First Lady Assails Charges of Her Husband’s Infidelity : Presidency: She says allegations are motivated by Clinton enemies’ desire for financial and political gain.

Hillary Rodham Clinton assailed new allegations of her husband’s marital infidelity as outrageous Tuesday and charged that they were motivated by hope of financial and political gain by enemies of the President.

In year-end interviews with two wire services, the First Lady called accounts from two Arkansas state troopers about President Clinton’s sexual activities before entering the White House “sad and unfortunate”--especially coming shortly before Christmas.

The Los Angeles Times, American Spectator magazine and other news organizations this week published the troopers’ allegations that they facilitated sexual liaisons between then-Gov. Clinton and several women. The news organizations also related the troopers’ accounts of alleged efforts by the President to silence them.

President Clinton had no public reaction to the stories Tuesday, leaving to his wife the task of defending his honor during previously scheduled interviews with the Associated Press and Reuters, the two most widely read news services in the United States.

“I think my husband has proven that he’s a man who really cares about this country deeply . . . and, when it’s all said and done, that’s how most fair-minded Americans will judge my husband, and all the rest of this stuff will end up in the garbage can where it deserves to be,” she told Reuters.

Mrs. Clinton did not specifically deny the assertions in the story but merely denounced the accounts as terrible.

She also commented on new revelations about the Clintons’ investment in an Ozark Mountain land deal, saying the couple would not release personal data about the investment and its links to a failed savings and loan.

“I am bewildered that a losing investment . . . is still a topic of inquiry,” she said, referring to the ongoing investigations into the Clintons’ investment in the real estate venture, Whitewater Development Corp.

The Clintons were co-investors in the deal with James B. McDougal, owner of a now-defunct Little Rock thrift, Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan. Federal investigators are looking into the collapse of Madison Guaranty and the possible diversion of funds from the S&L; to help cover then-Gov. Clinton’s 1984 campaign debt.

A file on the subject kept by Vincent W. Foster Jr., White House deputy counsel and a close friend of the Clintons, was removed from Foster’s office and given to the Clintons’ personal attorney after Foster killed himself last July.

Declaring that an audit commissioned by her husband’s campaign found no irregularities, Mrs. Clinton said: “I just think what we’ve said is adequate.”

Referring to the latest eruption of charges of extramarital misconduct, Mrs. Clinton said that the stories appeared timed to damage her husband just as his popularity was beginning to rise after several important legislative victories.

“I find it not an accident that, every time he is on the verge of fulfilling his commitment to the American people and they respond . . . out comes yet a new round of these outrageous, terrible stories that people plant for political and financial reasons,” she said.

She suggested that the two Arkansas state troopers--Larry G. Patterson and Roger L. Perry--had been paid for telling their story of late-night assignations at women’s apartments, hurried encounters between Clinton and women in parked government cars and high-level efforts to cover up the episodes.

“For me, it’s pretty sad that we’re still subjected to these kinds of attacks for political and financial gain from people and that it is sad that--especially here in the Christmas season--people for their own purposes would be attacking my family,” she said.

Asked if she thought the troopers were being paid to make the allegations, she said that “seems to be the story.”

The two troopers are represented by Cliff Jackson, a Little Rock lawyer and longtime political foe of Clinton’s who said that the men would like to write a book about the incidents but that they had not entered negotiations with any publishers.

The troopers have received no payments for telling their stories, either from The Times--which has a policy against paying sources--or, they said, from any other publication or individual.

“I think sometimes everybody forgets that, even if public figures don’t have any protection from these kind of attacks, you still have feelings and families and reputations that shouldn’t be so easily attacked by people who clearly have political and financial reasons for doing so,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The only other Administration official to respond publicly to the charges was Ronald K. Noble, who as assistant secretary of the Treasury for enforcement oversees the Secret Service, which is assigned to protect the President. In response to a reporter’s query, Noble said Tuesday that the troopers’ accounts “have the ring of falsity.”

Specifically, Noble said he doubted a third trooper’s account that he had escorted a woman to the governor’s mansion at least three times in the weeks after Clinton’s election as President in November, 1992.

This officer said he escorted the woman past the Secret Service at the mansion by using her maiden name and saying that she was a member of Clinton’s staff. He said the visits occurred before dawn, usually about 5:15 a.m.

“The Arkansas State Police were treated just like members of President Clinton’s personal staff and they could come and go as they pleased,” Noble said. “If they had someone accompanying them, they had no reason to explain who that person was or to masquerade that person. . . . So, when I read accounts of masquerading and such, it just doesn’t have the ring of truth.”

Senior White House staff have been preoccupied for several days responding to the infidelity stories and new accounts of problems with the Whitewater investment.

One aide complained that reporters were disguising their intention to write about the sex revelations by inquiring about the “mood” of the White House.

The aide described such inquiries as simply “a way of covering the thing while pretending to keep your hands clean.”

The official said most White House aides expect the story to die down quickly as top staff and many journalists take time off to celebrate Christmas.

“Actually, the mood over here is not bad,” the aide said. “We’ve been through worse train wrecks before and I think this one’s all going to disappear under the Christmas tree.”

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow and David Lauter contributed to this story.