Clinton Would Agree to Reno Questions

President Clinton, reacting Monday to a comment by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, said he would agree to submit to questioning in the Justice Department’s political fund-raising investigation.

Asked by reporters whether he was willing to undergo such questioning, he said, “I will do anything that is necessary to get her [Reno] and the Justice Department the information they need.”

“Including speaking to her?” a reporter asked later.

“If she wishes to interview me,” the president replied.

Reno had said a day earlier, “We’re going to pursue every lead and interview anyone who has information concerning the transactions involved in this whole investigation.”

Asked if that could include Clinton, she said, “Exactly.”

Clinton, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One on his South American trip, described himself as even angrier than Reno when he learned of delays in providing videotapes of White House coffees to investigators.

While Reno said last week she “was mad,” Clinton said: “You think she was mad. You should have been there when I heard about it.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, the head of the White House Military Office, which oversees the unit that videotaped the coffees, took responsibility for the failure to find the tapes earlier. Alan Sullivan disputed suggestions that presidential aides didn’t ask his office to search for materials about the coffees last spring when they were first subpoenaed.

Sullivan, a retired Marine colonel, said presidential counsel Charles F. C. Ruff made an explicit request to his office last spring for materials related to the coffees and the failure to search for the tapes was caused by an internal mix-up.

“Mr. Ruff’s full directive was circulated to each of the elements of the WHMO” including the unit that handled the tapes, Sullivan said, adding, “I accept responsibility for the failure to respond completely to Mr. Ruff’s directive.”

Sullivan was responding to a leaked Senate deposition in which a career military officer who handled the spring search said he was not given the first two pages of Ruff’s request that mentioned the coffees. The White House does not dispute the aide’s account.

But officials familiar with the search, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that when the aide was given his orders, they were sent by electronic mail and the first two pages mentioning the coffees were truncated. But the error occurred inside the military office and was not an omission by political aides close to the president.

Clinton said one of his White House lawyers, Lanny Breuer, “made a mistake” when he failed to immediately tell Reno that the tapes were discovered. But he said the counsel’s office has worked hard to comply with requests from congressional and Justice Department investigators.

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The president also defended the White House Communications Agency, which videotapes White House events and--according to the legal staff--originally failed to find the coffee tapes in a database.

“They’re career military people,” Clinton said. “They’re not politicians. For all I know they’ve not been involved in anything like this before.

“They’re trying to do their job as they see it to get some video record of the things that a president does and they’re doing their best to fully comply.”