Clinton Scandal Summary Archive

Lion's Den Site Of The Week.

AP reports fund-raiser Nora Lum visited white house personnel office frequently. Federal investigators last year began probing payments Mrs. Lum made from her company to the relatives of two administration officials: the son of late Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and the mother of a White House personnel worker.

Sen. John McCain predicts Janet Reno eventually will have to appoint an independent counsel to investigate foreign contributions to the Democratic Party.

Newly released documents cast doubt on claims by the DNC that President Clinton didn't host fund-raising events in the White House (WALL STREET JOURNAL).

Cabinet nominees Alexis Herman and Rodney Slater may have violated the Hatch Act, which restricts politicking by government workers and forbids the use of government equipment for electioneering.

Michael McCurry's statements become "inoperative" regarding when White House became aware of former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell's 1994 employment with an affiliate of the Lippo Group.

White House denies using the IRS as a political instrument.

Morris book reveals Clinton used polls to decide where to vacation.

Republicans say NSC head Lake moved to conceal all records of Bosnian arms transfers from Iran.

Time Magazine (Feb 3 issue) reports WhoDB was used for fund raising. (Ray Heizer notes, prior to this date the story was neither true nor false. It stayed in that state of flux until TIME collapsed the quantum uncertainty by remarking on it.)

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) is planning an investigation of fund-raising practices of both parties and is prepared to go to court, if necessary, to force the release of White House records.

A computer analysis of federal election records and a recently released White House guest list for the coffees found that the Democrats collected $27,018,553 in soft-money "contributions from 358 people invited to meet with Clinton.

Crop Insurance Executives Go on Trial in Espy Case.

Documents show White House aides developed plans last year to energize non-profit groups to work for President Clinton's reelection. The plans were developed under the direction of Clinton's assistant for public liaison Alexis Herman, who Clinton last month nominated to be his new secretary of labor.

A 25-member FBI task force has been assigned to look into economic and national security concerns involving John Huang.

Racial tactics, travel by Slater questioned.

An FBI inquiry into the interception of a cellular call involving Newt Gingrich and other House Republican leaders continues to focus on Democrats looking to embarrass the House speaker Export-Import Bank official Marie Haley could get extra gentle treatment from the Clinton Administration in a new loan scandal because of her tie to the Vincent Foster intrigue.

Washington Times reports: One day after Chinese arms dealer Wang Jun visited President Clinton in the Oval Office, longtime Clinton supporter Ernest G. Green, who helped Mr. Wang get a U.S. visa, made a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee.

Anthony Lake profited from investment in a natural-gas company last year after being told not to invest in the energy sector (WALL STREET JOURNAL)

The White House conceded that a million-dollar political fund-raising event attended by President Clinton this week would violate the requirements of a campaign finance reform bill he is prodding Congress to enact.

Little Rock native Ernest Green disputed suggestions that his $50,000 donation last year to the Democratic National Committee had any connection with a Chinese arms dealer's visit to the White House.

Former Lippo Group executive John Huang, now the focus of an FBI probe into possible economic-espionage and national-security concerns, held top-secret clearances for three years, although he worked at Commerce for only 18 months - Washington Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Roger Tamraz, former banker who is a fugitive from Lebanon on embezzlement charges sipped coffee at the White House with President Clinton and other Democratic donors last April. Tamraz's U.S.-based oil company donated $72,000 to the party in 1995 and 1996.

A New Jersey stock promoter, Eric Wynn, convicted of criminal securities fraud that benefited a member of the Bonanno organized crime family, was among eight guests who accepted an invitation to join President Clinton and top Democratic Party leaders for an early morning coffee four days before Christmas in 1995, White House records show.

The White House acknowledged that it had never reviewed the backgrounds of any of the hundreds of visitors who saw President Clinton in scores of intimate White House meetings arranged by the Democratic National Committee.

Clinton White House ended screening of guests that Reagan and Bush had used.

While nursing home executive Alan D. Solomont raised $17 million for the Democratic Party and gave nearly $300,000 of his own and his company's money, he gained extraordinary access to President Clinton at a time when the administration considered loosening proposed regulations on the nursing home industry.

The IRS demanded the NRA membership list as part of the audit. The NRA has *refused* to provide the list.

A Justice Department task force and a federal grand jury looking at Democratic Party fund-raising have asked the party for records involving more than 40 individuals and corporations, USA Today reported today.

CNN has obtained a copy of a memorandum from Ickes to R. Warren Medoff, a representative of a major Democratic donor. The memo directs how the donor could make large contributions so he could get the "favorable tax treatment" he wanted. Ickes asked that his memo be "shredded," according to a report in Newsweek. President Clinton renewed controversial aid flights to Cuba last October on the same day a campaign donor pressed Clinton to resume the flights and offered to arrange a $5 million contribution.

Pauline Kanchanalak gave $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee a day before a top White House adviser met with council members and U.S. business executives in a move to expand U.S.-Thailand trade. It was among $253,500 in donations that were returned to Mrs. Kanchanalak and her relatives in November amid questions about the source of the funds.- THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than three dozen subpoenas have been issued for persons and businesses in a Justice Department investigation into foreign-linked campaign contributions involving President Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

Challenged with questions about his frankness, White House press secretary Mike McCurry said Tuesday he should have told reporters last week about his conversation with Democratic fund-raiser Truman Arnold.

"Federal Ruling on Poultry Stuns Consumer Groups."- The Clinton administration issued its "final food-safety rule that requires poultry inspectors to check only a few birds for fecal contamination at the end of production lines."

Dr. J. Michael Waller of the American Foreign Policy Council revealed and discussed the fact that a U.S. government agency headed by the wife of Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has just extended a $200 million loan to Russia to help them modernize their ballistic missiles.

A major donation to the Democrats was a clear ticket to White House coffees with President Clinton, and a channel for lobbyists to personally raise special-interest issues with him, according to interviews with participants. In some cases, invitations to the coffees were issued directly by Terence McAuliffe, the chief fund-raiser for Clinton's re-election campaign, or one of his lieutenants.

FBI whistle-blowers say the bureau's bomb experts played golf when they should have been at work, stashed gin in the refrigerator and held weekly poker games while on duty, CBS reported Wednesday.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, the American political patriarch, has sold his 6 1/2-acre McLean estate for nearly $6 million to Eric Hotung, head of a legendary Hong Kong family of merchant princes, landowners and philanthropists.

The former head of the Los Angeles Airport Commission will testify today before the Whitewater grand jury about a questionable consulting contract he approved in 1994 giving $24,750 to former Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell.

Federal marshals are searching for former White House personnel security chief Craig Livingstone to serve him with a lawsuit alleging he mishandled the FBI background files of White House employees.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just days before a controversial White House database was disclosed last year, the presidential aide who oversaw the project told congressional investigators in a sworn deposition, ``There was no database at the White House at all. 'White House aide Marsha Scott gave the answer June 19, 1996, during the investigation into the White House travel office firings.

The nation's top banking regulator accepted tickets from a banker to an opera performance in New York and a Kennedy Center black-tie event, and his staff advised a trade group on its lobbying against a banking proposal on Capitol Hill, agency documents show. Rep. Spencer T. Bachus, chairman of an oversight subcommittee looking into the White House meeting, expressed concerns about Ludwig coaching bankers in their efforts to lobby legislators about a banking bill.

Among the hundreds of dinners, coffees and receptions that benefited the Democratic Party last year, a single private gathering featuring President Clinton and four wealthy Asian businessmen at a luxury hotel here last July is emerging as a focus of particular intrigue. The White House cannot explain the participation of people barred from contributing. Justice Department and congressional investigators are investigating to see whether any laws may have been broken--specifically if foreign money destined for the Democratic Party was channeled through U.S. citizens.

A controversial 230,000-name White House computer list now under congressional investigation includes far more political fund-raising information than presidential aides have admitted, Gannett News Service has learned.

ABC "World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings spiked a story this evening that proves conclusively that the Clinton Administration had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Gore's public relations disaster at auto show

Democratic officials regularly steered would-be campaign contributors to a tax-exempt and supposedly nonpartisan voter registration group that in reality has close ties to the Democratic Party. Donations to such groups, known as "501C3s" for the provision of the U.S. Tax Code authorizing them, are tax deductible. But the groups are supposed to maintain an arms-length relationship with political parties, and any coordination of efforts could raise questions of legality and propriety.

Convicted Whitewater partner Jim McDougal is now telling independent counsel Kenneth Starr that then-Gov. Bill Clinton knew about an illegal 1986 loan issued to McDougal's wife at the time, according to The New Yorker magazine.

Up to 900 Donors Stayed Overnight at White House Numbers are called 'staggering.'

Coveted slots on U.S. foreign trade missions generated a major fund-raising bonanza for the Democratic Party during President Clinton's first term. The business leaders who were invited on such trips contributed $15 million to Democratic Party committees over the four-year period.

Ickes ducks White House query on fund-raising Harold Ickes Jr. has failed to respond to a White House request for full disclosure of how he, as President Clinton's deputy chief of staff, funneled Democratic contributions into tax-exempt foundations.

The latest Hubbell client to surface is Time Warner (the parent company of TIME magazine). A company executive confirmed to TIME last week that the corporation employed Hubbell briefly as a consultant in the fall of 1994. Starr issued a subpoena last month to Time Warner, asking for the records of Hubbell's employment.

Wednesday February 12, 1997

During his nine-month tenure at Commerce, Kantor led only two small trade missions abroad. But an analysis done for The Boston Globe found that four of the companies invited, including Enron, gave the Democratic Party one-shot contributions of $100,000 or more just before or after the trips. In an interview, Kantor said he was ``stunned'' to learn of the donations.

Three former Clinton administration appointees and a fund-raiser have refused to cooperate with a House investigation into Democratic fund-raising irregularities, prompting formal subpoenas

A Justice Department investigation into improper political fund-raising activities has uncovered evidence that representatives of the People's Republic of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 presidential campaign, officials familiar with the inquiry said.

An FBI task force probing national security concerns involving foreign campaign contributions to the Democratic Party has focused on the transfer of highly classified intelligence documents from the Commerce Department to a safe in the Small Business Administration. President Clinton confirmed Thursday that federal authorities are investigating whether the Chinese government, through its embassy in Washington, orchestrated foreign contributions to the DNC.

A regular source reported to Larry Nichols on his worldwide shortwave radio program today about the existence of National Security Agency (NSA) tapes of telephone conversations between Hillary Rodham Clinton and persons at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. He alleged that the NSA has had bugs in place at the embassy for decades, and that there are also NSA tapes of former high-ranking Clinton administration official Harold Ickes in conversations with persons at the Chinese Embassy before the last election.

