White House Official Says He Wasn’t Asked for Donor Tapes

A top official of the White House Communications Agency told Senate investigators that his unit never received a memo White House lawyers say they sent the agency in April to request videotapes of President Clinton’s coffees with campaign contributors.

In a deposition Friday, Steven Smith, chief of operations, swore that the agency was never asked for any videotapes or other records of the coffees until about two weeks ago. All he received in April, he said, was a list of individuals and organizations caught up in the 1996 fund-raising inquiry.

White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff has said he sent the agency and all other White House units a four-page memo last spring seeking, among other materials, the 44 tapes found Oct. 1 and 2.

But the White House tentatively acknowledged Sunday that another foul-up appeared to have been made “inadvertently” by the White House Military Office, the way station for paper traffic between Ruff’s office and the communications agency.

White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis said: “We understand that the military office, when it was producing copies of [Ruff’s four-page April 28] directive, may have inadvertently neglected to photocopy the first two sheets of the directive, in which reference to materials relating to ‘coffees’ was expressly included.”

Quipped one Senate investigator: “This sounds like a new Clinton application of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ”