Advertisement

Committee Asks Gramm About Political Funding

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Senate Ethics Committee sent a letter to Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) on Thursday inquiring about a possible violation of campaign finance laws raised by the committee’s investigation of Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.).

According to documents compiled during the committee’s investigation of Packwood, the Oregon senator deliberately deleted passages recorded in his diary on March 6, 1992. Those passages referred to Packwood’s concerns about a $100,000 contribution from the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Gramm then chaired, to the Oregon Republican Party.

The original diary entry also discussed a conversation Packwood had with Gramm about the contribution.

Advertisement

“And what was said in that room would be enough to convict us all of something,” Packwood said in the original entry, which he tape-recorded for later transcription into the diary. “He [Gramm] says, ‘Now, of course, there can’t be any legal connection between this money and Sen. Packwood, but we know that it will be used for his benefit.’ ”

“I think that’s a felony,” Packwood added.

The senator later retaped that entry, substituting an innocuous passage about campaign finance. When the Ethics Committee asked Packwood about the revision, Packwood said he deleted the original entry because he had learned that he was incorrect in thinking that the contribution violated the law.

The committee, however, found that the original entry “raised questions about the possible violation of campaign finance laws,” according to the committee’s documents, and has asked Gramm for an explanation.

Gramm’s office downplayed the inquiry, saying the $100,000 was a normal, perfectly legal contribution to the state party.

“I cannot even begin to fathom why [Packwood] thought it was illegal,” said Larry Neal, Gramm’s spokesman.

Members of the Ethics Committee refused to discuss the inquiry. But a source close to the committee cautioned against drawing any broad conclusion from the fact that a letter had been issued.

Advertisement

“This may not be that big a deal,” the source said. “We just routinely do these letters.”

Neal said Gramm was surprised by the diary entries, which “grossly misrepresented” the nature of the contribution.

*

“This is no crime,” Neal said. “Party-building activities are perfectly legal. . . . Ultimately it’s going to be inconsequential.”

Nonetheless, at the very least the inquiry drops another bump into the campaign trail for Gramm, who is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

In recent months Gramm has been forced to try to explain away questions about his past--including disclosures that in 1974, he and a brother-in-law invested $7,500 each to make a soft-porn movie, “Beauty Queens.” Gramm said he never saw the script.

The entry was not the only example from Packwood’s diary where the senator appeared to be attempting to conceal a campaign finance contribution.

Referring to a contribution to his campaign by automobile dealers, Packwood said: “Of course we can’t know anything about it. . . . We’ve got to destroy any evidence we’ve ever had.”

Advertisement

He revised that entry as well.

Times staff writers Ed Chen and Robert Shogan contributed to this story.

Advertisement