First Lady Defends Aide in Fund-Raising Flap

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, commenting for the first time on the fund-raising controversy that spread to her office last week, Monday defended her staff as “courteous” for allowing White House access to a Democratic donor who handed a $50,000 check to her top aide.

“My staff is a polite and courteous group and certainly has, over the last four years, been willing to be courteous to people who come to the White House,” she told reporters who asked about her office’s repeatedly clearing Johnny Chien Chuen Chung, a Torrance entrepreneur who figures prominently in the investigations of questionable Democratic fund-raising, to visit the White House.

But she added that “I don’t know anything” about the precise reasons Chung was cleared to enter the White House at least 49 times, including 21 times by her own office.

She defended her top aide, Margaret Williams, as “an honorable and courteous person.” Williams last week was criticized for accepting a $50,000 donation from Chung at the White House and then passing it on to the Democratic National Committee.

What Williams did “is legal and proper under the prevailing rules,” Mrs. Clinton said.

She also said that she could not remember making any fund-raising phone calls herself from the White House. But, as the president did at a news conference last Friday, she stopped short of ruling it out.

“I do not recall making any [fund-raising calls], but I’m not going to say absolutely never,” she said.

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At a briefing for reporters ostensibly about education issues, Mrs. Clinton responded to several questions about the campaign finance furor. She seemed prepared for the questions and answered them amiably. In doing so, she provided a far different interpretation of events than her husband’s critics.

Contrary to those who perceive a donation-hungry president throwing open the White House doors to those willing to funnel large amounts of money to the Democratic Party, the first lady offered the image of a highly social president who delighted in hosting visitors at the White House. Indeed, she said, he enjoyed giving in-depth tours in the middle of the night.

She said she and the president “were overwhelmed by the honor” of living in the White House, “and we were excited to share it with a lot of people--and we did.”

Those guests with the endurance to “stick it out” into the wee hours often ended up with the president as a tour guide once he had finished his day’s work. “I cannot tell you how many times in the middle of the night we’d be walking up and down the ground floor or the first floor and the president would be talking about the significance of a portrait or of what happened in this room,” she said.