Papers Reveal More White House Fund-Raising Practices

Democratic campaign strategists, fearful of missing their fund-raising targets, were counting on President Clinton to personally help raise $50 million for his reelection, and assigned separate dollar goals to the vice president and first lady, according to White House papers released Wednesday.

The disclosures, contained in 2,246 pages of documents, portray a campaign fixated on raising vast amounts of cash. They also underscore Clinton’s personal involvement in the minutiae of financing his reelection.

The papers, which belonged to Harold M. Ickes, former deputy chief of staff at the White House, have been delivered to congressional investigators looking into the campaign donations issue. While the materials contained no obvious “smoking gun,” they do reveal a hand-in-glove relationship between the Democratic National Committee and the White House that may contradict earlier statements made by the president.

One proposed 1996 schedule for fund-raising goals stated that events featuring the president were expected to raise $50.2 million, events with Gore were expected to raise $10.8 million, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was to raise $5 million.

“I honestly don’t know” whether Clinton actually raised the money, Amy Weiss Tobe, Democratic National Committee communications director, said Wednesday.

“We prepared a call list for the president,” she said, adding, “there’s no indication that he made the calls.”

“As the president has said, he does not remember making any such calls . . . [but] he does not want to rule out the possibility of him ever making that kind of call,” White House special counsel Lanny Davis said. He added that “the first lady also does not recall making such calls, but she too would not rule out the possibility.”

Still, White House officials maintained Wednesday that the latest pile of documents exonerated the administration of wrongdoing in the aggressive fund-raising drive that has sparked various congressional investigations and prompted the DNC to return about $3 million in contributions.

“I think this is the culmination of the stories you’ve all been working on,” said Davis, who told reporters that the Clinton reelection campaign acted “legally and appropriately” in the intensely competitive political climate last year.

There was “not anything inappropriate or particularly unusual about a White House during an election year engaged in that kind of legal and appropriate activity,” Davis added.

For his part, the president Wednesday night attended a DNC fund-raiser at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel in Washington that was expected to draw 65 to 70 supporters and raise $750,000.

The newly available materials reveal some previously undisclosed financial maneuverings by those close to Clinton.

At one point, for example, Clinton backers considered whether the president’s legal defense fund, set up to pay the hefty legal bills faced by the president and first lady as a result of probes into the Whitewater real estate dealings, should make use of Democratic Party donor lists. Ultimately, managers of the fund settled on rules that barred soliciting and did not make use of the lists, Davis said Wednesday.

And in at least one case, DNC attorneys expressed concern about public appearances--and the response of regulators--to their strategy of transferring party money to nonprofit groups that registered voters. This practice, which the DNC maintained Wednesday was routine for both major parties, was intended to bring Clinton supporters to the polls.

The documents also reveal a strategy in which party fund-raisers asked donors to give directly to state parties, thereby avoiding disclosure on the national party’s public statements.

Contributors that chose this approach included two tobacco companies, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, a Chippewa Indian tribe and Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak.

The documents also depict a campaign money machine that in some ways was put off-balance by the president’s high standing in the polls last year.

In a note of irony, Ickes fretted last July that “the president’s very favorable standing in the polls” had resulted in an estimated $4.5-million shortfall in direct-mail receipts. The smaller-than-expected take placed acute pressure on the party to press well-heeled donors--and to make the most of its principal fund-raisers: Clinton, the first lady, Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.

“The fund-raising needs for the DNC will require a very substantial commitment of time from the president, the vice president, the first lady and Mrs. Gore,” Ickes wrote in a memo to Clinton and Gore in February 1996. The words “very substantial” were underlined. “Are they willing to commit that amount of time?” Ickes asked.

A June 1996 document, of uncertain authorship, noted that: “We do not currently push our donors as hard as we should to get every federal dollar out of each contributor.”

In other memos released Wednesday, Ickes expressed his worry that the Democratic Party was not getting enough “hard dollars”--donations designated to specific candidates. “Total overall spending of the DNC will have to be substantially reduced” if the situation does not improve, he warned.

Clinton responded that a new campaign of direct-mail solicitations could solve the problem if the message hit a popular chord. “I think we can do better w/mail if we have the right message . . . Including the federal $ prob,” the president wrote.

The documents also clarify that the program of White House coffee receptions, in which donors and others visited with the president in the White House map room, were an integral part of Democratic fund-raising plans. Indeed, party officials tallied the receipts from the coffees like other fund-raisers, with each sit-down targeted on finance sheets to bring in a specific amount, usually $400,000.

When news of the coffees first broke late last year, DNC officials downplayed any fund-raising connections and characterized the sessions as a way for citizens to exchange views with Clinton and for the party to thank major contributors.

But on Wednesday, the DNC’s Tobe said the coffees were “part of our fund-raising strategy and part of our fund-raising plan, but they weren’t fund-raisers specifically” because people weren’t charged for admission.

Documents released Wednesday also show just how closely the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign worked with the DNC fund-raising staff--a reality at odds with the perception the president has tried to create since the scandal began to unfold before his reelection.

In a press conference last Nov. 8, Clinton appeared to try to put some distance between the two entities, even as he described himself as the “titular head” of the Democratic Party.

“So I’m not trying to disclaim responsibility, but I am trying to point out that there is a difference between what the party does and what the campaign does,” Clinton said at the time. “I am also responsible for what the campaign does in that sense, but there is a difference.”

Yet an agenda for a May 20, 1996, White House meeting included an item titled “exchange of lists between DNC and Clinton-Gore ’96.”

Further, the newly released papers graphically illustrate how Democratic strategists sought to enlist their key assets--Clinton and Gore--in the fund-raising quest.

“Because of the short lead time and lack of time to cultivate additional donors, we believe the following represents the maximum that can be raised prior to year end,” said a memo dated Nov. 20, 1995, from four top Democratic Party officials to Ickes.

The memo then listed a series of proposed activities by the president and vice president, including “18-20 calls by POTUS”--an insider’s term for President of the United States--and “10 calls by VPOTUS” (Gore), in addition to a lunch and dinner attended by the president, two unspecified events attended by Gore, two by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and an unspecified “White House dinner,” all meant to reap $3.2 million for the reelection drive.

There was no indication from the document whether Clinton, his wife or Gore agreed to undertake any of the proposed activities.