GOP Lawmakers Plan Whitewater Probes : Congress: Rep. Jim Leach and Sen. Alfonse D’Amato pledge that new inquiries will not be witch hunts. New York senator wants early hearings.

The two Republicans expected to head the House and Senate Banking committees in the new Congress plan intensive investigations into the role of President Clinton in the failed Whitewater real estate venture--inquiries that could become a major headache for the White House.

Aides to Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa)--in line to head the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee--predicted that their boss will use the subpoena power to obtain Whitewater-related documents that federal regulators refused to give him when he was a minority member of the committee last summer.

And Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.)--scheduled to head the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee--has vowed to conduct a new round of Whitewater hearings shortly after the next Congress convenes in January, although he said the inquiry would not be a “witch hunt.”

Leach also pledged to avoid a witch hunt and does not plan to schedule hearings as early as D’Amato. But members of his staff said that House hearings are certain sometime next year.

Leach sent conciliatory signals Friday, saying that he does not see the Whitewater matter as one of the top priorities of the committee when he becomes its chairman. He said that, above all, he wants to avoid any “mean-spiritedness” in the inquiry.

In a Washington speech and in talks with reporters later, Leach said he plans a careful investigation. “I’m not contemplating early hearings on Whitewater,” he told reporters following his address. “I want to assess what (Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr) does.”

Both the congressman and his aides also said he wants to work on substantive banking and financial regulatory issues--such as problems with the derivatives market--before turning to the Whitewater inquiry.

Other Republicans agreed with that approach, saying it would be bad politics for the Republican-controlled Congress to open Whitewater hearings immediately. “If we are perceived as a Whitewater Congress instead of as a reform Congress, we’re dead,” said one Republican staff member who asked not to be named.

Leach said he believes strongly that Congress’ role in investigating the Whitewater matter should focus as much as possible on the larger public policy questions it raises, notably what he sees as possible political influence on independent regulatory agencies.

The Iowa congressman and his aides said they hope that the White House and regulatory agencies will supply the documents they will need without use of the subpoena power. A Leach aide said that the new chairman probably will send a letter soon after taking over the committee, requesting documents denied to him last summer by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Resolution Trust Corp., two agencies that investigated Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, the failed Arkansas thrift owned by Clinton’s one-time business partner in Whitewater Development Corp.

Starr is investigating whether Madison Guaranty improperly funneled money into then-Gov. Clinton’s 1984 reelection campaign in Arkansas or into the Whitewater real estate firm.

In August, both banking committees concluded hearings under Democratic leadership that were narrowly focused on White House contacts with Treasury Department officials over the RTC investigation of Madison Guaranty’s 1989 seizure by the government. The RTC is an arm of the Treasury Department.

Leach said he wants to avoid turning his committee into a vehicle for airing the dirty linen of the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I believe personally and I’ve felt from the very beginning that the main issue involved in Whitewater is full disclosure and public accountability,” Leach said Friday.

“Once that’s established, it’s an issue that can be put behind us. Given the new organization of the Congress, I feel very strongly that this is an issue that should be approached very cautiously and carefully and there will be no rush to judgment. And I will do my best to ensure that there is no mean-spiritedness. If there is disclosure and accountability, my instinct would be largely to embrace it and not to have a water-torture approach.”

But D’Amato said he wants early hearings in the Senate. Appearing on ABC-TV’s “Nightline” program Thursday night, the New York senator, one of Clinton’s harshest critics on the issue, said Republicans will be professional and efficient in their investigation. “The Whitewater hearings will be resumed . . . but this will not be a witch hunt,” he said.

A White House official, who asked not to be named, commented: “D’Amato said he will come back to it, and I’m sure he will. We’ll have to see how they (D’Amato and Leach) divide up what they want to look at, who is going to do what topics. And we’re waiting to see what the independent counsel’s position is going to be on the Arkansas phase.”