President Clinton's computerized database of 350,000 friends, created in part because it would save money, has cost taxpayers $1.69 million and could cost nearly $100,000 annually to operate, according to the White House. Instead of slashing costs by consolidating computerized databases and eliminating some computer operators, the system's price tag has surged above the initial estimate of $545,000.

In a new set of questions about the nomination of Alexis Herman as secretary of labor, a Senate committee is examining why she received an ownership interest now worth as much as $500,000 in a real-estate development here without investing any money, government officials said Friday

New White House documents revealed Friday that a number of Chinese officials attended a taping of President Bill Clinton's weekly radio address at the urging of an Asian-American campaign contributor.

A paid informant of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) has revealed to an Oklahoma newspaper that she reported to the agency late in 1994 that three federal buildings, two of them in Tulsa and the other in Oklahoma City, were being discussed as potential targets for bombing by members of an extremist group located in Elohim City, Oklahoma.

Lamberth has over-ridden the Clinton administration's request to quash pretrial probing of the Commerce Dept by Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch. Lamberth noted "annoying and oppressive conduct" by Commerce and Justice Dept attorneys to prevent legal discovery.

While he worked as a senior Commerce Department official, privy to classified trade briefings, John Huang regularly met and dined with Chinese Embassy officials who would have valued such information. When Huang left Commerce to begin a controversial stint as the Democrats' top fund-raiser among Asian-Americans, he kept his Chinese contacts.

The Clinton administration shifted its policy toward the U.S. territory of Guam in late 1996 after politicians and business leaders there contributed nearly $900,000 to the Democratic Party, the Washington Post reported in Sunday editions.

A CNN story said there were big holes in the OKC bombing case. NO witnesses who were going to place Mc Veigh at the scene are going to be used or are "discredited".

Democrats had more than a month to submit proposed subpoenas to a Senate committee investigating campaign fund-raising abuses but didn't begin their work until two hours after the panel voted to issue 52 subpoenas for documents.

Internal Democratic National Committee records show that money man John Huang used a controversial White House "coffee" with President Clinton to raise $185,000 in campaign cash. It's against the law to use federal property -- such as the White House -- for political fund-raising, and Clinton aides and the DNC alike continue to deny that the coffees were direct fund-raisers.

Last month, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton gained much publicity by reading to children on the pediatrics ward of the Georgetown University Medical Center. Now, the American Spectator reports that ill youngsters were barred from the event- that the children shown in newspaper photos actually were the offspring of hospital staff. Mrs. Clinton's advance team "became squeamish about their boss appearing with kids who weren't looking 100 percent in the pink; in fact, hospital officials were told not allow any children into the photo-op who were 'drowsy,' bald, bearing tubes in their bodies, or 'sick-looking,'" the magazine said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate panel investigating 1996 campaign finance abuses subpoenaed President Clinton's legal defense fund Wednesday for records of contributions and money returned to donors, aides said.

On Thursday (February 20) the Washington Post provided a couple of new revelations. A front page story by Lena Sun reported: "An executive of an Asian-American business association said he was approached by Democratic fundraiser John Huang last summer and asked to funnel more than $250,000 from Huang through its members as contributions to the Democratic National Committee in return for a $45,000 payment to the group."

Inside, a story by Bob Woodward began: "A twice-convicted felon who met with President Clinton at one of the small, controversial White House coffees in 1995 appeared on four other occasions at Democratic National Committee fundraising events with Clinton last year, according to records and interviews with DNC officials."

Plus, a front page Wall Street Journal story documented how a Miami businessman twice met with the National Security Council's Latin America specialist to urge Clinton to back Paraguay's President in a coup attempt. "The day the unsuccessful coup attempt began," the DNC "received $100,000 from Mr. [Mark] Jimenez."

The Justice Department is defending some of the same Commerce Department officials its investigating for illegal fundraising. Critics say its a clear conflict of interest that may be coloring Justice's three-month probe.

Hubbell, Huang Say They'll Invoke Fifth Amendment - Associated Press

The White House is ending the practice of allowing the Democratic National Committee to pay the salaries of some of its "volunteer" workers, administration officials said last night, and will hire four individuals now being paid by the DNC. New documents show some of them worked on the secret White House database of Clinton donors and supporters.

"WE MADE A MISTAKE" says ArDem-Gaz STARR STAGED NO MOCK TRIALS, SOURCE CONCEDES

Two Asian-American business leaders (Mary Hay, Rawlein Soberano) accuse Indogate figure John Huang of asking their association to illegally funnel $255,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary agreed to meet with a friend of Johnny Chung, who gave $366,000 to the DNC and used his pull to get pals to meet President Clinton and other top U.S. officials, records show. It's the latest example where the DNC -- under fire for dangling access to Clinton and key administration players to raise campaign cash --intervened with a U.S. official on behalf of a generous donor.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A conservative public interest law firm is accusing Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., of improperly trying to influence a Senate committee investigation of questionable Democratic fund-raising practices.

Trie & Kanchanalak Flee to Asia ?

The Manhattan district attorney said Friday that he had given federal prosecutors evidence that a Venezuelan banking family may have illegally funneled campaign contributions to the Democratic Party during the 1992 election. Prosecutors said they had evidence that the Americans, Charles Intriago and Jorge Castro Barredo, had been reimbursed by companies controlled by the Castro family in Venezuela.

The former head of the U.S. liaison office on Taiwan, who resigned under pressure a month ago, alleged Saturday that the State Department purged him because he was investigating lawbreaking and corruption in the Taiwan operation. James C. Wood accused a former assistant secretary of state of condoning corruption, fraud and mismanagement. Other senior Clinton administration and State Department officials also knew but did nothing, he contended.

Just two months ago America's top drug fighter, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, praised his newly appointed Mexican counterpart, Gen. Jesus Gutiirrez Rebollo, as a man of "unquestioned integrity ."Now General Gutiirrez stands accused of accepting bribes from and collaborating with leading Mexican drug traffickers.

Rural Highfill, Arkansas, has a population of less than 100 persons noted ABC's "20/20" program in their Feb. 20, 1997 broadcast. So why build an international airport there? One reason pointed to is that both Tyson Chicken and Wal-Mart have facilities in nearby Arkansas, Arkansas.... Hmmm.... Who do we know that's from there? The name is Bill something or other, isn't it?

Tribune Review reports Dennis Sculimbrene was forced into early retirement for refusing to dispute allegations made by Gary Aldrich and for his account of the hiring of Craig Livingstone. According to Sculimbrene, last summer the FBI dispatched two agents to question him about his 1993 interview with Nussbaum. Sculimbrene said the agents told him the White House was unhappy about his attribution of statements to Nussbaum concerning a personal relationship between Hillary Clinton and Livingstone's mother.

A lawyer for federal bank regulators initially concluded that some agency staffers might have violated federal law by helping their boss prepare for a Democratic National Committee-sponsored coffee at the White House with President Bill Clinton and several top bank executives. But the lawyer, Barrett Aldemeyer, reversed himself a few weeks later and concluded that no violation had occurred - after receiving an order from a supervisor.

Colorado Gov. Roy Romer says at least three staffers from the Democratic National Committee are still doing work for the White House. Romer, the DNC chief, tells ABC they are doing advance work for President Clinton. Last week, the White House brought four other committee employees onto the government payroll after similar disclosures.

On his last day in office, Secretary of State Warren Christopher dismissed James Wood, an Arkansas Democrat, as chief U.S. representative for Taiwan just 13 months after he took office. Wood said he was victimized by efforts to detail corruption and fraud that occurred at the office before he was named to head it. ``It is clear that massive corruption, fraud, graft and sexual harassment and mismanagement were ongoing during Bellocchi's tenure as chairman,'' Wood said, basing his contention on an independent audit.

House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said he was "gravely concerned" to read over the weekend that the White House, citing diplomatic and national security concerns, recently sought and received information on whether the Chinese government had tried to illegally funnel money to the Democratic National Committee. Burton charged that the Justice Department "inexplicably and in short order" provided records sought by the White House, giving officials there a "heads up in an open criminal investigation that potentially involved senior Clinton administration officials."

Things turned Sunday night serious over at the Capitol Hill paper ROLL CALL: John Huang solicited a $50,000 contribution from a Connecticut businessman who says Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) was his link. The revelation flies in the face of repeated denials by Dodd. The general chair of the DNC during the '96 election cycle has repeatedly scoffed at the notion he had anything to do with Huang's fundraising drives, which are now at the heart of government/media/Internet probes. "The Connecticut businessman, James Belcher, has told two separate sources that Dodd brought him together with Huang," writes ROLL's Ed Henry.

According to a report in Aviation Week and Space Technology, US Navy sources indicate that the Chinese have deployed STEALTH missile warheads that also maneuver in flight. US Navy Aegis warships observed and recorded data on Chinese ballistic missiles during the March 1996 exercises off the coast of Taiwan. The US Navy was shocked to find the DF-15 warheads difficult to track and have determined that the Chinese are now equipping their tactical missile with STEALTH technology possibly stolen from the US.

Israel is denying that it had improper links with a US Army engineer who has admitted that he "inadvertently" passed classified information on the Patriot missile and US armored vehicles to the Israelis.

A former aide to President Clinton is leaving the administration in hopes of promoting "real reform" of the CIA after a prolonged battle with the agency that cost him his highest security clearances. Richard A. Nuccio, an adviser in the State Department's Latin America bureau, was stripped of the clearances last year because of his role in revelations about CIA activities in Guatemala. He made known his intention to resign in a letter to Clinton. The letter states that the CIA continues to rely on disreputable agents for information. He warned of grave damage to American democracy unless the CIA is reined in.

The government failed to do full background checks on as many as 180,000 of the 1 million immigrants granted citizenship last year, and nearly 11,000 of those naturalized had felony arrest records, officials confirmed Monday. Congressional Republicans pointed to the preliminary findings as evidence of their contention that the Clinton administration's Citizenship USA program was rushing to produce new citizens who were expected to vote Democratic in the 1996 election.

The Democratic National Committee is prepared this week to return dozens of additional political contributions that were questioned in a still-confidential internal audit of party fund-raising. At least one of the donations now under review came from a foreign developer who holds an advisory post with China's communist government, documents show. The $15,000 contribution in 1994 was from Ng Lap Seng, a Macao property developer with an official tie to the Chinese government. Ng serves on the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Two years before the Democratic fund-raising controversy erupted, President Clinton scribbled his enthusiastic approval to a top aide's plan to use overnight stays in the White House as encouragement for big donations to the party, according to administration officials.

