FBI Probe Delays Nomination for Agriculture Secretary

Dan Glickman’s nomination by President Clinton for agriculture secretary has been delayed while the FBI tries to resolve whether he adequately reimbursed the House and his campaign for personal expenses charged on credit cards, according to law enforcement and Administration sources.

Clinton announced two months ago that he intended to nominate Glickman, a former Kansas congressman. But in the course of a routine background investigation, it was discovered that Glickman’s daughter had used her father’s credit cards routinely, dating back to the late 1980s, according to sources familiar with the case. Glickman has said he fully reimbursed both the House and his campaign.

Complicating the background investigation, which normally takes a month, is the inability of the FBI and the White House to secure telephone records from House officials that could corroborate Glickman’s statements, according to sources familiar with the probe.

The sources said there are two problems with making the necessary verifications from Glickman’s telephone records. First, when Glickman tried to obtain recent phone records, he was told that they could not be retrieved because the telephone company serving the House since 1993 no longer keeps records of individual phone calls from members’ offices, according to a source close to Glickman.

The second problem, according to one source, is that a lawyer for the House has denied Glickman’s request to turn over some pre-1993 records that apparently still exist.

The prospect of another difficult nomination comes at a particularly bad time for the White House, which is still struggling to save Clinton’s embattled choice for surgeon general, Henry W. Foster Jr. Partly because of Foster--and the growing list of high-level Clinton appointees whose backgrounds have generated unexpected fireworks--officials say extra precautions are being taken with Glickman to examine every allegation of possible misconduct.

Glickman has provided records showing that he reimbursed the accounts for personal expenses. One source close to Glickman said that every month he repaid his campaign account for any personal charges incurred. Investigators are trying to establish whether those repayments were adequate, sources said.

A senior Administration official said last week that the White House intends to go forward with Glickman’s nomination and that the FBI has not flagged him as a problematic choice.