Bush Confronted by Wright on His Call for Inquiry

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) vigorously complained to Vice President George Bush at a private congressional supper Wednesday night about Bush’s call for an independent counsel to probe the Speaker’s financial affairs, according to Wright and sources familiar with the conversation.

Wright said Thursday that he told Bush that he had often defended him in the past and that “I really was surprised and hurt that he gratuitously” brought Wright into the campaign by calling for a special counsel’s investigation. Wright called Bush’s statements “personal and unnecessary.”

“I really don’t think it enhanced him any,” Wright said. “I don’t think it built his stature any.”

Informal Supper

The face-off between Wright, among the most powerful Democrats in the capital, and Bush, who next week becomes the Republican presidential nominee, occurred at an informal members-only supper sponsored annually by the House gymnasium. Bush, a former House member who claims Texas as his adopted home state, was invited and has attended the event in the past.

Campaigning in New Jersey on May 25, Bush called for a special counsel to investigate Wright and vowed: “We’re going to go after the Congress hard” on ethics issues. Congress has exempted itself from the law that provides for the naming of special counsels to investigate charges against Executive Branch officials.

The Speaker, who is being investigated by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, said Bush responded that “he was sorry if I felt that way; he didn’t mean it in any personal sense.” Wright also said he “definitely” got the impression that Bush would refrain from using the issue again in the campaign.

Sheila Tate, campaign press secretary for Bush, said the vice president did not agree with Wright’s characterization of the conversation, but he was unwilling to respond specifically.