White House Fires Back at GOP Over FBI Files

Top Clinton administration officials, seeking to quell the growing furor in the FBI files controversy, offered assurances Sunday that confidential bureau information was not misused for political intrigue, and they accused Republican lawmakers of trying to “provoke a confrontation” in a desperate political act.

A day after Republican presidential challenger Bob Dole assailed the administration’s ethical standards, Vice President Al Gore, White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta and other presidential surrogates appeared on TV interview programs to declare the administration innocent of Watergate-style misdeeds and to fire back at accusers.

GOP-led investigators, Panetta said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” have created a “venomous atmosphere” in which “innuendoes, a number of half-truths [and] . . . partisan attacks” are presented to prove ethical abuse.

Gore, on CNN’s “Late Edition,” acknowledged that White House employees made serious mistakes in improperly requesting FBI files in 1993 but said that the investigation should now be left to Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, whose authority was expanded last week to include the files case.

Republican congressional investigators, Gore complained, are seeking White House records “that no president . . . ever would say are legitimate for the Congress to ask for,” in an effort to paint the administration as uncooperative.

White House Counsel Jack Quinn charged that implications of deliberate dirty tricks were being made without any firm evidence.

The coordinated appearances by the three high-ranking officials, along with those by several leading congressional allies, marked the broadest defense the White House has offered since the controversy erupted earlier this month.

Congressional Republicans made it clear again Sunday that they see serious ethical and legal issues in the revelation that the White House Office of Personnel Security improperly obtained more than 400 confidential FBI files of former White House employees or visitors, some of them top GOP officials.

“It does look, to those who are skeptical, that there was a definite effort to try and go through and find dirt on various Republicans and other people,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “Now, whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. That’s why we have to do this [Senate] investigation. But let me tell you something: If it’s true, it’s really bad.”

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Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.), chairman of the House panel probing the matter, expressed doubt about the White House explanation that the files were requested mistakenly by low-level officials updating information on those who held passes to the White House.

Clinger also hinted that the White House may be trying to cover up wrongdoing at higher levels by refusing to surrender to his committee 2,000 more pages of documents it is seeking in its probe of the 1993 White House travel office firings and related matters.

“Frankly, we don’t think that’s a legitimate claim of executive privilege,” he said on “Meet the Press.” “It would normally only arise when you’re dealing with issues of national security and such.”

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House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Saturday that Republicans had set a Wednesday deadline for turning over the documents. If the White House refuses, the House could vote to cite Quinn for contempt of Congress.

Clinger offered one possible compromise: If Starr could be assured access to the documents sought by Congress, he said, a contempt-of-Congress citation might not be necessary.

In trying to turn back the wave of criticism, White House officials indicated that they expect firings to occur when all the evidence in the matter is gathered.

“I don’t want to belittle for a moment the seriousness of this incident,” Quinn said on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

At the same time, Quinn denounced Republicans for jumping to conclusions.

“There is, as yet, not a shred of evidence that these files were requested out of political motivation or that they were put to any political use or that they were looked at by anyone outside the White House security operation,” he said.