House Blocks Fund-Raising Probe’s Budget

The House investigation into questionable campaign fund-raising found itself Thursday night without a budget--at least temporarily--as an odd coalition of lawmakers joined to derail a GOP plan to spend millions of dollars investigating the Clinton administration’s political activities.

Democrats attempting to block what they consider a costly partisan witch hunt combined with Republican fiscal conservatives intent on balancing the budget to reject the GOP leadership’s overall spending plan for House’s committees.

But an irritated House Speaker Newt Gingrich immediately huddled his troops, scolded the Republican dissenters and forged a deal setting another vote on the investigation’s proposed $3.8-million budget today. It is expected to pass.

The razor-thin vote Thursday night to block the committee spending plan--213 to 210--was a stunning blow to the Georgia speaker, who angered GOP conservatives earlier in the week by backpedaling on how hard he will push for tax cuts. And it raised the hopes of those Democrats intent on sidetracking a $3.8-million House inquiry that now would focus solely on fund-raising for President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.

The legislative chaos came as lawmakers were preparing their departures for a scheduled two-week congressional recess. It forced Gingrich and his lieutenants--furious at those Republicans who broke ranks--to work into the evening on a new spending plan that will freeze funding for all House committees, except the panel taking aim at White House fund-raising. Gingrich’s compromise attempts to placate his right flank while not ceding ground to the Democrats.

After similar hand-wringing, the Senate earlier this month agreed on a $4.3-million inquiry aimed at illegal or improper fund-raising for both parties’ 1996 presidential and congressional campaigns. The House is omitting fund-raising for Congress or the GOP presidential campaign from its investigation.

The vote to block spending in the House saw Democrats join forces with some of their ideological opposites--conservative Republicans, such as Mark E. Souder of Indiana, Marshall “Mark” Sanford, of South Carolina and Steve Chabot of Ohio, whose top concern is the federal budget’s bottom line.

What angered the conservative budget balancers was a plan to spend $178.3 million over the next two years running the House’s 19 committees, which are the engines of the chamber’s legislative activity. That figure represents an 8% increase over such funding for last year’s Congress and comes at a time when the budget is especially tight.

“When they want us to hire more Washington bureaucrats instead of getting us to a balanced budget, the answer is no,” said Rep. Mark W. Neumann of Wisconsin, one of the 11 Republican defectors. “I’m not going to leave here this weekend with a sick feeling in my gut that I voted to increase spending.”

But after the Thursday night vote, Neumann and his fellow renegades were forced, one by one, to justify their action at a closed-door GOP caucus. “Newt was angry and said each one of us had to stand up and explain,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). “I felt like [we were] little children.”

The Republicans emerged from the caucus united behind Gingrich’s face-saving plan and prepared to support it today.

Democrats, for their part, have been furious about the $3.8 million that the GOP House leadership set aside for the Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s investigation of White House campaign fund-raising activities, as well as another $7.9 million for “unanticipated expenses” that the Democrats have called a slush fund to get the president.

“If we’re going to spend millions of dollars, let’s spend it on something that helps somebody,” Rep. John Joseph Moakley (D-Mass.) said Thursday.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House investigative committee, has taken heat from the Democrats--and from some within his own party--for the partisan edge he has given his inquiry. During Thursday night’s debate, he urged his colleagues to give him the money he needs to run a fair but aggressive investigation.

“I want to pledge to you that this will be a fair investigation. . . . But as long as I can stand on my two legs, I’m going to do my level best to get to the bottom of this,” Burton said.

On another front in the widening fund-raising controversy, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh disclosed Thursday that the grand jury looking into possible campaign finance wrongdoing is investigating whether a foreign government--presumably China--was behind efforts to use illegal donations to buy influence with the administration or Congress.

It was learned earlier this month that the FBI began warning some lawmakers and members of the administration’s National Security Council last year of allegations of such efforts by the Chinese.

“One of the subjects that the grand jury and the task force is going to be investigating are allegations with respect to, not just illegal political activities and contributions, but also the national security aspects of that,” Freeh told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

Asked by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the panel chairman, about alleged illegal Chinese contributions, Freeh said that the grand jury was investigating “whether the funding or attempted funding or planning was originated not by individuals per se but by a foreign government or state sponsor or ministry.”

“That is really the heart of, part of, our grand jury hearings,” he said.

And in another development, sources said that Senate investigators have drawn up subpoenas aimed at former Justice Department official Webster L. Hubbell and other key figures in the fund-raising controversy.

The 10 subpoenas, which will go out in coming days, also target Clinton ally Ernest G. Green, the Washington office of the Lehman Bros. investment bank that he manages, and the foundation to restore Clinton’s birthplace in Arkansas.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee already has issued 54 subpoenas, which Democrats complain largely avoid potential wrongdoing by Republicans. Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the investigative panel, has submitted his own document requests aimed at GOP-leaning organizations but Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) has yet to issue them.