In public, President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for nearly three years have maintained a firm distance from former Associate Atty. Gen. Webster L. Hubbell since their longtime friend resigned and pleaded guilty to fraud and tax-evasion charges. But in private, the Clintons have stayed quietly in touch with Hubbell--through a trusted White House aide who has acted as a confidential go-between.

Judge Lamberth on Tuesday approved a subpoena for Mr. Sockowitz, who was Ron Brown's special counsel at Commerce. The watchdog group Judicial Watch wants to ask him to answer questions about files that may have been taken from Mr. Brown's office and stored.

Russia has purchased an IBM RS/6000 SP for $7 million through a European middleman and will use the machine to simulate nuclear tests, according to the New York Times on 25 February. In principle, Russia can use these computers to develop new nuclear warheads, even while observing the ban on nuclear test explosions.

Some Democratic fund-raisers explicitly sold invitations to White House coffees with President Clinton and offered to arrange invitations for a price, usually $50,000 but as much as $100,000, several contributors and fund-raisers said on Tuesday. "I think it is fair to say that there was an understanding that if we became a trustee member, there was going to be an invitation to a White House coffee," said Thomas Tauke, Nynex's executive vice president for government affairs and a former Republican congressman from Iowa.

A prominent supporter of abortion rights says he ''lied through my teeth'' when he said that so-called partial-birth abortions were performed rarely, and only to save the mother's life or to abort malformed fetuses. Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers in Alexandria, Va said he had lied because he feared the truth would damage the cause of abortion rights, but now he is convinced that the debate on the issue must be based on the truth.

Dodd has thus far deflected blame for the DNC's fundraising mistakes to his former co-chairman, Don Fowler. But a July 1995 memo released this week shows that Dodd -- over the objections of Fowler -- lobbied "very strongly" for the White House to continue the "fundraising techniques" that offered premier access to $100,000 DNC contributors.

Armed with a search warrant, FBI agents this week raided the Washington offices of the United States-Thailand Business Council, an organization linked to a Thai businesswoman enmeshed in the Democratic Party fund-raising scandal. The council has close ties to Pauline Kanchanalak.

In his three decades in the thick of Democratic party politics, Harold Ickes has always been the keeper of secrets, a man who took good notes and no prisoners, who lost his share of battles and lived to fight the next war. Now, his detailed files on Clinton's re-election fund-raising portray a president intimately involved in exploiting the position and perquisites of the presidency to raise campaign contributions.

Consider William Fletcher, nominated by the president to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. Fletcher has taught law at Berkeley since 1977, but has neither judicial nor courtroom experience of any kind. Fletcher and Clinton were classmates and Rhodes Scholars at Oxford. He was co-director for Northern California of the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992 and came to Clinton's defense when his marijuana smoking became public. Federal law prohibits appointing someone to ``any office'' in ``any court'' who is closely related to a ``judge of such court.'' Fletcher's mother, Betty B. Fletcher, has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit since 1979.

President Clinton's six White House guest bedrooms were filled far more often than the White House has acknowledged -- 911 times in 1993 alone -- and the president occasionally didn't know who was sleeping over. "We figured it was some sort of payback," says former usher Chris Emery, who worked at the White House from 1986 to 1994. "Guests were treated like royalty," Mr. Emery says.

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has ordered an internal inquiry into what happened to a laboratory examiner's written complaints about the bureau's testimony in an impeachment review targeting then- U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings in the early 1980s. Freeh's action is in response to a 1989 memorandum by FBI examiner William A. Tobin that challenged the bureau's laboratory analysis of a key piece of evidence relating to the judge's truthfulness in a bribery trial.

Federal Election Commission records reviewed by Roll Call show that many influential Democrats -- including both House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) -- received donations from givers who are now caught up in the investigation of the DNC's fundraising practices.

Three Democrats on the Senate committee spearheading an investigation into questionable campaign fund-raising last year were themselves beneficiaries of President Clinton's efforts to raise large contributions, White House records show. Records of Clinton aide Harold Ickes show that Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Dick Durbin of Illinois were among candidates who benefited from Clinton's fund-raising appearances in their states last year.

The Pentagon said Thursday that all full copies of the chemical-warfare logs maintained by the military during the 1991 Persian Gulf war had disappeared, even though copies on paper and on computer disks had been stored after the war in locked safes at two different locations in the United States.

The FBI is investigating whether representatives of the People's Republic of China attempted to buy influence among members of Congress through illegal campaign contributions and payments from Chinese-controlled businesses, government officials said this week.

A third former Clinton administration official refused Thursday to give Congress documents subpoenaed for investigations of Democratic fund-raising -- claiming a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The refusal by former White House aide Mark Middleton to turn over documents came as the head of the Senate probe warned that a stalemate over his budget must be resolved quickly or there will be no money for the investigation.

Ohio's Sen John Glenn, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Government Affairs Committee, announced yesterday that he would return $1,600 in contributions to Mark Grobmyer, a Little Rock, Ark, lawyer and Clinton golf partner who served as a business consultant to Lippo executive James Riady and was served with a Senate subpoena last week.

CNN reported that a Memo was faxed this morning containing the 10 measures the WH could take to raise 40 Million:

1. 2 seats on Air Force 1
2. 6 seats at private dinners
3. 6-8 spots at WH events
4. Trips abroad
5. Coordination on Appointments [It's illegal to sell govt. jobs]
6. WH Mess
7. WH visits and overnights
8. Kennedy Center tickets
9. 6 radio Address Spots
10. Photo Opportunities

The Democratic National Committee is returning another $1.5 million in improper campaign contributions from 77 donors, Gov. Roy Romer, the party chairman, announced today.

Red Chinese Opening Giant Base In Former U.S. Naval Harbor

Many Californians have long been asking why the Clinton administration decided to close the bustling Long Beach Naval Station in 1994... The turning over of the naval station to the Red Chinese raises the question whether it was part of what appears to be on-going relations between the Clinton White House and the Red Chinese, which have been linked to campaign contributions given by those with Peking connections to the reelection campaign of President Clinton. - SPOTLIGHT

In a Chicago suburb on a late summer evening last year, a veteran Democratic fund-raiser held a $10,000-a-plate dinner at his estate. The event, attended by President Clinton and dozens of bankruptcy lawyers and bankers, raised $1 million for the Democratic National Committee. Now, five months later, several lawyers and bankers have complained that the veteran fund-raiser, William A. Brandt, had explicitly linked attendance at the dinner with a chance to influence federal bankruptcy policies.

Among the hundreds of overnight guests who stayed at the White House since 1993 were a handful of Clinton's Arkansas friends who figure in the ongoing Whitewater investigation and other controversies involving the Clintons. In some instances, their visits occurred at critical junctures of federal investigations into a wide array of financial dealings related to the Clintons' Whitewater land venture.

A TV bodybuilder who gave $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee last year is being considered to become chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Athletics. The news of Steinfeld's possible appointment comes with disclosure of a 1994 DNC memo that urged "better coordination of appointments to boards and commissions" as one of 10 ways to reward donors.

CRIME scene photograph from the investigation into the death of the White House aide Vincent Foster appears to prove that the federal authorities have lied about the case and perpetuated a cover-up that continues to deceive the Foster family, the US Congress, and the American people. The photograph is one of the few surviving pictures taken by a Park Police officer soon after Foster's body was found in Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993. It reveals that Foster suffered trauma on the right side of his neck, just below the jawline. On the photograph there is a clearly visible wound about the size of an old sixpence, marked by a black "stippled" ring suggestive of gunpowder burns. It has the appearance of a small-calibre gunshot wound. LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The White House discovered in 1995 that its former chief of administration had given inaccurate testimony to Congress but failed to correct the matter with House members until last week, documents show. Then-director of White House administration Patsy Thomasson told a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in March 1994 she was unaware of any volunteers working at the White House who were being paid by outside entities. The Associated Press

Vice President Al Gore played the central role in soliciting at least $40 million in campaign money for the Democratic Party during the 1996 election, the Washington Post reported in Sunday editions. Gore called to thank a Texas telecommunications executive after his firm gave $100,000 to the DNC. The Post quoted officials saying the contribution was intended in part as a reward to the administration for its efforts to help the firm win a $36 million telecommunications contract in Mexico. The Democratic Party had telephone lines installed in government buildings for use in Vice President Al Gore's drive to raise millions of dollars for the 1996 campaign, a former top aide to President Clinton says.

When business lobbyists went to the White House for briefings on legislative proposals in the first two years of the Clinton administration, some were surprised to find a staff member of the Democratic National Committee there. The briefings were held by the White House Office of Public Liaison, which was headed by Alexis Herman. Democratic staff member, Caren Wilcox, was there to do something that the White House is legally barred from doing: getting business groups to lobby on Capitol Hill for the president's proposals. This coordination between Ms. Herman's office and the Democratic committee, which has not been previously reported, is one of a series of ties that have raised questions about how she and her aides blended their official and political roles.

More than two dozen Democratic donors linked to shady campaign cash have gone underground -- either disappearing, disconnecting their phones or refusing to answer questions. - NY Post

MONEY BOUND FOR RUSSIA STOLEN AT LONDON AIRPORT. Sacks of $100 bills ?

[TCBY] Yogurt as Replacement for Beef in School Lunches

WASHINGTON (AP) - A White House memo, seen and endorsed by Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggests that information on a presidential computer system was intended to be shared with the Democratic Party, Republican congressional investigators said Monday.

President Clinton on Monday began a new advertising campaign that presents him as a concerned, hard-working parent, a message that the White House had been seeking to promote for more than a year. But the Democrats are not paying a dime to place the advertisements, versions of which will be broadcast free on television, on radio and in newspapers. Created independently of the White House through the Ad Council, a nonprofit organization, the advertisements, which also feature Hillary Rodham Clinton, are part of a public service campaign to encourage people to do more for children.

President Clinton pressed the American immigration authorities to rush through applications for citizenship and create a flood of extra Democratic voters in time for last year's elections, documents being examined by Congress suggestion -.Electronic Telegraph

HILLARY CLINTON encouraged a plan to copy White House databases to help the Democratic election campaign, in an apparent breach of laws which ban the use of federal property for party political purposes, according to information which emerged from a congressional committee yesterday. - The Times of London

In at least two instances in the last two years, controversial fund-raiser John Huang has used the access resulting from his political activities and his senior position in government and the Democratic Party to seek concrete help from a member of Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Al Gore misspoke when he said he used a telephone calling card from the Democratic National Committee for White House calls to solicit campaign funds, officials said today. Instead, it was a card issued by the Clinton-Gore campaign committee.

