Gore Releases Probe Interview, Denies Lying

Moving swiftly to limit political damage to his presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore released a transcript Friday of his sworn testimony to the Justice Department prosecutor who is recommending the appointment of an outside counsel to investigate whether Gore told the truth about his 1996 campaign fund-raising.

“I have told the truth. I have cooperated fully,” Gore told reporters on Air Force Two en route from Colorado to California. “I don’t want people to have the impression that I’m trying to hide something here.”

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, meanwhile, said that she would not be rushed into deciding whether to follow the preliminary recommendation of the head of the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force to appoint a special counsel to investigate Gore’s veracity about his role in 1996 Democratic fund-raising efforts.

“I want to make sure that the investigation is done the right way,” Reno said, “so that it does not interfere with the democratic process.”

The 123-page transcript of Gore’s April 18 interview with task force chief Robert J. Conrad Jr. shows the vice president insisting he has never had any reason to believe that the Democratic National Committee luncheon he attended at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., on April 29, 1996, was a fund-raiser.

“There was no solicitation of money,” Gore testified to a skeptical Conrad. “I did not see any money or checks change hands. I never heard it discussed. Nor do I believe it took place, incidentally. Perhaps you know that some money changed hands there. But to this day, I don’t think any did.”

Although the temple event lacked the usual trappings of a political fund-raiser, it raised $140,000 for the Democratic National Committee. When questions later arose about some of the donors, much of the money was returned.

Maria Hsia, a Los Angeles immigration consultant and longtime Gore fund-raiser, was convicted earlier this year of illegally disguising campaign donations from the temple, some of which stemmed from the luncheon.

Conrad, who has recommended an outside counsel to determine Gore’s truthfulness, questioned the vice president closely about his professed lack of knowledge, noting that Gore had briefing papers that associated the finance arm of the DNC and its campaign fund-raisers Richard Sullivan and John Huang with the temple event.

Gore, as he had said before, testified that he viewed the temple visit as more of a “community outreach” event to cultivate friendships with members of the Asian American community in Southern California who might later decide to support the party financially.

As Conrad repeatedly pressed him, an agitated Gore replied: “I sure as hell did not have any conversations with anyone saying, this is a fund-raising event.”

Gore also testified that he recalled attending only one White House coffee associated with the 1996 campaign. “This was on the president’s side of things,” he said.

But, two days later, his private attorney, James F. Neal, sent a letter to Conrad stating that Gore had understood the prosecutor’s questions about the coffees to pertain only to those “hosted by the president in the White House.” Neal asked that the record be clarified to reflect that Gore’s schedules showed “he was designated to attend four White House coffees” and had “hosted approximately 21 coffees in the Old Executive Office Building,” which is part of the White House compound.

Conrad questioned Gore closely about whether the coffees were intended to raise campaign funds. Many participants contributed large sums shortly before or after attending the events. But Gore insisted that they were “a part of relationship-building,” which, in turn, “had an impact on the likelihood that they would become donors later on.”

Gore Acknowledges Making Mistakes

Speaking to reporters about the matter Friday, Gore acknowledged that “I have made mistakes in fund-raising” but would not specify what those mistakes were.

He said that the interview with Conrad and two FBI agents was “cooperative and professional.” Gore denied some press reports that tempers had flared and he appeared to be supported by the transcript.

And the vice president suggested that politics was behind the disclosure of Conrad’s recommendation this week.

“I think that the timing of this sort of speaks for itself. Here we are four months before a national election that takes place every four years. You can read what you want into that.”

Gore’s presumptive Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, said Friday that “this call for an investigation is indicative of what has gone on. People are sick and tired of all this stuff.” If voters “want four more years of Clinton-Gore, that’s a choice they can make,” he added.

For her part, Reno indicated that she would make her decision independent of political pressure. She has been harshly criticized by Republican lawmakers for previous refusals to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate campaign fund-raising irregularities on behalf of the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign. She has insisted that her own task force of career prosecutors is handling the job.

Speaking at her weekly news briefing, Reno promised to “make the best judgment I can based on the evidence and the law and go forward” on the matter of whether to appoint an outside counsel to investigate Gore’s truthfulness.

“But nothing should be rushed,” she added, “because too often when we rush to justice, we don’t get it. . . . Any decision that I make is made without political influence from anyone.”

Since the demise of the independent counsel law last year, any outside counsel appointed by Reno would operate independently but would report to her. The only counsel now in that category is former Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), who is investigating the government’s conduct in the 1993 Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas.

Conrad, a federal prosecutor in Charlotte, N.C., was named by Reno as the fourth head of the campaign finance task force six months ago. He recently submitted a preliminary recommendation that an outside counsel be appointed to investigate Gore because he believes it would be a conflict of interest for the Justice Department to do so, department officials said.

Conrad’s memo on Gore had been “floating around Justice for about two weeks,” but the prosecutor had not met with Reno about it until the eve of his Wednesday testimony before Congress, according to a source who has spoken with federal investigators.

Inside the department, the Conrad memo has prompted a cold-shoulder response similar to the one that greeted a similar recommendation two years ago from one of his predecessors, Charles G. LaBella, this source related.

He said that Conrad has been loaded down with “homework assignments”--ordered to explain “why this fact or that is material.”

“It’s like the roller derby at Justice. They’re slamming him against the boards as hard as they can,” the source added.

Reno declined Friday to discuss her meetings with Conrad but indicated that she might order further staff work before deciding whether to name a special counsel.

The source familiar with the investigation said that the prosecutor emerged from a recent meeting with James Robinson, chief of the department’s criminal division, and told an FBI agent that “they’re trying to intimidate him to get him to change his views.”

The first public word of Conrad’s confidential memo came from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who chairs a Senate subcommittee that is looking into the Justice Department’s handling of campaign finance abuses, the Davidian siege and other matters.

Chris Lehane, a Gore campaign spokesman, charged Friday that Specter “has virtually turned the U.S. Senate into George W. Bush’s press office. We’re not going to put up with that kind of political skulduggery and dirty tricks.”

Specter has invited Reno to appear on Tuesday before the full Senate Judiciary Committee. In the four-hour interview with Conrad, Gore also denied any knowledge of missing White House e-mails from his office, which now is the focus of a separate federal investigation.

Gore Testifies on Missing E-Mails

“What is your knowledge, sitting here today, of the issues surrounding the White House e-mail system’s failure to archive messages?” he was asked.

“I have no idea,” Gore replied. “I have read the recent news stories. That is the first time that I knew that some of the e-mail that I assumed was being stored was apparently not stored, or at least wasn’t stored in the form that it was supposed to be stored in.”

Gore also was questioned about his relationship with various controversial Asian and Asian American Democratic fund-raisers from the 1996 campaign, including wealthy Indonesian businessman James Riady and former Arkansas restaurateur Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie. Gore said that he had met these individuals on occasion but had no knowledge of their fund-raising activities for the party.

Also released Friday was a packet of related documents about Gore’s fund-raising activities. These records were previously sent to congressional committees investigating the campaign finance scandal.

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Times staff writers William C. Rempel in Los Angeles, Bonnie Harris in San Francisco and Megan Garvey in Tuscaloosa, Ala., contributed to this story.