Ex-DNC Chief Intervened for Big Donor

The then-chairman of the Democratic National Committee pressed to let a controversial donor attend White House events with President Clinton last year over the objections of a senior official with the administration’s National Security Council, White House officials said Monday.

Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry said the White House counsel is investigating how Roger Tamraz, an international oil financier sought on embezzlement charges by Lebanese authorities, got into several events with Clinton despite the NSC’s recommendation.

“I’m sure everyone, including me, would be interested in finding out how that happened,” McCurry told reporters. The DNC intervention on behalf of Tamraz was first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. McCurry confirmed the basic elements of the report but said the White House counsel was still questioning staff members “to provide a definitive account.”

The flap involving Tamraz was cited on Monday by Anthony Lake, Clinton’s nominee for CIA director, as a reason he decided to withdraw from the confirmation process. Lake, who headed the NSC during Clinton’s first term, expressed concern that the agency’s involvement in the Tamraz case would further delay the already protracted confirmation process surrounding his nomination.

Tamraz met with an NSC official in June 1995 to outline a plan to build a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey through Azerbaijan and Armenia. Shelia Heslin, the security agency’s director of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasian Affairs, told Tamraz that his proposal would not receive support from the administration, officials said.

After the meeting, Heslin recommended that Tamraz not be allowed further access to the White House. But Donald Fowler, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee, telephoned Heslin to ask that she drop her opposition to permitting Tamraz to participate in White House events.

Nancy Soderberg, the third-ranking official at the security council, said she subsequently telephoned Fowler and bluntly told him: “Knock it off.” In a brief interview, Soderberg said, “I wish to hell he had.”

Nevertheless, Tamraz was allowed into the White House for several events for major donors, including an April 1996 coffee that Clinton hosted and a June 1996 White House dinner and movie screening with the president. Tamraz and his company, Tamoil Inc., have donated $72,000 to the DNC and $105,000 more to state Democratic parties over the last two years.

Asked whether it was troubling that a visitor had been allowed to attend presidential events despite the security council’s qualms, McCurry said: “Unfortunately, by now, that’s not exactly news, is it? I mean, the president has acknowledged that.”

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Events like those Tamraz attended gave major Democratic donors--including those with questionable backgrounds--coveted access to Clinton. The meetings are helping to fuel the campaign fund-raising controversy. Neither Fowler nor Tamraz could be reached for comment.

The Wall Street Journal quoted unidentified administration officials as saying that Fowler told Heslin that Tamraz had assisted the United States in the past and that he would arrange for the CIA to send her a memo on him. Officials said Heslin received such a memo shortly thereafter.

In an unusual public statement, Acting CIA Director George Tenet said Monday that he had directed the agency’s inspector general to begin a review “of the circumstances surrounding these or any other inappropriate contacts. . . . Any inappropriate intrusion into the intelligence process cannot and will not be tolerated.”

A source close to Fowler said, “Fowler did not call the White House about the pipeline project. He only called to see if Tamraz could go to a social event because he is a big contributor. . . . Fowler made no call to the CIA.”

A U.S. intelligence official said there was contact between the CIA and the Democrats. He said that it was Heslin who asked the CIA to provide her with a memo on Tamraz in May 1995. And “there are indications” that the NSC requested a second memo on Tamraz in December.

McCurry said Soderberg did not inform her two superiors at the security council, Lake and Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, of her exchange with Fowler.

Times staff writer James Risen contributed to this story.