Clinton’s Pick for Atty. Gen. Pays INS Fine

Atty. Gen.-designate Zoe Baird and her husband paid a civil penalty of $2,900 to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on Saturday in connection with their hiring as household help a South American couple living here illegally, a spokesman for President-elect Bill Clinton said.

While Clinton aides said they consider the matter resolved, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will weigh Baird’s confirmation, has begun its own investigation. And there was speculation Saturday that some Republican members of the committee might seek to have her confirmation hearing, now set for Tuesday, delayed to give them more time to review her FBI background report, which was delivered to the panel Friday.

However, Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said Saturday that he still expects Baird to be confirmed and praised her “otherwise outstanding record.”

And the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, said Saturday that he would oppose any move to delay the confirmation hearing, reiterating his support for Baird.

“She’s as straight A shooter as I’ve seen--very intelligent, an excellent nominee,” Hatch said.

In addition to having violated immigration laws, which bar the hiring of illegal residents, Baird and her husband, Yale University law professor Paul D. Gewirtz, also failed to pay Social Security taxes for the couple, who worked as a baby sitter and a chauffeur from 1990 to 1992.

The couple no longer works for Baird and Gewirtz. The man left in March, and the woman left after the presidential election.

Baird and Gewirtz made a lump sum payment of about $12,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest shortly after Baird was appointed by Clinton to become the nation’s first female attorney general.

In Saturday’s statement announcing payment of the $2,900, fine, George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communications director, said: “(Baird) deeply regrets the mistakes she has made in this matter. We are pleased the matter is now resolved. President-elect Clinton has complete confidence in Zoe Baird, whose disclosures in the matter have been forthright from the beginning, and he looks forward to her confirmation and service as attorney general of the United States.”

After she was appointed by Clinton, Baird voluntarily disclosed to both the Judiciary Committee and the FBI that she had hired the couple illegally.

Still, the controversy has cast a cloud over Baird’s appointment, with one leading House Republican, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, calling on Clinton to withdraw her nomination.

Baird, whose job would involve overseeing the INS, told Clinton transition officials that she believed hiring the couple was legal because she was sponsoring their application for citizenship.

She said she also believed, based on legal advice, that she was not required to pay the Social Security tax because the couple were not citizens.

Baird, who was general counsel at Aetna Life & Casualty Co. in Hartford, Conn., and Gewirtz hired the Peruvian woman to care for their 3-year-old son and hired her husband to chauffeur Baird from their New Haven home to her job.

Baird also has come under criticism from some public interest and advocacy groups that have said she lacks sufficient experience in the types of issues likely to come before the Justice Department and seems to favor corporate interests over employees’ civil rights.