"This is not about Smith & Wesson. This is about Lippo Group." In a press conference with stunning political implications, President Bill Clinton attempted to divert attention from his ethical and legal scandals by attacking American gun owners, their safety and their rights. - NRA Alerts

NBC news reports tonight that Johnny Chung, during one of his White house visits handed Maggie Williams, Hillary's chief of staff a check for $50,000 in the White House. The White House is blowing the smoke that it doesn't violate the Hatch act. Joseph DiGenova is quoted as saying that this violates election law.

Govt. impounds Sunday Telegraph?

The means of payment in much of the world's drug trafficking, especially in parts of Asia, are Israeli diamonds, a convenient money laundering device.

A reconstruction from public records and interviews with witnesses, associates and former employers of Hubbell show that he was paid significantly more money than was previously known, far more in fact that he had earned as a lawyer in Little Rock, Ark., and from a wider variety of sources, many with close ties to Clinton.

International Links, Ties to Clinton Embroil Giroir in Fund-Raising Flap. Giroir offers a ..benign explanation for the 50 calls he exchanged with Huang, a former Lippo vice president, while Huang served in an international trade post at the Commerce Department. Though Giroir says the contacts were on personal matters, some occurred when Commerce was considering matters of concern to Lippo and its U.S. affiliates. - The Washington Post

``The American people are being misled by the FBI on the problems we're seeing in its crime lab,'' Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a Senate speech. ``The FBI's defense -- some would say cover-up -- is slowly unraveling.'' The Justice Department inspector general has hired five outside scientists to investigate allegations by Whitehurst and other federal officers. The secret, 500-page draft report of that probe criticized lab procedures and testimony in a number of high-profile cases. Justice officials sent some of its findings to prosecutors in 50 cases for possible relay to defense attorneys because it might help clear their clients. - AP

U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.), acknowledged that John Huang, a key figure in the Democratic fund-raising scandal, twice asked for help in resolving bank problems. Kennedy's statements appear to contradict what he told reporters in December, when he said Huang had neither asked him for anything nor had he done Huang any favors.

A Philadelphia Democrat claims one of President Clinton's top moneymen put a $50,000 price tag on a "truly intimate" lunch with Clinton, it was reported yesterday. Philanthropist Peter Buttenwieser says fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe told him a $50,000 check to the Democratic National Committee would buy him into an eight-guest Clinton luncheon last June 17, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

President Clinton allowed major campaign contributors to fly with him aboard Air Force One during the presidential campaign, White House and Democratic officials said yesterday, revealing another perk in a portfolio of benefits for major donors. The officials, in interviews with The Boston Globe, said generous Democratic Party contributors were permitted to fly with Clinton and then reimburse the government for the equivalent of first-class air fare - a relative bargain.

According to notes of a December 1995 meeting, then-Assistant Commerce Secretary Charles Meissner apparently argued that Mr. Huang should remain a consultant to the department in order to retain his security clearances. Mr. Huang was never given a consultancy, but he did retain his top-secret security clearance for a year after leaving the government. - WSJ

At a Los Angeles fund-raising gala last summer, a special guest sat at President Clinton's table. He was 64-year-old Chun Hua Yeh, chairman of American International Bank. The small Southern California bank had donated $5,000 to the Democratic National Committee, and a company bearing Mr. Yeh's initials, CHY Corp., had chipped in an additional $32,500 written on checks from an AIB account. As it has with so much Asia-linked money, the DNC now plans to return all of it, citing doubts about its origins. WSJ

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle says he'll return more than $5,000 in contributions from donors at the center of investigations into Democratic Party fund raising. - AP

Washington powerhouse, Robert Novak, is set to report in his Sunday syndicated column that congressional investigators have reason to believe Democratic financial contributors enjoyed overnight stays at Camp David, the secluded presidential retreat in Maryland that few American citizens have ever seen. DRUDGE

The FBI warned six members of Congress last year that they had been targeted by China to receive illegal campaign contributions from foreign corporations, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Individual classified briefings delivered to the lawmakers included this statement: "We have reason to believe that the government of China may try to make contributions to members of Congress through Asian donors,'' the Post said in Sunday editions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, was the only lawmaker identified in the story.

When John Huang and other friends of the Clinton administration brought potential donors with foreign interests to meetings at the White House and other federal offices, they may have run afoul of more than campaign finance laws, according to legal experts. Among the laws being scrutinized is the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires those who engage in political activities or solicit money on behalf of a foreign country, corporation or businessman to register with the Justice Department.- Los Angeles Times

"House Minority Whip David E. Bonior , Michigan Democrat, has accused Mr. Clinton of 'degrading' the White House and 'demeaning the office' of the presidency." Washington Times

The Weekly Standard reported this week that the Hill, a Washington-based newspaper, said that Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was invited to a White House "coffee" on June 17, 1996. Dr. Tiller is infamous for being one of few people in the country to perform late-term abortions, perhaps even to the day of birth.

Last year, the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indians of Oklahoma kicked in $107,000 to the Democratic National Committee and hoped the money would help result in favorable Clinton administration action on the return of their tribal lands. It didn't happen. A longtime fund-raiser for Vice President Gore, Nathan Landow, has been seeking to represent the tribes. In a meeting last month, tribal leaders said, Landow explicitly warned that if the tribes did not agree to sign a contract with him, he would make sure they never got their land. - Washington Post

A campaign donor with Asian ties sought to arrange a White House meeting for his business associates through an aide to Maggie Williams the day before he handed Williams a check for $50,000, Time magazine reported Sunday.

Former White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta acknowledged yesterday that the 1996 Clinton reelection committee played a role in the spending of some $35 million to $40 million in "soft money" contributions on campaign commercials. Panetta's comments marked the first time that a member of Clinton's inner circle has stated that the president's reelection campaign helped direct the spending of these funds, which are not supposed to be spent on a federal contest. - Washington Post

Attorney General Janet Reno last week noted that federal law prohibits solicitation and receipt of campaign funds on federal property "by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office." Top Justice Department officials said that career prosecutors had always interpreted this to mean that funds in soft money accounts were exempt from this restriction, while acknowledging that this interpretation had never been tested in court and that no written policy statement had been developed to support it. Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) questioned those views on ABC's "This Week." "It sounds like the Justice Department's becoming a defense attorney for the White House

Two members of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board each gave the Democratic National Committee over $100,000 last year, raising questions about buying access to U.S. intelligence. Stanley Shuman, a New York investment banker, and Richard L. Bloch, chairman of a Texas real estate investment firm, were appointed to the obscure intelligence panel known as PFIAB (pronounced "pifiab") on July 24, 1995, according to White House records.

President Clinton said Monday he did not know at the time that the FBI had briefed White House officials on a suspected Chinese plan to buy U.S. political influence in June 1996 and felt he should have been told.

Senior White House aides learned that Commerce Department officials had concerns about John Huang in mid-1995, several months before the White House helped place him in a sensitive fund-raising job at the Democratic National Committee. - WSJ

The presidential aide who oversaw the creation of a taxpayer-financed database identified the project as a key to President Clinton's plan to reward donors with White House access and groom them for his re-election effort, memos show. The revelations were contained in passages of documents that had been censored and kept from congressional investigators for more than six months. They were finally turned over uncensored late Monday. "This is the president's idea and it is a good one," says one memo by White House aide Marsha Scott entitled "Early Supporter Outreach Proposal." It recommended as the No. 2 goal that the names of donors be placed in the White House database....- Associated Press

Too bad Eva Piccin, constant victim of a serial robber, was unable to speak to Bill Clinton at Friday's press conference. Her comments, no doubt, would have shed light on this political fund-raising fiasco because Mrs. Piccin managed to bankrupt herself last year sending checks to Democrats who used the mail instead of a gun to plunder her accounts. They did it by scaring the woman into thinking Social Security would end and she would be broke the day Bob Dole won.

The FBI has seized a videotape that purportedly shows an object speeding toward TWA Flight 800 seconds before the plane exploded, killing all 230 people aboard. President Clinton ran up nearly $3.7 million in bills entertaining people at coffees, Christmas parties, receptions and other non-official events since he took office in 1993, lawmakers were told Tuesday. The House appropriations subcommittee received the figures at a hearing from a government agency that said the money had been reimbursed by the Democratic Party or other organizations. But the lawmakers ran into a brick wall when they sought answers to specific questions such as how much Clinton personally reimbursed the government for food and lodging in the White House Lincoln Bedroom for friends and campaign contributors.

President Clinton knew that two long-time political supporters had hired Webster Hubbell in 1994 when the former associate attorney general was under criminal investigation, the White House said Tuesday. - AP

THE FBI chief, Louis Freeh, has issued an official statement virtually calling President Clinton a liar after claims that the White House was kept in the dark about suspicions that China was meddling in last year's US election. - Electronic Telegraph

Magaw on Cspan: "Some manufacturers have agreed to let BATF computers have access to their computerized serial number records". He practically admitted that this was a way to get around the Congressional prohibition on BATF registration. If you buy a new gun from a licensed dealer you will probably receive a card to register the purchase with the manufacturer.

Cosco Line, part of China Ocean Shipping, is the first shipper owned by the Beijing government to receive a federal loan guarantee under a 40-year-old Transportation Department program to help American shipyards win business. Cosco will get a $138 million guarantee to finance several vessels at an Alabama shipyard. It also will lease a 135-acre marine terminal to be built on an old Navy base in Long Beach, Calif - IBD

White House use of Democratic National Committee-paid "volunteers" started on President Clinton's first day in office and even included the first lady's brother Anthony D. Rodham, according to documents provided yesterday to The Washington Times. Many of the "volunteers" were put in key positions, such as drafting political briefings for the president and first lady, despite White House assertions the workers were "low-level." The documents also show that several high-level Clinton aides used the program before Miss Thomasson's denial to the committee that it existed - The Washington Times

CIA director-nominee Anthony Lake told a Senate committee yesterday that he, as President Clinton's national security adviser, was kept in the dark about FBI intelligence on Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections but suggested the information may not have been confirmed.

Congressman Traficant went to the floor of the House today to let the nation know that the Clinton administration is having the Army's boots made in China.

