Clinton Bills Top Legal Fund by $4 Million

President Clinton and his wife owe more than $4 million in legal bills related to the 5-year-old Whitewater investigation, despite private contributions of $6.3 million, trustees of their legal defense fund reported Thursday.

The Clintons’ legal obligations totaled about $10.5 million from independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s inquiry, the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit and the congressional impeachment battle, a figure so large that the fund will continue to solicit donations with no cutoff date, officials said.

“The president deserves to leave office without having to spend a good part of the rest of his life paying off his legal debts,” said Anthony F. Essaye, the fund’s executive director.

But in the last two months, he said, “we’ve started to see a downturn, and I expect that will continue.” He cited a lack of media attention to Whitewater and increasing interest in political campaigns.

About 65,000 people have helped whittle the couple’s legal debts over the last 18 months, Essaye said. About 15,000 have given more than once.

With impeachment proceedings over and the Jones lawsuit settled, officials said they believe the Clintons are not likely to incur additional legal costs unless Starr seeks to indict the president or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton before or after they leave the White House in January 2001.

Fund trustees said they did not believe any contributions would be used to cover $90,000 in penalties assessed against the president earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock, Ark., because Clinton lied in his deposition in the Jones case.

“We have not been asked to pay this penalty,” Essaye said.

A source close to the president said that the payment “probably would come out of his own pocket.”

In a semiannual accounting, fund trustees told a news briefing that $2.4 million had been raised during the first six months of this year--about the same as in the two previous half-years--and that 57 people had given $10,000 apiece, the maximum permitted. However, 95% of the donations were for amounts of $100 or less, they said.

Donors contributing $10,000 included these entertainment figures: actor Michael Douglas; DreamWorks SKG principals Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen; and Robert Shaye, head of New Line Cinema Corp.

Maximum donations also were made by Ely Callaway, of Carlsbad, Calif., who founded Callaway Golf; Los Angeles supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and his wife, Janet; Los Angeles producer Peg Yorkin, co-founder of the Feminist Majority, and designer Ralph Lauren.

Rules of the trust, approved by the White House counsel’s office when it was established in February 1998, prohibit donations from those who are not U.S. citizens and from corporations, labor unions, registered lobbyists and employees of the executive branch of government.

Contributions are solicited through direct-mail appeals sent out every six to seven weeks, mostly through the use of Democratic Party lists, and from voluntary efforts by Democratic fund-raisers such as Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of the Clintons.

“We have, however, attempted to reach out and make this a bipartisan, nonpartisan effort,” Essaye said.

The bulk of the legal bills have been submitted by Clinton’s two private lawyers, Robert S. Bennett and David E. Kendall.

During the fund’s first six months, it received 17,000 donations. In the six months starting last August, about the time Clinton gave videotaped testimony to Starr’s federal grand jury, 29,000 people contributed. In the first six months of this year, beginning with Clinton’s battle and acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial, 39,000 donations came in.

Essaye said that the fund had returned about $13,000 from people who were not qualified to contribute.

An initial private fund-raising effort to defray the first couple’s legal bills ended in failure two years ago, having netted less than $800,000 over three years. It was handicapped by a limit of $1,000 per donation, and it suffered from the taint of questionable foreign contributions before organizers voluntarily abandoned it.

After a two-month hiatus, former Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), a longtime friend of the Clintons, started the current fund-raising effort with a higher limit and a more aggressive approach. It was organized shortly after Starr launched the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation, which resulted in the largest legal expenses by far.

Researcher Robin Cochran contributed to this story.