Clinton Criticized for Dropping Wood : Cabinet: Judge didn’t deserve to lose bid for attorney general over her hiring of a baby-sitter, lawmakers say. White House says judgment was political, not legal.

Congressional leaders on both sides of the immigration debate suggested Saturday that President Clinton acted too quickly in abandoning Judge Kimba M. Wood as his leading choice for attorney general because she hired an illegal immigrant as a baby-sitter seven years ago.

But top White House officials rejected the criticism, saying that Wood never had a lock on the job and that it is Clinton’s prerogative “to make the . . . call about who he wants” as his attorney general. Another Administration official added: “If she had given us all the facts at the start, her nomination would have never gone further.”

The comments suggested that the White House has grown much more sensitive to public reaction on the issue of hiring illegal immigrants in the weeks since the appointment of Zoe Baird, Clinton’s initial nominee for attorney general, was scuttled during an outpouring of public criticism of her illegally employing a Peruvian couple.

In Baird’s case, Clinton was aware that she had hired the Peruvians but chose to push ahead for her nomination, until congressional backing collapsed. Support for Wood, who was never nominated by Clinton, was difficult to gauge Saturday. But it was clear she enjoyed the backing of congressional leaders in both houses who are closely aligned with immigration issues.

The distinction, those leaders said, was that Wood legally hired her baby-sitter in 1986, before a new immigration law took effect that for the first time prohibited employers from knowingly hiring undocumented workers. The law provided a continuing exemption for workers hired before the act took effect.

Among those who came to Wood’s defense Saturday were Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), two of the principal architects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), a conservative who touched off protests last year when he generically referred to illegal immigrants as “Pedro,” also said he believes Wood was treated unfairly.

Wood “was as honest and true as an arrow,” Simpson said. “She did nothing wrong. She did everything right under the law of the United States at that time. Yet in this town, perception is everything. . . . I’ll bet you a buck the American people would have understood” the difference between the conduct of Wood and Baird.

But a Clinton aide said the President’s judgment was not based on whether Wood followed the letter of the law. “It’s not a legal judgment, it’s a political judgment.”

In addition, Administration officials said they were disturbed by Wood’s failure to immediately reveal the circumstances under which she hired her baby-sitter. The issue came to the White House’s attention only on Thursday, after Wood turned over household financial records and after she had three times denied that she had any problems involving illegal immigrants, according to Administration sources.

“It’s a question of disclosure,” one official said. “You expect your appointees to give you all the facts.”

Wood pulled out just two weeks after Baird’s nomination died because Baird had illegally hired the Peruvian couple but also had failed until recently to pay their required Social Security taxes.

In a further coincidence Saturday, another lawyer whose name had been floated as a potential candidate for attorney general acknowledged that he had failed to pay Social Security taxes for a 71-year-old woman who works in his home.

Charles F. C. Ruff, a former Watergate special prosecutor and former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said he recently paid about $3,300 in back Social Security taxes and several hundred dollars in unemployment taxes on behalf of a legal U.S. resident who has worked in his home for the past eight or nine years. Ruff said he mistakenly believed he was not required to pay the taxes because his employee was over retirement age. He said he inquired into the matter only after the Baird controversy arose.

A Times survey of Cabinet officials, Senate leaders, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducts hearings on nominees for attorney general, and the California congressional delegation failed to turn up any officials who said they had knowingly hired undocumented workers after the 1986 immigration reform law went into effect.

Simpson, for example, said that he and his wife, Ann, “take care of all their household chores themselves.” An aide to Secretary of State Warren Christopher said he and his wife have had “no regular domestic help” at their Coldwater Canyon home in Beverly Hills. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy has “never had domestic help,” a spokesman said.

An aide to Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said her boss has never hired illegal immigrants. And Walt Riker, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), said only one immigrant works for his boss. “Only me,” Riker said. “I’m from Mars.”

Rohrabacher quipped: “If you’d ever seen the condition of the place where I’ve been living for the past few years, you’d never ask me” about domestic employees.

Jack Devore, an aide to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, said the former rancher has never violated any immigration laws. He added, however, that “if you go back far enough in the mists of time, you weren’t required to ask” if workers were in the country legally.

The conservative Washington Times reported last week that liberal California Sen. Barbara Boxer had hired at least one illegal immigrant to work at her Marin County home. But on Saturday, a Boxer aide told The Times that Boxer had not hired undocumented workers and had contracted with private companies for housecleaning and gardening. The law does not require those who employ private contractors to inquire about the immigration status of their workers.

A spokesman for Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said he would not answer the question, at least on a weekend.

Berman refused to disclose information about his domestic hiring practices.

In addition, The Times reached aides to Education Secretary Richard W. Riley, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros, Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and Director of Management and Budget Leon E. Panetta. The Times also placed calls to the offices of all 54 members of the California congressional delegation and received responses from 15. All said they had never knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress said Saturday that the White House should have kept Wood’s name in consideration despite the baby-sitter issue.

Rohrabacher, who sought to block illegal immigrants from receiving welfare payments and other benefits, said he believes Wood was not treated fairly “because it appears that she has gone out of her way to do everything legally. . . .

“I think asking Wood to withdraw was an overreaction on the part of the Administration,” the congressman said. “You can’t blame someone for doing something that they are permitted to do by law. . . . I think she was a very good nominee.”

Berman, who seldom agrees with Rohrabacher, appeared to find common ground in the Wood case.

“Kimba Wood never broke the law. So what’s the standard here?” Berman asked. “If she was otherwise qualified to be attorney general, the fact that prior to 1986 she hired somebody who was in undocumented status I don’t find troubling.”

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), a liberal who chairs the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, said Wood was “a victim of the Zoe Baird syndrome, and I am sorry this happened. I think she would be an excellent attorney general.”

One note of dissent was sounded by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who, like Rohrabacher, has been a critic of illegal immigration. “It’s legal to stand by on the street and watch people rob banks and not go and turn them in,” Gallegly said. “When you are considering someone for the highest legal office in the land, you expect a little higher standard.”

Times staff writers James Bornemeier, Karen Tumulty, Gebe Martinez, Alan Miller, Ron Ostrow, John Broder, Doyle McManus and Art Pine contributed to this story.