White House Refuses to Name Donors Attending Dinner

Administration officials are declining to make public the names of more than 40 top contributors to a tax-exempt group who were honored by President Clinton at an intimate White House dinner last summer.

A spokesman for the president said Thursday that the White House counsel’s office is not providing the list out of deference to the contributors’ privacy.

The dinner guests included 40 or more of the top donors to Vote Now ‘96, a tax-exempt group that specialized in registering, and in encouraging to vote, blacks and other groups traditionally loyal to Democratic candidates.

The Times reported on Saturday that the Democratic National Committee regularly referred donors to Vote Now ’96 during Clinton’s reelection campaign. The president’s top aide for the reelection, then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes, also has acknowledged that he sent potential donors to Vote Now ’96.

By giving to a tax-exempt group such as Vote Now ‘96, supporters of the president would have been able to donate in a way that averted the disclosure required for direct contributions to Clinton’s campaign or to the Democratic National Committee. Contributing to Vote Now ’96 also qualified them--unlike donors to a political party or campaign--for a charitable tax deduction.

Leaders of groups calling for accountability and change in the nation’s campaign-finance system criticized the White House’s refusal to identify who attended the dinner, held on July 12, 1996, in the White House Blue Room.

“Withholding the list makes you wonder what they’re trying to hide,” said Ellen S. Miller, executive director of Public Campaign, a nonpartisan reform group. “One of the basic tenets of the campaign finance system is disclosure. Hiding the names of contributors in any area of politics is an affront to the public’s right to know.”

Bill Hogan, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, said Thursday that there can be no legitimate reason for the White House to withhold the names of those who attended the dinner that honored Vote Now’s contributors. Hogan noted that the White House routinely discloses the names of people who attend official banquets at the executive mansion.

“I don’t see under what rationale they can withhold this list,” Hogan said. “What is there to hide? They will do more damage to themselves by trying to hide, and cover up, than by coming clean right away.”

The chairman of Vote Now ‘96, Hugh A. Westbrook, and the group’s executive director, Gary Barron, have long-standing ties to Democratic politics.

Westbrook has been a major party contributor, and he chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 1993-1994; Barron served as deputy finance director of the Democratic National Committee through Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the presidency, and also has been a contributor.

Both Westbrook and Barron have insisted that the efforts of Vote Now ’96 were nonpartisan and independent of the Democratic Party. Russell Hemenway, who founded Vote Now ’96 and who attended the White House dinner, declined to provide a list of the group’s donors. He said the dinner--hosted by the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton--was organized as a special way of thanking the top contributors to Vote Now ’96.

In an interview this week, Ickes--who now is a consultant to the White House--said that Barron repeatedly reminded him during the campaign of the need for Vote Now ’96 to raise money. And Barron has said that he met privately with Ickes at the White House on several occasions. The group spent about $3 million nationally for the 1996 election, according to its leaders.

The tax-exempt status of Vote Now ’96 would be jeopardized by operations that were coordinated with the party.