Hillary Clinton, Hired by U.S., Settled Lawsuit Against Friend

Hillary Rodham Clinton represented federal regulators in a savings and loan case against a family friend and political supporter, eventually settling a $3.3-million complaint for $200,000, a federal official confirmed Thursday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to determine whether Mrs. Clinton, or her employer, the Rose Law Firm, submitted to the government the required notification of a potential conflict of interest, FDIC spokesman David Barr said.

The defendant, Dan Lasater, had personal and political ties to President Clinton that have been widely reported. The discovery that Mrs. Clinton settled the government’s lawsuit against Lasater in 1987 was first reported in Thursday editions of the Chicago Tribune.

Law and accounting firms generally are barred from representing the government in S&L; cases if they have represented the thrift, or have personal ties to any officials or targets of the lawsuit.

They are required to notify the federal agency--in Mrs. Clinton’s case the now-defunct Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. --of any conflicts before getting such contracts.

Lisa Caputo, the First Lady’s press secretary, said she did not know whether Mrs. Clinton had supplied FSLIC officials with the required notification. But she defended Mrs. Clinton’s legal work.

“Our view is that Mrs. Clinton, while she was a lawyer at the Rose firm, acted with the utmost integrity and professionalism,” she said.

The FSLIC, for which Mrs. Clinton settled the suit, was dissolved in 1989 during a reorganization of banking agencies. Its records were turned over to the FDIC.

Lasater, who ran a bond trading firm, signed deals with several thrifts, including First American Savings & Loan in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, to trade Treasury bond futures. First American hired the Rose firm to sue Lasater’s bond firm for fraud, Barr said. First American was later seized by federal regulators, who pursued the lawsuit.

The Rose firm assigned the Lasater case to Mrs. Clinton and Vincent Foster, the White House lawyer who committed suicide in July, the Tribune reported.

Mrs. Clinton and Foster negotiated the confidential settlement, the report said.