Clinton Will Take a Pass on Senate Testimony, Aides Say

It could have been a rematch between President Clinton and Bob Dole, one last chance for the two old rivals to slug it out before the cameras--election or no election.

But Dole’s dramatic offer to Clinton to join him at the witness table for a day’s worth of questioning by the Senate’s campaign fund-raising panel probably will be respectfully declined, presidential aides said Friday.

White House officials all but closed the door on Clinton testifying before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, whose hearings have taken on the air of a partisan food fight.

“I can’t imagine, given the general performance of that committee in recent days, that any president of the United States would attend and participate in their proceedings,” said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. “But we have not received an invitation.”

Actually, an invitation from Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. later in the day--but it did not alter the White House response.

In his “Dear Mr. President” letter, Thompson said he hopes arrangements can be made for a joint Clinton-Dole appearance “as soon as possible consistent with your busy schedule.”

Don’t count on it.

GOP investigators acknowledged that it is rare for a president to testify before Congress. But the matters they are investigating do not come along every day either, they said.

“Although it’s unusual, it’s not unprecedented,” a GOP investigator said of presidential testimony before Congress. “We hope he will come before the committee and tell us about everything from foreign contributions to the use of White House property as a fund-raising tool. It’s clearly unusual, but these circumstances are unusual.”

The last--and only--time a sitting president formally testified before Congress was President Ford’s Oct. 17, 1974, visit to the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice to explain his controversial pardon of former President Nixon.

Before that, presidents always had treaded informally to Capitol Hill, always careful to respect the boundaries separating the executive and legislative branches of government.

President Washington, for instance, visited the Senate chamber to push for a treaty with the Creek Indians in 1789, according to historical accounts.

But McCurry said the ongoing Senate hearings are “not an exercise at getting at the truth” and have become “a collective exercise in partisan warfare [that doesn’t] have much to do with reforming campaign finance laws.”

While displaying no interest in updating the history books, White House officials certainly had no problem with Dole, who joined a private law firm after his presidential election defeat, taking the microphone.

“If Sen. Dole decides that he needs to testify, that’s his business,” McCurry said.

Dole, in fact, intends to return to his old stomping grounds with or without the president. The former Senate majority leader said he wants to counter Democratic assertions that his campaign violated fund-raising rules.

“Recently, there have been some statements questioning my activities as a candidate and some that cast doubt on my integrity,” Dole said in a surprise letter to Thompson on Thursday.

Senate Democrats dismissed Dole’s offer as one more shrewd political move by the now-retired tactical whiz, who last injected himself in a major Capitol Hill controversy in April--when he loaned $150,000 to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to help him settle a House penalty for ethics violations.

“This is a transparent and slightly sad political stunt clearly designed more to embarrass the president than to gain real knowledge or insight,” said Jim Jordan, the Democratic spokesman for the Senate committee. “No one has alleged any impropriety on the part of Sen. Dole himself, so the relevance of his appearance before the committee is hard to understand.”

Dole is traveling during the next few weeks, so it will be difficult to schedule his testimony before the Senate recesses early next month, aides said. But Democrats said they will quiz Dole if he wants to be quizzed.

Democrats have repeatedly argued that the Republican Party engaged in many of the same abuses attributed to Democrats during the 1996 campaign.

During testimony, Democratic investigators have presented evidence showing that former Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour arranged an overseas loan guarantee that benefited the GOP. And they have argued that the Republican National Committee coordinated political advertisements with the Dole campaign, just as the Democratic National Committee and White House have been condemned for doing.

But Democrats had mixed emotions about grilling their affable former colleague. “I’d much rather have Haley Barbour back to talk about the tobacco deal,” said one Democratic investigator.