Clinton Questioned in Campaign Finance Investigation

Justice Department investigators questioned President Clinton for 90 minutes Monday, looking into potential violations of campaign finance laws.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has until Dec. 7 to determine whether to seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign exceeded federal spending limits.

At issue is whether the campaign tried to circumvent campaign spending limits by asking the Democratic National Committee to pay for $40 million in so-called issue advertising aimed at undermining the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, and promoting Clinton’s campaign. By accepting federal campaign funds, a candidate must abide by specific spending limits.

In a written statement, David E. Kendall, Clinton’s private lawyer, said only that the president was cooperating with the investigation and volunteered to take part in the interview, which was sought by the Justice Department.

The interview, conducted by two Justice Department officials and two FBI agents, took place in the Treaty Room of the White House, a White House official said. He added that three private attorneys--Kendall, Nicole Seligman, and a third lawyer--attended the question-and-answer session, but no White House lawyers were present.

Unlike the conduct of Clinton’s questioning in August in the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, this interview was not videotaped, and Clinton did not testify under oath, White House officials said. Still, one official pointed out, it is a felony to lie to federal investigators, regardless of the conditions under which such statements are delivered.

Such interviews have become oddly routine. Clinton answered lawyers’ questions several times in connection with the investigation of the Whitewater land deals, then in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case and in August in independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of the Lewinsky matter.

Reno was under intense pressure to launch the investigation, intended to determine whether there are grounds for asking a federal court panel to appoint an independent counsel, when she said in September that “new information” prompted her to review the question of campaign finance irregularities.

Sources familiar with the matter said she was referring to a Federal Election Commission memorandum. In it, auditors maintained that ads financed by the Democratic National Committee advocated Clinton’s election and thus should have been charged against the Clinton-Gore reelection committee’s spending limits.

A year earlier, Reno had considered the issue and decided it did not warrant further investigation. In a separate, but similar matter, the Justice Department is trying to determine whether to seek an independent counsel investigation of Vice President Al Gore’s role in raising money for the 1996 campaign.

Joseph Sandler, the DNC’s general counsel, said Monday that the president “was certainly aware of and involved in the DNC advertising that promoted his legislative agenda.”

But it would be a leap, he said, to assume the president behaved improperly.

“The DNC did this based on my legal advice. Not only was it based on legal advice, but we’re convinced now, as we were at the time, the advice was absolutely sound, that this was issue advertising that could be lawfully paid for by the DNC and state Democratic parties,” Sandler said.

He added: “It’s a pretty far stretch to surmise there was wrongdoing by the president.”