White House Repaying Treasury for 8 Fund-Raising Breakfasts

WASHINGTON — Confronted with documents showing it charged taxpayers for donor events, the White House is now paying the Treasury for eight breakfasts that took place in 1994. President Clinton was the host, seeking support for the party’s health care advertising fund.

The Democratic National Committee sent a check Wednesday to the U.S. Treasury for $1,448 after the Associated Press showed presidential aides records indicating that there had been no reimbursement for the White House fund-raising breakfasts.

The White House characterized the episode as an “honest oversight.”

The disclosure comes at a sensitive time as the Justice Department investigates whether government resources were misused by the White House to facilitate fund raising under Clinton. Federal law prohibits the use of government resources for political fund raising.

The White House routinely sends bills to the Democratic Party seeking reimbursement for political events at the executive mansion.

But records of the National Park Service, which administers the White House entertainment accounts, showed that while there were tens of thousands of dollars in political reimbursements from the party in 1994 for White House events, they did not cover most of the health care fund-raising breakfasts at which Clinton was host.

The chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees White House spending chided presidential aides Thursday, saying they correct such a problem “only when it is dug up by someone else.”

The health fund was used by the party to pay for ads supporting Clinton’s ill-fated universal health care plan in 1994. The donations were reported to the Federal Election Commission.