GOP Presses for Outside Counsel in Donor Probe

Emboldened by Vice President Al Gore’s admission that he sought campaign contributions from his White House office, Republicans in Congress on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to name an independent counsel to investigate possible Democratic fund-raising abuses.

At the same time, however, Senate GOP leaders pushed to narrow their own probe of campaign finance irregularities so that it does not focus on congressional money-raising practices.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters that he would hold a Senate vote this week on a resolution calling on Reno to name an outside counsel, a move Reno has resisted. In addition, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee may invoke a little-known procedure to force Reno to justify her position.

But Lott indicated that the Senate would seek to end a stalemate over its own fund-raising investigation by reducing the budget for the probe and limiting its focus to exclude a broad review of how congressional candidates garner campaign donations. “The scope should be limited to illegal activities in the presidential campaign last year,” Lott said.

Democrats criticized the GOP moves as a bid to gain partisan advantage and to avoid holding hearings that would give ammunition for overhauling congressional campaign finance laws.

“This looks like raw politics to me,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Meanwhile, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), beset recently by his own ethics woes, weighed in on the fund-raising controversies swirling around the administration. “This is the most systematic, large-scale effort to get around the law that we’ve certainly seen since Watergate,” Gingrich told reporters, “and in its total effort I think is much bigger than Watergate was.”

President Clinton, for his part, defended Gore’s fund-raising efforts, saying the Democratic ticket “had to do everything we could” to be competitive in last year’s presidential race. Clinton, standing alongside Gore at the White House on Tuesday, said he agreed with his vice president’s conclusion that he had done nothing illegal by using his office “on a few occasions” to solicit campaign money.

Even before the focus on Gore’s activities, many Republicans--and a growing number of Democrats--had been calling for an independent counsel.

Reno has said the Justice Department’s investigation of the matter has not yet produced enough evidence to justify asking for an independent counsel. To do so, according to the law, there must be “specific information from a credible source” that the president, vice president, Cabinet members or high-level White House aides may have committed a “serious crime.”

Republicans on Tuesday argued that the revelations about aggressive fund-raising by Gore crossed the threshold for naming an independent counsel.

Lott stopped short of saying Gore broke the law, but said an independent counsel is needed to look into Gore’s actions. “The law is clear: You should not be raising money on federal property, in federal buildings,” Lott said.

Gore said Monday that the law is not so clear, contending it did not apply to the president and vice president. Still, even as he defended himself, he announced he no longer would seek campaign money while at his White House office.

As Lott scheduled the Senate vote later this week on a nonbinding resolution calling on Reno to appoint an independent counsel, it was learned the Senate Judiciary Committee may exploit a little-known aspect of the independent counsel law to pressure her. If the committee votes to call on her to request an independent counsel, Reno would have 30 days to prepare a report detailing her decision.

The Senate’s investigation of campaign finance irregularities is supposed to be conducted by the Government Affairs Committee, which voted earlier this year to conduct a broad probe covering both presidential and congressional fund-raising practices.

But the panel’s request for $6.5 million has been stalled in the Senate Rules Committee. As a result, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), head of the Government Affairs panel, has agreed to lower the figure to $5.7 million, aides say.