Celebrities, Smaller Donors Fatten Clinton Defense Fund

The defense fund established six months ago to help President and Mrs. Clinton pay steadily mounting legal bills has raised more than $2 million from approximately 15,000 contributors, sources close to the fund said Thursday.

Much of the money came from wealthy Clinton supporters who contributed $10,000 each, the maximum allowed by the fund. But sources said that almost $1 million came from a direct-mail solicitation, with many contributions in the $100 range.

The depth and breadth of the contributions suggest a considerable reservoir of support for Clinton as he faces his scheduled appearance Monday before the federal grand jury investigating his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Many of the contributors wrote letters making it clear that “they believe it is grossly unfair the way the president is being treated in the investigation,” said a source connected with the fund.

In a solicitation letter to supporters, former Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), founder and chairman of the Clinton Legal Expense Trust, said that the Clintons have accumulated almost $4 million in legal expenses since entering the White House--”an amount far beyond the president’s total compensation and the first family’s net worth.”

Pryor noted that independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr has spent more than $35 million in his four years investigating the Clintons. Sources with the fund suggested that the Clintons’ legal bills eventually could total $8 million to $10 million, depending on how much longer Starr’s investigations continue.

The trust plans to release the names of contributors and the amount they contributed next week. Sources confirmed a New York Times report that several entertainment industry figures contributed the $10,000 maximum. They include industry executives David Geffen, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Harvey Weinstein, television producer Bud Yorkin, performer Barbra Streisand and actor Tom Hanks.

In his letter, Pryor wrote: “If you are disturbed by the way politics is conducted today, then what better response than to make your own gesture of decency and generosity? I know that it will be enormous comfort to the First Family to know that so many Americans appreciate their work and have come to their aid.”

The Clinton trust replaced a defense fund that labored under restrictions imposed by the Office of Government Ethics, which ruled that the fund trustees were extensions of the Clintons and bound by the same restrictions that bar federal officials from soliciting funds. That fund, co-chaired by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame University, and former Atty. Gen. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, limited individual contributions to $1,000 and raised only $1.3 million after 3 1/2 years.

The fund was disbanded in December after it was disclosed that it had been offered more than $600,000 in funds collected by Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, a friend of the president. The fund rejected the money after becoming suspicious of Trie’s motivation and concerned that some of the individual $1,000 contributions from members of a Buddhist sect may have been coerced.

The Justice Department and Congress began investigating the fund last year, leading to legal expenses of nearly $90,000 after trustees were called to testify before a grand jury and congressional committees.

This year, a federal grand jury indicted Trie, a former Arkansas restaurateur, for allegedly making illegal contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic Party. He has pleaded not guilty.

Because the new fund was established independent of the Clintons, its trustees can solicit funds. Contributors must be U.S. citizens who are not lobbyists or employees of the executive branch of the federal government. Contributions from political action committees, corporations or labor organizations are not permitted.

Pryor said that trustees do their best to check “all contributors to be sure there is no conflict of interest.”

Other trustees are Kenneth G. Bartels, a Republican and New York real estate executive; Roger Johnson, another Republican and a Newport Beach business executive and former administrator of the General Services Administration under Clinton; and Democrats Azie Taylor Morton of Austin, Texas, treasurer in the Carter administration; Anthony F. Essay, a Washington attorney; and H. Maurice Mitchell, a Little Rock, Ark., attorney.