Officials See No Charges in Early Whitewater Inquiry : Probe: Lawyers for Treasury, White House aides say they do not expect special counsel to seek indictments.

Senior officials at the Treasury Department and the White House have been told by their personal attorneys that they do not expect special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. to seek criminal indictments against them because of allegedly improper meetings linked to the Whitewater controversy.

Fiske is said to be close to completing the first phase of his probe, which is focusing both on the suicide last summer of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster and the way in which Administration officials responded to the news of a Whitewater-related criminal referral by federal regulators.

That aspect of the inquiry will focus in part on a series of meetings between Treasury Department and White House officials in the fall of 1993 and early in 1994 to discuss how to respond to a criminal referral that investigators at the Resolution Trust Corp. sent to the Justice Department. The referral named President Clinton’s 1984 gubernatorial campaign as a possible beneficiary of alleged criminal actions by a failed Arkansas savings and loan.

But Administration sources said they are increasingly confident that Fiske will conclude that part of his investigation without seeking criminal charges against current or former officials of the Administration.

Although they stressed that they have not been given any information by Fiske’s office on the status of his investigation, they said attorneys hired by Administration officials that have been subpoenaed and investigated by Fiske do not believe that he will move against those officials.

“Based upon my understanding and assessment of what is going on, I don’t see the basis for any criminal indictments,” said Steven Tabackman, an attorney who represents Jack Devore, the Treasury Department spokesman who testified before the Whitewater grand jury earlier this year.

The Treasury Department became embroiled in the Whitewater controversy because the RTC had no permanent head. In the interim, Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman became acting RTC chairman last year, and other senior Treasury Department aides helped him work on RTC issues on an ad hoc basis.

Their dual roles as political appointees running an independent regulatory agency raised questions after they took part in a series of meetings with White House officials to discuss the case.

Fiske has been trying to conclude the Washington part of his investigation so that Congress can begin Whitewater hearings this summer.

The Arkansas part of his inquiry, which covers the origins of the controversy--including the Clinton family’s investment in the Whitewater real estate development and the failure of a Little Rock, Ark., S&L; owned by their Whitewater partner--is likely to take much longer, however.

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Separately, the White House said it would comply with a request by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee for Whitewater-related documents, which the committee wants for Whitewater hearings that probably would begin in late July.

Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said the White House received a letter Wednesday night from committee Chairman Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) and Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the panel, asking for documents already turned over by the White House to Fiske.

The committee said in a statement that it wants documents from current and former officials at the White House and other agencies who may have had some involvement in the Washington aspects of the Whitewater case.