Democratic donor Johnny Chung returned to the White House 17 times -- mostly visiting the first lady's offices -- after national security officials warned that he appeared to be ``a hustler'' and should be treated with suspicion. - Associated Press

The Democratic Party made a big to-do over its plans to return another $1.5 million in tainted contributions. But the checks aren't in the mail -- and probably won't be for months because the indebted party says it can't afford them. - (AP)

A former federal informant who claimed to have information about the Oklahoma City bombing has been indicted on unrelated bomb-threat conspiracy charges. An amended indictment issued Wednesday charges Carol Howe for the first time and expands allegations against her jailed boyfriend, James Viefhaus Jr. - AP

AMERICA started yesterday to uncover its evidence of an alleged Chinese plot to meddle in the 1996 US election. The move is likely to create new tension in Sino-US relations ahead of an imminent visit to Beijing by Vice President Albert Gore. The plot is said to have involved the secret and illegal funnelling of $2 million in cash to at least 30 Democratic campaigns in the congressional races, as well as Mr Clinton's re-election effort. Both Mr Lake and President Clinton caused surprise by saying that they were kept in the dark until last month about the plot, despite the fact that two aides to Mr Lake were warned by the FBI in June. - Electronic Telegraph

Alexis Herman headed a trade mission last spring that included a former client whose consulting firm paid $50,000 to $100,000 for her business two years earlier. (AP)

Fugitive Lebanese banker Roger Tamraz hobnobbed with political donors and President Clinton at six White House events and met once with a National Security Council official. (AP)

Among those who made arrangements for Hubbell was Mickey Kantor, then Clinton's trade representative and former manager of Clinton's 1992 campaign. Kantor sought money for Hubbell's legal-defense and family trust funds. He also urged the chief executive of the nation's leading mortgage financier, the Federal National Mortgage Assn., to hire Hubbell's son. A California-based non-profit group called the Consumer Support and Education Fund, which paid Hubbell $45,000 to write articles about public service.- LAT

The People's Liberation Army is operating hundreds of front companies in this country to strengthen the Chinese military-industrial complex with Western capital, technology and systematic know-how. Insight Magazine

Companies aided by a Commerce Department program gave at least $2 million to the Democrats in the last election cycle, raising questions about whether the donations were made in return for the departments support for the companies overseas business interests, an MSNBC investigation has found.

Mob Rules - Prosecutors called Laborer's union chief Arthur Coia a "mob puppet." But Coia spent millions of his union's money to buy Bill Clinton's friendship. New information suggests Bill repaid the favor by calling off the Feds. - The American Spectator

The White House was not the Democrats' only bed-and-breakfast. White House sources tell the Prowler that Blair House, a private White House residence just across Pennsylvania Avenue, was also rented out to potential donors. The American Spectator

The growing fundraising scandal is raising many troubling questions like: Who paid for the perks overnight guests and coffee klatch attendees received while on government grounds? The White House says the DNC covered all costs but sources at both the DNC and WH say such payments haven't been made. "It was just understood that the White House" - in other words the taxpayer - "would pick up the tab." The American Spectator

Grammy officials apparently tipped off HRC that she would receive an award for "It Takes a Village." "We didn't want her to look like a loser on national TV," a source on her staff said. - from The American Spectator

You might think that "rights" don't apply abroad, but U.S. mission grounds are considered sovereign territory, belonging to the embassy's government. It was here that [to appease Muslim radicals], the State Department people were doing their best to put a stop to Christian services. Eventually they succeeded. Within the British mission such religious services continue today.- The American Spectator

The discovery of one of the largest illegal weapons caches in the United States reverberated yesterday from Washington to Mexico, as the investigation into its origin and destination continued. "This has opened a lot of questions about the whole issue of the lease of the Long Beach facility to a Chinese company," said John Woodard, spokesman for Bilbray. He said Bilbray is concerned because the China Ocean Shipping Co., (COSCO) which was granted the naval station lease, is not only linked closely to the Chinese government, but one of its ships was used last year to smuggle 2,000 AK-47s into San Francisco.

Barely noticed among the list of problem campaign contributions to be returned by the Democratic National Committee were two totalling $97,500 from Japan Green Stamp America. That's been reported, but the national press might not know that the company is the American subsidiary of the Japanese company that now owns Little Rock's Excelsior Hotel, which has achieved a certain measure of fame in the Clinton years. - Arkansas Times

The FBI, long accustomed to staunch support in Congress, is facing increasing congressional criticism because of a series of expensive and embarrassing management miscues, including more than $200 million in cost overruns on two enormous computer systems. Difficulties with the computer systems -- coupled with recent allegations of evidentiary problems at the FBI forensic laboratory and other controversies -- have led to complaints on Capitol Hill - Washington Post

In a move that has raised concern among some aviation security advocates, American Airlines gave about $250,000 to the Democratic National Committee and its House and Senate counterparts little more than a week after a White House panel backed off demands to immediately test a controversial new security measure.

A massive shipment of Chinese guns and ammunition, which had been banned by order of President Clinton, was approved for delivery into the United States four days before the head of a major Chinese gun company met Clinton in the White House. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

While the FBI has challenged key elements of the investigative reports of the Riverside Press-Enterprise, a California daily that last week claimed a U.S. naval missile shot down TWA Flight 800, the newspaper appears to have undercut significant government claims about the disaster. Original government claims that the crash was likely a result of a catastrophic explosion in the jet's center fuel compartment appear to have been quietly discarded.- Ruddy

When the Democratic National Committee wanted to get controversial Democratic donor Roger Tamraz into the White House, it wouldn't take no for an answer. In a highly unusual move, then-party Chairman Donald Fowler called a National Security Council official in late 1995 to try to overturn her recommendation that Mr. Tamraz not attend high-level White House meetings. Administration officials believe Mr. Fowler arranged for a Central Intelligence Agency report on Mr. Tamraz to be sent to the NSC. Mr. Fowler says he "can't recall" doing so. WSJ

The FBI learned of possible Chinese plans to influence Congress in 1995, but did not tell the White House, Justice Department or congressional committees until May 1996, the Justice Department said Monday. The FBI did not begin briefings about the Chinese plans until ```it acquired additional information,'' the department said in a three-paragraph statement.

Forcing the Justice Department to make public a draft report of an inspector general's investigation into allegations of misconduct and slipshod work in the FBI's forensic lab would be "premature" and "confusing" to the public, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Kessler, in ruling from the bench, sided with the Justice Department and denied a request for a preliminary injunction by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Frederic Whitehurst, a former crime lab chemist who first leveled allegations about the lab. - Washington Post

The CIA has opened an internal investigation into "extremely serious" allegations of improper contacts between the Democratic National Committee and the CIA, the acting director of central intelligence said on Monday. The investigation, begun four days ago by the agency's inspector general, seeks to unravel a tangled chain of events that preceded President Clinton's meetings with Roger Tamraz, a major campaign contributor who has done favors for the CIA. - NYT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Prompted by a blunt complaint from the Justice Department inspector general, FBI Director Louis Freeh admits he gave Congress incomplete testimony about why the bureau suspended the whistle-blower in its crime lab. Inspector General Michael Bromwich accused Freeh of three inaccuracies in his March 5 testimony to a House subcommittee about Bromwich's investigation into allegations of mismanagement, sloppy work and bias in the crime lab made by suspended scientist-agent Frederic Whitehurst.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt has returned $22,000 in campaign contributions, most of them linked to Indonesia's Lippo Group conglomerate. - (AP)

In voluminous notes that resemble a diary, Ron Brown's chief of staff at the Commerce Department scribbled the daily details of Cabinet politics -- where the line often blurs between campaigning and governing. The Associated Press obtained hundreds of pages of handwritten notes made by Ginsberg during his tenure as chief of staff to the late Brown. The notes were turned over to Republican congressional investigators trying to determine whether tax dollars and government staff were improperly used to assist President Clinton's re-election. (AP)

As previously reported, Lake gave Iran the go-ahead to ship arms to Bosnian Muslims in April 1994 (see "Iran-Bosnia Green Light," TAS, August 1996). Evidence is now emerging, including detailed accounts provided by two direct participants who carried messages to Tehran, that the green light was only part of a much broader covert policy toward Iran. It included back-channel discussions with Tehran that have not been made public before. -TAS

In an effort to get a major Democratic Party donor invited to the White House in December 1995, a party official both called and wrote the Central Intelligence Agency asking that an intelligence report on the man be sent to a National Security Council staff member who opposed the visit, officials said yesterday. Frederick P. Hitz, the CIA inspector general, has begun an investigation to determine who at the Democratic National Committee contacted the intelligence agency on behalf of Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese American businessman who has contributed large sums to the DNC. Investigators also want to know who in the agency forwarded the Tamraz report to the NSC, and why derogatory information was deleted from it. - Washington Post

For the third time in less than seven years, federal regulators are moving to impose a severe sanction on Los Angeles-based LippoBank--owned by James Riady, the Indonesian financier who figures prominently in the Democratic fund-raising controversy. The sanction, in the form of an order to "cease and desist" from particular practices, represents yet another setback for Riady, a friend and supporter of President Clinton's since the early 1980s, when both lived in Little Rock, Ark. "Most banks don't get one" cease-and-desist order, said Bert Ely, a banking consultant based in Alexandria, Va. "To get hit with three is relatively rare." "The question is, why haven't the regulators been more aggressive?" Los Angeles Times

Worried when Republicans were trying to eliminate the Commerce Department, the late Secretary Ron Brown's deputies anxiously honed their Capitol Hill survival skills, according to diary-like notes kept by one top aide. The notes suggest one of the lawmakers, House Ethics Committee chairwoman Nancy Johnson, might be important in winning over House Speaker Newt Gingrich. ``Nancy Johnson -- key to Gingrich due to Ethics Committee opposed to dismantling,'' Ginsberg penned. At the time, Johnson was overseeing the sensitive investigation into Gingrich's ethics violations. (AP)

The former travel agent for Tyson Foods Inc. lobbyist Jack Williams testified Tuesday that the lobbyist paid for a $1,009 round-trip plane ticket to a Dallas Cowboys football game for former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's girlfriend.

The stakes were high a year ago as China and Taiwan faced off across the straits that separate them. The Chinese were staging war games as Taiwan voters prepared to go to the polls. In Washington, there was talk of sending U.S. gunboats and imposing trade sanctions against China. On Capitol Hill, some telephones started ringing. The calls came from former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. He urged congressmen not to take rash steps against Beijing, especially regarding trade. Haig is a paid adviser to a giant shipping company owned by the Chinese government.

