RTC Nominee Asked for File on Longtime Acquaintance

While awaiting Senate confirmation, President Clinton’s nominee to oversee the government’s savings and loan cleanup requested confidential investigative documents involving a Florida thrift executive he has known for years.

The ethics rules for the Resolution Trust Corp., the S&L; cleanup agency, mandate that all agency employees avoid even the “appearance of conflicts of interest” by recusing themselves from cases involving individuals they know.

In an Aug. 20 memo, obtained by Associated Press, RTC president-designate Stanley Tate asked the agency’s top lawyer to provide him a detailed status report on the investigations and lawsuits against Miami-based Centrust Savings.

“In order to better understand how the RTC initiates and manages action against directors, officers and professional firms, I would like to use the Centrust case as a starting point,” Tate’s memo said.

Tate requested details on “suits against individuals and professional firms” and said in the memo that he recognized that “some of this information may be privileged and confidential.”

“I would be willing to sign a confidentiality agreement,” Tate wrote in the memo to RTC acting general counsel Richard T. Aboussie.

Tate, whose nomination is pending before the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview with AP that he decided not to read the material after he received it because the package was marked “private and confidential.”

“It was just sent back,” he said.

He said his relationship with former Centrust President David Paul had no bearing on his request.

“I would never involve myself in something privileged,” Tate said. “I’ve tried very hard not to interfere in policy matters or deal with things like that before I am confirmed.”

Paul, a Florida banker and developer, goes on trial Wednesday in Miami on criminal charges that he diverted $3.2 million in Centrust money for his personal use, falsified his tax returns and lied to federal regulators.

The RTC still has pending litigation involving Paul and Centrust, whose failure cost taxpayers $1.7 billion.

Tate said he knows Paul primarily because the two served together during the mid-1980s on the board of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.

But two sources familiar with Tate’s previous service on an RTC regional advisory board in Florida said Tate once organized a luncheon for his board colleagues at Paul’s office.

One said Tate also talked about eating lunch with Paul on a weekly basis. Both spoke on condition they not be named.

A former RTC official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tate also attended--as a spectator--an RTC hearing against Paul this spring in Florida.

In the interview, Tate declined to say whether he had attended RTC proceedings involving Paul.

“I’ve been involved in so many RTC activities,” he said. “Why don’t you fixate on some of the good things that I’ve done?”

He denied eating lunch with Paul on a regular basis and said his dealings with the Centrust head have been limited to occasional get-togethers involving their service on the hospital board and other charitable endeavors.

“I’ve never gone out socially with him, and I’m not his friend,” Tate said. “I’ve been to his house once--but that was on hospital board business.”

Tate said when Paul’s Centrust dealings came under scrutiny in 1990, he helped persuade Paul to leave the hospital board.

Tate said he did not recall organizing the luncheon for his RTC board colleagues but said he did remember another time when a nonprofit group he worked with visited Paul’s offices.

Clinton named Tate, a Florida developer and Republican donor, to oversee the government’s multibillion-dollar S&L; bailout in July. Tate had served since 1990 on an RTC regional board and last year won recognition for helping temporarily place Hurricane Andrew victims in RTC-owned properties.

While awaiting confirmation, Tate has been paid as an employee of the agency’s Washington-based oversight board, subjecting him to RTC ethics rules.