Democrats Seek Wider Videotape Scope

Senate Democrats are eager to dim the lights at this week’s campaign fund-raising hearings and show White House videotapes of major contributors schmoozing with the president.

President Reagan or President Bush, that is.

Republicans have touted President Clinton’s appearances on recently released videotapes as evidence of unseemly politicking within the executive mansion. Democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hope to show that previous Republican presidents engaged in similar practices--under the same watchful eye of a White House video camera.

Already, Democratic researchers have discovered about a dozen videotapes in the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. On one, Reagan tells GOP donors on April 22, 1985: “I know that many of you were instrumental in giving us the means to keep control of the Senate. I hope I can count on all of you next time around.”

To get a more complete collection, Senate Democrats have called on the White House Communications Agency to release any videotapes it has dating back to Jan. 20, 1981--the start of Reagan’s first term.

In a letter sent Friday, Democratic Counsel Alan I. Baran asked Lt. Col. John Sparks, an attorney representing the communications agency, for any records of videotapes from the Reagan and Bush years.

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Most of the videotapes have been shipped off to those presidents’ libraries but Democrats said they have reason to believe that at least four tapes of Bush fund-raisers still exist at the White House.

The hard part may be getting access to them.

Officials in the Clinton White House have indicated that they will not turn over the Reagan or Bush videotapes without a Senate subpoena.

And Republicans are not thrilled about the idea of turning Wednesday’s and Thursday’s hearings--which will focus on why the White House did not turn over the videotapes sooner--into a bipartisan screening.

The Senate investigation is supposed to focus on fund-raising improprieties by both parties in the 1996 election cycle, GOP investigators said. They accuse the Democrats of trying to take attention away from the pile of fund-raising abuses involving the Democratic National Committee.

“The Democrats are taking homicides committed by the Clinton administration and comparing them with Republican jaywalking,” a GOP staff member said.

To keep the Republican tapes out of Democratic hands, Michael J. Madigan, the chief Republican counsel for the Senate investigation, wrote a letter to the White House advising officials to disregard Baran’s missive.

“Please be advised that I have checked with the chairman”--Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.)--”and that this request is totally unauthorized and should be ignored,” Madigan wrote. “Such a request is far outside the scope of our committee’s jurisdictional mandate.”