In late June of 1994, Indonesian businessman James Riady saw President Clinton and some of his aides in five days of White House visits ending on a Saturday. Early the next week, one of Riady's Hong Kong companies paid about $100,000 to Webster Hubbell, the president's close friend, who was then facing a rapidly unfolding criminal investigation, according to people in the United States and abroad familiar with the arrangement. .It has not been previously known how closely that payment followed Riady's White House visits. And at least two other high-ranking administration officials [besides Lindsey] also knew of Riady's support for Hubbell. - NY Times

CBS said Wednesday that it has turned over to investigators a piece of seat fabric that a free-lance writer claims holds proof that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a Navy missile.

An official of Tyson Foods Inc. says he arranged for a scholarship application to be sent to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's girlfriend to a Tyson company foundation, but that his sister made the decision to award the grant. - AP

Former Commerce Department General Counsel Ginger Ehn Lew has testified under oath she knew of no reason why an aide would have taken classified intelligence documents with him when she and he left Commerce last year for new jobs at the Small Business Administration. Miss Lew, in a videotaped deposition by a private watchdog law firm that sued Commerce last year for records on its use of trade missions for Democratic fund raising, also said she was unaware of the removal of the documents now the focus of a congressional inquiry. The papers, including a classified CIA report, were taken by Ira Sockowitz, top aide to Miss Lew, after they went to the SBA in June. WASHINGTON TIMES

On Jan. 15, 1996, John Huang, the Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, received an extraordinary memo. It spelled out how to "convert" Democrats to back favorable trade status for China. And, most mysteriously of all, it included a handwritten notation that the strategy was being discussed "with the Embassy." The document, which has not been previously reported, is intriguing in light of allegations that the Chinese Embassy had planned to direct campaign contributions to the DNC to influence US policy toward China. - Boston Globe

After Clinton named Tenet to the top spy job on Wednesday, CBS Evening News reported that Tenet's confirmation could be headed for trouble over leaked documents about undercover CIA operatives allegedly involved in a murder of an American in Guatemala.

An international oil financier, while seeking support from the Clinton administration for an oil pipeline project from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, hired a Washington law firm affiliated with the wife of Sen. Edward Kennedy and Marvin Rosen, then a top Democratic Party fund-raiser. Roger Tamraz, a major Democratic Party donor, said in an interview Wednesday from Paris that the work performed by the law firm in 1996 had nothing to do with his pipeline project.- USA TODAY

Investigators at the Central Intelligence Agency have determined that former Democratic National Committee chairman Don Fowler did not personally contact the CIA on behalf of a campaign contributor. But sources have told CNN that the CIA has written documentation apparently proving that someone under Fowler made phone calls in October and December 1995. - CNN

A Hong Kong conglomerate with ties to the Chinese government has gained control of two key Panama Canal ports in a deal U.S. officials say is "unorthodox" and harmful to American businesses. - Washington Times

Democratic friends rushed to help Webster Hubbell -- whose repeated memory lapses have frustrated prosecutors -- with hefty consulting fees, a college fund for the children, a place for his wife to stay and jobs for the wife and a son. On the other hand, two witnesses who lodged specific and detailed allegations against President Clinton or his wife, Hillary, have languished.- (AP)

The General Accounting Office was asked Thursday to review ``unvouchered expenditures'' by the Clinton administration on various social and political functions held at the White House. ``The law requires the GAO to conduct these audits on a periodic basis, and prior to 1991 the agency had done so on a biennial basis,'' Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said in making the request. ``I am greatly concerned that no such audit has been conducted for any of the last six years.'' (AP)

USA TODAY has found indications that at least 36 additional contributions to Democrats may have been improper. They total about $207,250. The contributors are primarily in California and New York. The finding raises the possibility that irregularities still exist in contributions given to the Democrats for the 1996 campaign.

The Democratic National Committee may have been "tipped off" by high-ranking government officials in time to allow it to withdraw a dinner invitation with President Clinton to the head of an Austrian-based trading firm tied to Russian organized crime, congressional sources said Thursday. The DNC, according to State Department records, had invited the businessman, Grigori Loutchansky, to a July 11, 1995, fund-raising dinner with Mr. Clinton at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, but unexpectedly withdrew the invitation before State Department officials could determine his visa eligibility. - WASHINGTON TIMES

(AP) -- A lobbyist for Tyson Foods Inc. was convicted Friday of twice lying to investigators about providing favors to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The guilty verdict against Jack L. Williams was announced by the jury in U.S. District Court after just four hours of deliberations.

With sincere regrets, Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko, a West African multimillionaire philanthropist, was forced to pass up an invitation to dine with President Clinton last September at a tony Washington hotel. A week before the dinner, Sissoko had been arrested in Europe on a U.S. warrant and charged with trying to smuggle two Vietnam-era military helicopters out of Miami to Africa and offering a $30,000 bribe to a U.S. Customs agent. - NY Times

The Cuban government last month searched the contents of a U.S. diplomatic pouch destined for the U.S. Interest Section in Havana in violation of all normal procedures. The Clinton administration, rather than protest the opening of the pouch, apologized to Cuba for the publications. - WT

The Justice Department inspector general's office has determined that the FBI crime laboratory made "scientifically unsound" conclusions in the Oklahoma City bombing case, finding that supervisors approved lab reports they "cannot support" and many analyses were "biased in favor of the prosecution." - Los Angeles Times

A federal grand jury has collected evidence that shows U.S. government officials allowed the slaughter of hundreds of wild horses taken from federal lands, falsified records and tried to prevent investigators from uncovering the truth. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who oversees the BLM and by law is responsible for protecting wild horses, refused to be interviewed. - AP

Three months after he left his Justice Department job in disgrace in 1994, Webster L. Hubbell scheduled a 7 a.m. breakfast meeting in Washington with an old friend just in from Indonesia, James Riady. A few hours after breakfast, Riady was at the White House, but not for long; Hubbell had his friend penciled in for a midday luncheon meeting at the elegant Hay-Adams hotel. That same month, according to knowledgeable sources, a Lippo subsidiary paid Hubbell $100,000. Little work, if any, was expected from Hubbell in return for the money, according to a source familiar with some of Lippo's activities. Washington Post

Contrary to the Clinton administration's claims, a typical White House coffee klatch with President Bill Clinton or Vice President Al Gore had a firm fund-raising goal of $500,000 and a target entry fee of $50,000 per guest - both set by Democratic Party officials. A meeting between Democratic National Committee fund-raiser David Mercer and a "prospective donor" reveals that attendance at the intimate coffees was based on cash up front.MSNBC

Officials at Pacific Telesis Group acknowledge that they were unaware former Associate Atty. Gen. Webster L. Hubbell, one of the firm's private advisors in the high-stakes battle over massive telecommunications legislation in 1994, worked at the same time for a competing telephone company. Said one person affiliated with Pacific Telesis during the telecommunications battle: "If we had known that Web Hubbell had been hired by Sprint, . . . no way we would have touched him." - Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson recently reported that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr had completed his inquiry into the death of Vincent Foster and was ready to release a 100-page report, but no report has materialized so far. - TRIBUNE-REVIEW [One month after the LAT report, and no Starr report - the bogus leak qualifies as a Clinton scandalHJK]

Monday, March 24 1997

The White House spent more than $640,000 to implement a massive computerized database that government investigators have characterized as "inadequate" and "incomplete." Congressional Republicans examining the computer system also contend the White House has spent another $1.15 million on the staff needed to run the database, which they suspect could have been used in connection with improper or illegal Democratic campaign fund raising. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Several officers of the Marine Corps have raised questions about why the Clinton administration favored turning over a military base in Long Beach, Calif., to the China Ocean Shipping Co. (Cosco) over the protests of a Marine reserve battalion made homeless by the 1994 Northridge earthquake - WASHINGTON TIMES

Tuesday, March 25, 1997

Lindner, the conservative tycoon from Cincinnati, Ohio, who heads Chiquita Brands, gives much more money to Republicans than Democrats. That helps explain why, when he needed a big favor from the Clinton Administration two years ago, he may have wanted to hide his footprints... On April 12, 1996, the day after Kantor asked the WTO to examine Chiquita's grievance, Lindner and his top executives began funneling more than $500,000 to about two dozen states from Florida to California.. Lindner received the same red-carpet treatment as some of Clinton's more flamboyant benefactors, including coffee with the President and a night in the Lincoln Bedroom... Last week the WTO panel issued a preliminary ruling in Lindner's favor. - Time

Las Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn, who according to FEC records gave $35,000 to the D.N.C., sprinkled 10 times that amount last fall to seven state Democratic parties, including Georgia and Colorado. Wynn wanted to limit the subpoena power of a new federal gambling commission. Clinton initially favored giving the panel broad investigative authority to study casinos and their books but subsequently reversed his position. Not long afterward, Wynn's cash came through, steered to tightly contested swing states by D.N.C. officials. - Time

The U.S. Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), has obtained "smoking gun evidence" that President Clinton made "fund-rasing phone calls" from the White House, according to a source connected to the investigation. Specific details of evidence have not been revealed to the DRUDGE REPORT.

Wednesday, March 26, 1997

DNC Donor [Ernest G. Green] Denies He Was Reimbursed. Fund-raising: Meeting with Clinton and Chinese arms dealer wasn't compensation for gift, lawyer says. Officials question events' proximity. - LATimes

Roger Tamraz, the financier whose campaign donations to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and President Clinton figure in the Democratic fund-raising controversy, received support from Clinton for the general concept of his oil pipeline proposal in October 1995, Tamraz said in an interview yesterday. Tamraz said he gave a ``measly $180,000'' to the Democratic Party shortly before Clinton's announcement, but said he does not believe the two events are connected.....[I]t has not been reported that Clinton announced support for a position sought by Tamraz after the businessman made his contributions. - Boston Globe

Thursday, March 27, 1997

A Florida businessman and a Texan who collects historical bonds testified yesterday before a federal grand jury investigating questionable campaign fund-raising by the Democratic National Committee. R. Warren Meddoff, a Fort Lauderdale exporter, and William R. Morgan, the collector, came to the grand jury without lawyers to explain events before and after a key Clinton aide used White House office equipment to prepare and fax a memo outlining ways to make large, tax-deductible campaign contributions.

