GOP Attacks Clinton Boost for Schumer

President Clinton campaigned Monday for Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee who would vote on any articles of impeachment against him.

That brought a complaint of “jury tampering” from a Republican leader who questioned the propriety of Clinton helping Schumer, a Democrat from Brooklyn, raise $1 million for his campaign to unseat Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.).

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said it was “quite unseemly for the president of the United States, whose fate is in the hands of the Judiciary Committee . . . to raise a lot of money for a member who sits on that committee.” Saying that the White House “war room is totally engaged in jury tampering,” DeLay added, “Schumer ought to recuse himself.”

The whip’s remarks are part of a Republican drumbeat in recent days accusing Clinton of putting party politics above the budget battles. The Republican National Committee on Monday issued a press release offering sarcastic congratulations to Clinton. “Today you have hit a grand total of 100 fund-raisers in 1998. No president in American history has spent so much time fund-raising.”

But Clinton likely would stump for Schumer in any political season. Democrats think Schumer can defeat D’Amato in the race for the Senate, where Republicans now hold a 55-45 edge.

And among those who study political ethics, the question of Clinton’s embrace of Schumer is a nonstarter.

“If you carry that out, the president can’t do any fund-raising for any members of the Senate, because they’d be part of the jury, or members of the House, because they’d vote on the articles of impeachment,” said Alan Rosenthal, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. “Is Clinton behaving any differently than he would have been without this affair? The answer is no. Clinton would be in New York helping Schumer. It’s a seat they can win. That’s what presidents do.”

At the fund-raiser, Clinton made no reference to the Republicans’ comments, instead saluting Schumer--and assailing GOP advertising against him--while the congressman remained in Washington as Congress wrapped up its legislative business for the year.

Recounting Schumer votes that supported Clinton’s deficit reduction plan in 1993, gun control the next year and crime legislation he favored, the president said: “If I had that kind of voting record, I don’t think I’d be criticizing Chuck Schumer.”

White House officials brushed aside GOP suggestions that campaigning for a member of the House Judiciary Committee might raise ethical issues for the president.

“I’d suggest there are probably members of the Republican leadership campaigning for Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee,” White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said. “I don’t think it’s a legitimate issue.”

Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, agreed that “the reality is the elections are going to shape the impeachment inquiry and it would be unilateral disarmament for the president not to engage in activities he thinks will be helpful.”

“Impeachment is a political process and this will be fought out in the political arena,” Mann added. “For him to disengage from that process on grounds of ethical propriety is ridiculous.”

Mann agreed that Clinton is simply going about his job--the policy and political elements of it together--in a very public way.

That Clinton is successful, he said, was demonstrated by a poll published Monday by the Washington Post. The poll found that since Congress voted last week to begin a formal impeachment inquiry into Clinton’s affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, support for the Republican-led Congress has been falling--and support for Democratic candidates increasing.

That, said Mann, was “just a knockout.”

White House officials had been planning to taper Clinton’s political activities in the final week of the congressional campaign out of fear that by inserting himself into close races he would only boost the vote of Republican opponents.

But if the poll numbers hold up, said Mann, “it means the Democrats have framed the issues properly. It means they’re on the side of the public and Clinton will be able to travel” to get out the Democratic vote without fear of spurring the Republican turnout.