Labor Secretary Nominee Discusses Snags With Lott

Alexis M. Herman, President Clinton’s choice for Labor secretary, visited Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on Friday in an attempt to prevent the furor over White House campaign fund-raising from derailing her nomination.

After the 20-minute session, the Mississippi Republican said that Herman’s snagged nomination remains “in some difficulty” until she provides information explaining her involvement in political activities while working as the director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.

“I feel better about it, but I still feel she has to provide documentation [about her role] to the committee,” Lott said after his talk with Herman. “She has assured me that she is going to do that.”

The White House remained cautiously optimistic that Herman--and the nominee for CIA director, Anthony Lake--ultimately will win Senate approval. “Senators have to pursue questions that they think are legitimate,” White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.

Earlier in the week, Lott said that reports of Herman’s involvement in White House political events might indicate she came close to violating a federal law that bars federal officials from partisan activities.

During Clinton’s reelection campaign, Herman’s office was responsible for setting up a May 13, 1996, coffee at the White House involving Democratic Party fund-raisers, top banking officials, Clinton and the comptroller of the currency, Eugene Ludwig, the nation’s top banking regulator.

During his press conference Tuesday, President Clinton admitted that it was inappropriate for Ludwig to attend, and Ludwig has said that he would not have gone if he had known Democratic fund-raising officials were involved.

The White House sent a letter to Senate leaders Thursday outlining Herman’s “very limited” participation in arranging White House coffees, which occurred throughout the campaign. She attended just six of the 102 coffees hosted by the Democratic National Committee, according to the letter from Todd Stern, the White House staff secretary.

Her office did play a “lead role” initially in setting up the banking session because she thought it was an official White House function, Stern wrote. When Herman learned that it was a party-sponsored event, she stopped working on it and did not attend that coffee, the letter said.

“The notion that Alexis Herman or [the Office of Public Liaison] were involved in any significant way in White House coffees is untrue,” Stern wrote.

“It’s a drip, drip, drip situation,” one GOP Senate aide said of the growing furor over campaign finance abuse that has ensnarled the White House. “More information keeps coming out, and we need to know the extent to which the public liaison’s office was involved.”

As for Lake, whose confirmation hearing has been pushed from Feb. 11 to Feb. 25, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said in a statement that the nominee “deserves a fair but rigorous hearing regarding his nomination to be director of central intelligence.”

Shelby delayed the hearings to give the Justice Department more time to complete an investigation into the handling of Lake’s stock portfolio and a second investigation of questions raised by a House subcommittee about the accuracy of statements by Lake and other administration officials explaining their involvement in the administration’s secret decision to give a green light to Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia.

McCurry said that the administration is confident Lake will be confirmed. “In the end, his integrity . . . will shine through,” he said.

Herman’s meeting with Lott, from which she emerged without comment, was arranged by her main GOP backer, Rep. Sonny Callahan of Alabama. Callahan is Herman’s hometown congressman, and he has been pressing senators to give her a chance to defend herself at a hearing.

Although several Cabinet nominees have cleared the Senate, Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.) has not yet scheduled Herman’s hearing before the Labor and Human Resources Committee.

“All I’m asking is that she be given a hearing and that she be allowed to answer the questions that have come up,” Callahan said. “If she’s guilty of something or she refuses to answer something, then don’t confirm her. I’m optimistic that, given the opportunity, she will be confirmed.”

Although Callahan indicated that he is concerned about the fund-raising allegations emerging from the White House, he said Herman has explained her role to him adequately.

“She’s assured me that she has not knowingly violated any laws, that the items appearing in the press are totally exaggerated,” Callahan said. “Until someone gives me information to the contrary, I’ll take her word for it. I don’t have all the information. Maybe she robbed a bank. I don’t know that. All I’m asking the Senate to do is give her a day in court.”

Lott did not indicate when Herman’s confirmation hearing might be scheduled. “It’s going to be a few days before these questions can be addressed by Ms. Herman and the White House,” he said.

Senate aides said that Herman, 49, a onetime Alabama social worker and protege of the late Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, has been bringing up the White House coffees herself during her courtesy calls with senators. “She’s trying to be pro-active,” one aide said.

Callahan agreed that she is eager to defend herself. “She’s a fighter. She’s a tough person. . . . She doesn’t want her reputation tarnished. She wants to answer the questions posed.”