House and Senate committees leading congressional probes into campaign funding irregularities issued a series of new subpoenas yesterday, with both seeking documents on former associate attorney general Webster L. Hubbell. - Washington Post

Friday, March 28, 1997

House Republican Conference Chairman John A. Boehner has asked Attorney General Janet Reno for a status report on the nearly three-month-long FBI probe into the monitoring and recording of a cellular phone conversation he had with Speaker Newt Gingrich. . . . . "The reluctance of your office to provide me with an appropriate level of information raises grave concerns in my mind about whether your office is vigilantly pursuing this investigation," Mr. Boehner wrote in a March 21 letter. WASHINGTON TIMES

(Reuter) - A Justice Department internal investigation released Friday criticized the FBI's top lawyer for poor judgment in his dealings with the Clinton White House on the FBI background files controversy. The report by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility found that General Counsel Howard Shapiro, a longtime associate of FBI Director Louis Freeh, made "a very serious mistake and exhibited very poor judgment." The report said his action "exacerbated a political problem by contributing to the appearance that the FBI, and particularly Shapiro, was not sufficiently independent of the White House." P>

Saturday, March 29, 1997

No scandals

Businesses that gave Democratic Party committees more than $2.3 million and won coveted seats on US trade missions during President Clinton's first term secured nearly $5.5 billion to support their foreign business operations from a federal investment agency. In all, 27 corporations that sent executives on trade trips with the late Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown obtained part of a multibillion-dollar commitment in federally guaranteed assistance from the Overseas Private Investment Corp., according to a Globe analysis of fund-raising records, trip manifests, and OPIC documents. - Boston Globe

Did Dr. Don Chumley crash on the evening of September 25th due to bad weather? Did he commit suicide due to his grief over what he saw on the morning of April 19th. Or was Don Chumley murdered? It was rumored that Chumley was about to go public with some damning information. According to Michele Moore, who has investigated the bombing, Chumley was asked to bandage two federal agents who falsely claimed to have been trapped in the building that morning. Since the pair was obviously not hurt, Chumley refused. When the agents petitioned another doctor at the scene, Chumley intervened, threatening to report them.- Washington Weekly

FBI General Counsel Howard Shapiro, just last week cleared by an internal Justice Department review of his dealings with the White House over the FBI Files/Gary Aldrich messes ["no misconduct but showed bad investigative judgment"], will soon submit his resignation to FBI Director Louis Freeh, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. One other factor leading Shapiro to leave could be the Hill buzz that Anthony Marceca, colleague of Craig Livingstone of FBI File fame, may have pleaded the fifth during public hearings, but he performed the 5th of Beethoven for investigators -- so the talk goes.

Tipper Gore hosted five of the controversial White House coffees at the Gore home at the Naval Observatory in 1995 and 1996, White House records show. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records also show that two organizations represented at coffees hosted by Gore - including tobacco giant Philip Morris contributed $75,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) within days of the events. Cooper said that by allowing the DNC to control guest lists, the president, vice president and their wives are open to criticism of trading access for contributions. USA Today

When Wichita physician George Tiller made a $25,000 contribution last year to the Democratic National Committee, he asked a Kansas party fund-raiser for a special favor in return. One of the few doctors in the country who perform third-trimester abortions, Tiller wanted a chance to personally thank President Clinton for 30 months of door-to-door protection by the U.S. Marshals Service. The service provided to Tiller, who was shot in 1993 by an antiabortion extremist, goes far beyond what the government has afforded to any other abortion provider faced with threats and on-the-job violence, interviews show. Antiabortion activists said Tiller's protection is objectionable because others in high-risk jobs do not receive federal protection. Washington Post

Charlie Yah Lin Trie, a central figure in the controversy over foreign contributions to the Democratic Party, received a series of substantial wire transfers in 1995 and 1996 from a bank operated by the Chinese government. The transfers from the New York office of the Bank of China, usually in increments of $50,000 or $100,000, came at a time when Mr. Trie was directing large donations to the Democratic National Committee. WALL STREET JOURNAL

For the first time since the 1950s, Chinese ships can dock near U.S. military installations with just a day's notice, one-fourth the Cold War-era restriction still imposed on former Soviet republics. In one of three deals in the past year helping Beijing's main shipping company, the U.S. quietly agreed to end the requirement that Chinese ships provide four days' notification when entering one of a dozen sensitive U.S. ports.Associated Press

One month before assuring Congress that the Democratic National Committee was not paying White House "volunteers," President Clinton's West Wing manager was put on notice that the party was paying the salaries of key Clinton aides, according to documents provided to The Washington Times. Patsy L. Thomasson, who was the director of the office of administration, was notified in a memo Feb. 7, 1994, that two political office aides were being paid by the DNC -- an unusual but legal process. White House officials yesterday said Miss Thomasson didn't lie to Congress. They said she didn't see the memo, which was transmitted to her fax machine and recently was found in her personal files. White House officials have been unable to explain why Miss Thomasson didn't know about those workers. WASHINGTON TIMES

The Senate commerce committee's chairman is questioning whether China agreed to buy American-made container ships as a "quid pro quo" benefiting the China Ocean Shipping Co. (Cosco). In a letter to the Federal Maritime Commission, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said Cosco bypassed lower-cost builders in Japan to sign a $157 million contract with an Alabama shipyard for four commercial vessels. - WASHINGTON TIMES

Consider CH2M Hill, an environmental consulting firm that received Advocacy Center muscle in obtaining a $15 million contract to develop a wastewater treatment plant in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil. The Advocacy Center arranged for Under Secretary Jeffrey Garten to meet with the mayor of Ribeirao Preto, and, according to the Centers memo on the project, Secretary Ron Brown followed up with a letter to the mayor in April 1995 emphasizing CH2M Hills qualifications and expressing personal interest in the bidding outcome. In the 1995-96 election cycle, CH2M Hill gave the DNC $50,000, nearly five times the $11,000 donated in the previous election cycle.And then theres Raytheon Co., the Massachusetts defense contractor that ponied up $79,150 to the Democrats during the 1995-96 election cycle an enormous increase over the paltry $250 given during 1993-94. One of its biggest contributions during that period was $25,000 given one week after CEO Dennis Picard met with Brown - MSNBC

Two of President Clinton's most trusted aides, Mack McLarty and Erskine Bowles, led an effort to find work for Webster Hubbell in the days after he resigned from the Justice Department in spring 1994, the White House acknowledged Tuesday. Bowles, then a federal agency head and now the president's chief of staff, made calls to three businessmen he knew to see if they would be interested in hiring Hubbell, the White House said. - AP

From ABC News. - It seems the U. S. Department of Agriculture has ILLEGALLY (Catch the word illegally - not "a mistake was made" or improperly) purchased strawberrys from Mexico and distributed the possible highly infectious Hepititus A tainted produces to American School Childred thru the School Lunch Program.

The pressure to raise money for President Bill Clinton's re-election grew so great in late 1995 that the Democratic Party pressed the president and Vice President Al Gore to telephone donors directly, according to documents released by the White House Wednesday. - Reuter

Nashville airline entrepreneur Charles Caudle isn't out to get the President, but he would like to get something back from a good friend of Bill Clinton's: his reputation.Caudle is alleging that Thomason's remarks in White House memos defamed him and cost him millions of dollars in potential business. The remarks led to FBI and Internal Revenue Service investigations of Caudle, which turned up no wrongdoing.

Documents of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, released yesterday, provided two new damaging elements in the developing scandal. They showed for the first time that many of the 107 coffees held at the White House were direct fund-raising ventures and that the president and the vice president were tasked to make calls to donors -- events the White House has denied until now. - Washington Times

An internal memo warning then-CIA Director John M. Deutch that Donald Fowler, former Democratic National Committee chairman, had improperly contacted the CIA on behalf of a major campaign contributor is at the root of a new investigation, reports the Thursday edition of the LOS ANGELES TIMES. The December 1995 memo warning of Fowler's allegedly improper contacts with the CIA was signed by William Lofgren, then the chief of the central Eurasian division, its clandestine espionage arm. - Drudge Report

Democratic fund-raisers put Taiwanese businessman Winston Wang down for a $100,000 contribution in conjunction with a meeting with President Clinton on June 21, 1995. Campaign records don't show that Mr. Wang gave the money. But his associate, Charlie Yah Lin Trie, gave the Democratic National Committee $50,000 on June 22 of that year, the day after Mr. Wang met with Mr. Clinton at a White House fund-raising "coffee." The incident... raises new questions about the origins of Mr. Trie's donations - WALL STREET JOURNAL

President Clinton's legal defense trust requested the use of the Democratic National Committee fund-raising list presumbably to raise funds -- despite government rules barring the trust from such solicitations -- according to White House documents released Wednesday. "The presidential legal fund has requested use of the DNC's direct mail fund-raising list, especially those for the president's 1992 campaign," Harold Ickes, former White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a July 1994 memo. Such a request, if it was made, would be a violation of government ethics law. - Boston Globe

Jorge Cabrera, a drug smuggler who has emerged as one of the most notorious supporters of President Clinton's re-election campaign, was asked for a campaign contribution in the unlikely locale of a hotel in Havana by a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, congressional investigators have learned. - NY Times

Democratic attorneys devised a plan to push legal limits on money sent to nonprofit--and supposedly nonpartisan--groups to pay for get-out-the-vote efforts without drawing attention from the Federal Election Commission or the public, documents show. The plan--outlined in an October 1994 memo marked "privileged and confidential"--called for the Democratic National Committee to transfer "limited" amounts of money to tax-exempt groups that sign up voters or get them to polls on election day. The limit the memo suggested was $500,000. "Grants of amounts much larger would risk drawing public, press and FEC and/or [Internal Revenue Service] attention," wrote DNC chief counsel Joe Sandler- LAT

In mid-1994, more than two years before he faced reelection, President Clinton hosted a series of breakfasts at the White House to raise large sums of money--as much as $50,000 to $100,000 per participant--to promote his health care plan, according to individuals familiar with the events. The disclosure may heighten criticism that Clinton and his party unduly traded on the White House and sold access to those who wanted private time with him or sought to ingratiate themselves with the chief executive. - LAT

Steve Forbes accused the Treasury Department Thursday of attempting a "nasty little tax increase'' on accountants, lawyers and other limited partnerships, and got House Speaker Newt Gingrich to intervene. Forbes, the magazine publisher and former GOP presidential candidate, said in a statement the rule will levy the 2.9 percent Medicare payroll tax not only on partners' incomes, but on the earnings the partnership retains. Gingrich said he talked to House Ways and Means staff, who told him they "plan to intervene directly'' and object to the rule proposal.- FOX News Internet

Ickes papers show that the DNC had budgeted $1 million for FEC fines and the previous record was only $150,000 showing that they knew they were doing a lot wrong.

