Nominee for Treasury’s No. 2 Post, Assailed by D’Amato, Clears Panel

The nomination of Lawrence Summers for the Treasury Department’s No. 2 post cleared a Senate committee Friday over objections from one senator that Summers lied about Mexico’s financial condition last year.

Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), a critic of the Administration’s $20-billion Mexican bailout package, said internal Treasury Department documents showed that Summers knew about Mexico’s deteriorating financial condition as early as February, 1994.

“Key Administration officials, including Secretary Summers, were not candid and forthcoming about the true condition of Mexico’s economy in 1994,” D’Amato charged. “He and other Administration officials repeatedly painted a rosy picture of the Mexican economy. That picture was distorted and not accurate and not true.”

D’Amato was the only senator to raise objections to Summers’ nomination during his confirmation hearing for the post of deputy Treasury secretary, although Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined D’Amato in voting against the nomination.

D’Amato told Summers, who since the start of the Administration has served as Treasury’s top international official, that he would not try to block the nomination from coming before the full Senate, something that could occur as early as next week.