 1996.

But the White House continues to maintain that the White House database project - which cost at least $600,000 in taxpayer funds - was not for political purposes or used to assist the campaign.

The database, included information on more than 200,000 donors, supporters, friends, lawmakers, dignitaries and news journalists.

The notes proposed that the database and outreach effort be used to 'coordinate-centralize the services provided to early supporters out of the White House,' which included dining in the White House mess and invitations to social events.

The Scott memo suggested that, among other things, the White House provide information about 'pending personnel issues of import to early supporters' and to assist the DNC in starting a monthly fax operation 'providing information about our activities and accomplishments.'

COMMENT

---

The Daily Republican Online
© 1994-1996 HTML Tahoe Web Press.
All rights reserved.