Dole Assails White House Over FBI Files

Seeking to reverse poll findings that suggest substantial voter support for President Clinton despite concerns about his character, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole took to the airwaves Saturday to launch a bare-fisted assault on White House ethics.

In an unusually tough response to Clinton’s weekly radio address, Dole charged that the improper acquisition of FBI files by the White House personnel security office has “revealed a pattern of ethical arrogance” on the part of the administration. Dole went on to warn that Americans “are just beginning to discover” the full extent of the abuse.

Dole cited as additional evidence another political tempest--the firing of several White House travel office employees about three years ago. “America,” he said, “deserves better than an administration that in the spring of 1993 fired hard-working employees in the White House travel office so that they could be replaced by the president’s friends and his allies and relatives.”

Dole’s comments represent an escalation of Republican efforts to foster doubts about Clinton’s character. And with the flap over the abuse of FBI files--an incident Clinton has called “a completely honest bureaucratic snafu”--GOP strategists see a fresh opportunity to do so.

The Clinton campaign dismissed Dole’s remarks as the efforts of a candidate out-of-touch with American voters.

“Sen. Dole has no new ideas for new policies for the future of the country, whereas President Clinton is offering substantive proposals on welfare, balanced budget, trade and creating new jobs,” said Deputy Press Secretary Mary Ellen Glynn. Referring to Dole, she asked: “Doesn’t he have anything new to talk about?”

Clinton used his Saturday radio address to announce he has directed the Justice Department to establish a national registry to track the whereabouts of sexual offenders and child molesters. The registry would alert law enforcement officials to the presence of such offenders and furnish the information to states. Under a new federal law, states must warn communities when such an offender is in their midst, or lose federal funding.

“President Clinton will continue working to improve the lives of American families,” said Ann Lewis, Clinton’s deputy campaign manager. “It is unfortunate that Bob Dole has chosen to continue the politics of attack.”

Dole’s aides have complained in recent days that the public has not fully digested the details or significance of the FBI files controversy, the ongoing Whitewater investigation or the travel office incident, and the GOP candidate’s comments Saturday mark a concerted effort to bare the character questions those affairs could raise.

“Every time the administration’s ethics are shown to be lacking, their strategy is to attack the accuser, say they provided all the information any reasonable person could want, and then provide three or four conflicting accounts of what actually happened,” Dole said.

Dole called on the White House to “put the unanswered questions to rest,” and release to Republican investigators 2,000 pages of materials that a House committee has subpoenaed. The papers are being sought in connection with the committee’s investigation into the travel office firings.

An earlier release of 1,000 pages of documents by the White House gave rise to the latest controversy dogging the Clinton administration. Those documents show that during Clinton’s early days in office, White House aides sought and obtained the secret FBI files of 407 people, including some prominent Republicans who had worked in the White House during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

The White House has refused to release the latest documents, claiming executive privilege. Administration officials have said the FBI files were mistakenly sought by low-level workers who were confused about which holdover employees needed to be screened for White House access.

In a related development, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said the House will vote this week to declare the White House in contempt of Congress if it continues to withhold the documents sought by the committee.

Dole’s comments came just days after the former Senate majority leader, who resigned from Congress to press his campaign full time, ended a long silence on the president’s Whitewater woes and claimed that all of the administration’s witnesses appeared to suffer from amnesia during a wide-ranging Senate investigation of the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s business dealings. “That in itself could be an issue,” Dole added.

But Clinton’s commanding leads in recent polls--in spite of lagging confidence about his character--indicate Dole’s latest effort could have little effect. In a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll released Friday, just 46% of respondents said they consider Clinton “honest and trustworthy”--compared to 62% who attribute those character traits to Dole. But the same poll showed that if the election were held now, Clinton would trounce Dole, 57% to 38%.

Pollsters suggest that while Americans have doubts about Clinton’s character, they have overcome those concerns because they are satisfied with his performance on such issues as the economy, crime and education. In recent polls, respondents have consistently handed Clinton a solid lead over Dole when asked which candidate “cares about needs of people like you.”