Federal officials are investigating whether Webster Hubbell may have concealed some of his income from authorities in 1995 when he was sentenced to prison for defrauding his former law firm. Sources close to the investigation said that U.S. Judge George Howard in Little Rock agreed to the lower restitution of $135,000--less than one-third of what he admitted stealing based on Hubbell's statement that he had no current personal income and was burdened with debt.(LOS ANGELES TIMES)

The top U.S. immigration officer in Hong Kong has been relieved of his duties and his wife has been arrested on visa fraud charges in a growing investigation into the highly lucrative smuggling of Chinese immigrants to the United States.The episode marked the second time in less than nine months that a senior INS agent has been implicated in corruption related to immigrant-smuggling, a multibillion-dollar business in which Chinese illegal migrants typically pay $30,000 to $40,000 apiece to be brought into the United States by land, sea or air. Washington Post

Jorge Cabrera, a convicted drug dealer and one of the most notorious supporters of President Bill Clintons 1996 re-election campaign, may have been laundering drug money when he made a $20,000 contribution at what he says was the request of a Democratic fund-raiser he met in Cuba.

Democratic donors rewarded with rides on Air Force One received no special screening to determine if they should be allowed on the presidential aircraft, a White House spokesman said. Sun-Times

Documents released during the Senate Whitewater hearings last year show that two weeks before Webster L. Hubbell quit as associate attorney general, Hillary Rodham Clinton was notified formally that her former law partner was involved in a conflict-of-interest investigation and he might have lied in a sworn statement to federal regulators. The White House, which began an extensive job search for Mr. Hubbell within days of that notification, has said repeatedly that President and Mrs. Clinton were not aware of his legal problems. - Washington Times

Documents of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, released yesterday, provided two new damaging elements in the developing scandal. They showed for the first time that many of the 107 coffees held at the White House were direct fund-raising ventures and that the president and the vice president were tasked to make calls to donors -- events the White House has denied until now. - Washington Times

The White House supplied top-secret intelligence information to the Democratic National Committee to block a Latvian businessman with alleged ties to organized crime from attending a $25,000-a-person fund-raising dinner with President Clinton, according to government officials and other sources. The effort was successful, and the businessman, Grigori Loutchansky, who had been formally invited to attend the DNC fund-raising dinner in 1995, was abruptly disinvited. In the course of the episode, political operatives in the White House and the DNC gained access to and disseminated information gathered by some of the nation's most sensitive intelligence-gathering methods. Washington Post

The Clinton administration has a long public history of bashing tobacco, but industry leaders tell CNNfn that, behind closed doors, the administration actively solicited contributions from tobacco companies. According to recently released memos from the files of ex-White House aide Harold Ickes, the Democratic party bypassed federal disclosure requirements by keeping a secret set of books to track money the national organization solicited and sent to state parties. - CNN

Despite President Clinton's public rebuke of the FBI, senior administration officials say they have concluded that the White House's own personnel and procedures bear significant responsibility for a breakdown in communications that left Clinton unaware of an investigation into suspected Chinese influence-buying. - Washington Post

Conflicts of loyalty, it seems, have been a trademark of Mr. Siegel's career. His loyalty to Ms. Bhutto made him disloyal to his client--the government of Pakistan, which he condemned for dismissing her. This time, his loyalty to the Democratic Party has led him to betray his former client again, dragging the name of Pakistan into a controversy this nation has nothing to do with. In 1990, soon after Ms. Bhutto's government was dismissed by the Pakistani president on charges of corruption and mismanagement, Mr. Siegel too lost his job. Along with the other concerns, the incoming government found out that Mr. Siegel--the man Ms. Bhutto had hired to represent all Pakistan--had issued a press release condemning the president of Pakistan for dismissing Ms. Bhutto, while Mr. Siegel was still on Islamabad's payroll. - HUSAIN HAQQANI Wall Street Journal

An Arkansas lawyer was charged Wednesday with laundering $380,000 in drug money and funneling some of it to the Democratic National Committee in 1992 and President Clinton's 1993 inauguration. Mark Cambiano pleaded innocent to all 31 federal money laundering and conspiracy counts involving cash from a methamphetamine ring. The indictment said Cambiano, a defense attorney who specializes in death row cases, transferred $20,000 from his bank account to the DNC around July 10, 1992, and transferred $9,770 around Jan. 7, 1993, to the Presidential Inaugural Committee General Fund. (AP)

Today's military is plagued by overworked and undertrained personnel and would be hard-pressed to carry out another Gulf War-type operation, the chairman of the House National Security Committee said Wednesday. Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., in a report on military readiness, said the current policy of cutting back on personnel while committing U.S. troops to more peacekeeping missions has seriously undermined the military's war-fighting capabilities. - Associated Press

In the spring of 1995, a few months after his fraud conviction, former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell and his wife asked a recently retired White House aide whether the Riady family of Indonesia, which had already paid Hubbell $100,000, would be keeping him on its payroll even as he faced prison. Over dinner at the Palm restaurant in Washington, the former aide, Mark Middleton, told the Hubbells to take their question to the Riady family itself or to John Huang, the Riadys' former top American executive, who was then a trade official at the Commerce Department, says Robert Luskin, Middleton's lawyer. [T]he new interviews show the involvement of a wider circle of White House officials, at various levels, than was previously known. - NY Times

The office of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered the Resolution Trust Corp. in October 1993 to advise her of all media questions about an RTC probe of a failed Arkansas thrift at the core of the Whitewater investigation, including inquiries on Webster L. Hubbell's ties to suspected criminal wrongdoing. The order, according to former RTC officials, included questions on the agency's probe of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, pending criminal referrals in the case, the Rose Law Firm's involvement, Mr. Hubbell's or Mrs. Clinton's connections to the failed thrift, and Mr. Hubbell's ties to a possible conflict of interest in the RTC probe. he first lady's apparent interest in queestions on Mr. Hubbell's legal woes appears to contradict White House claims that it was unaware of his legal problems when top administration officials sought to find him work after his Justice Department resignation. WASHINGTON TIMES

It was a $3.4 billion deal. Legal publisher West Publishing was selling out to a Canadian rival. But West's Vance Opperman needed the Clinton Administration's approval... A secret ledger sheet at the Democratic National Committee, dated June 4 last year, lists Opperman for eight contributions, totaling $155,000. The money went not directly to the national party; that would attract national attention. The ledger shows the donations directed to states: And within weeks, on June 19, the Department of Justice announced an agreement allowing the sale. But now the question is whether one of the department's own decisions was "wired" to benefit a big Democratic donor, one whose underground contributions were deliberately hidden. CNN attempted to contact Opperman for comment, to no avail. - CNN

Vice President Al Gore, who claims he did not know an April 1996 visit with contributors in a Los Angeles Buddhist temple was a "formal fund-raiser," had been notified more than three months earlier that the event was set to raise $200,000 for the Democratic Party, according to White House papers. - WASHINGTON TIMES

The owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team and four other Democratic contributors paid Webster Hubbell a total of about $90,000 after he left the Justice Department, according to attorneys and other people familiar with the Whitewater investigation. At the time they hired Hubbell, he was under criminal investigation by the Whitewater prosecutor's office for billing practices at his old law firm. Several of the donors, each of whom steered about $18,000 to Hubbell, have said they were unaware of that. - AP

Smarting from allegations of crooked Democratic fund raising, President Clinton's inaugural planners spurned any donations over $100. But that didn't stop IBM, the Laborers' union and a host of lobbyists from writing five- and six-figure checks for bundles of tickets. In all, $23.7 million was raised for Clinton's second swearing-in and the balls, parade and festivities that surrounded it, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced Friday.(AP)

When Webster Hubbell announced his resignation as associate attorney general in March 1994 and -- with the knowledge of Hillary Rodham Clinton -- began to seek financial support from friends of the White House, the administration knew that Hubbell had already emerged as a crucial witness in several politically sensitive investigations of President Clinton and the first lady. Documents and testimony from earlier inquiries show that White House officials knew in early 1994 that at the same time they were trying to find financial assistance for Hubbell, he had emerged as a major witness in several investigations of the Clintons that had been deeply troubling to them. NYT

The official explanation of Huang's controversial activities is that they were an isolated side effect of a massive fund-raising machine pushed to take in too much money too fast. But Huang's Washington career shows a number of intriguing elements that suggest a more complicated picture. These include the timely appearance of unseen hands to lift him over obstacles in his path, the intervention of high-level help to finesse reluctant peers and bosses and a relentless blindness to the warning flags fluttering around his government and campaign work. - LA Times

The Justice Department wants to spare Hillary Rodham Clinton from testifying about the firing of a White House chef who charges his dismissal was retaliation for his discrimination complaint. The government is also asking an administrative law judge to conduct the proceeding in private because ``undue public attention might well create a `circus'-type atmosphere.'' [Why is the Justice Dept. functioning as HRC's lawyers?] (AP)

Democratic National Committee officials channeled millions of dollars in campaign donations to state Democratic parties last year, effectively hiding big contributions from tobacco, gambling and other special interests. Contributors' checks routinely were sent to DNC headquarters before being passed on to the state parties, but documents show that DNC officials kept meticulous records of the donations so that donors and fund-raisers received credit.

A state-regulated account of the Massachusetts Democratic Party received the vast majority of its funds during the last two years from unregulated "soft money" contributions collected by the national party, according to federal and state records. The money poured into the party from Washington only after state Democrats inserted an obscure provision in a Massachusetts law passed in 1994 that allows the political parties to receive national soft money for their ``state accounts,'' thus legally circumventing a longstanding ban on contributions of more than $5,000 per person annually. - Boston Globe

In a series of five letters to members of the House and Senate Judiciary commitees today, the Justice Department said its investigation has not found "specific and credible evidence" that a crime has been committed by an individual covered by the Independent Counsel statute. - CNN

A month after President Clinton was elected in 1992 on a promise to take the politics out of naming ambassadors, the Democratic National Committee put together a ``must consider'' list of big givers to be named as judges, ambassadors and senior government officials, party memos show. - Scripps Howard

The White House released a list of 56 Democratic contributors who rode on Air Force One in 1995 and 1996. The list included lobbyists, labor leaders and corporate executives who gave $5,000 or worked for an organization that did. Some also were fund-raisers who brought in at least $25,000. The White House said most of Clinton's 477 other guests on the plane were administration officials, personal friends, or working reporters. - AP

The foundation raising money to preserve Clinton's birthplace released a complete list of its 2,000 donors, acknowledging that some of the money was raised in Asia. - AP

Details of grand jury proceedings have been leaked to the press. Normally, federal prosecutors keep such hearings secret to avoid tipping off witnesses and possible targets who might want to destroy evidence or flee the country. At least two targets of the fund- raising probe have fled the country, and there have been reports that key documents were shredded. Also, Justice has shared confidential data from its probe with the White House- once in February after news broke of China's alleged plot to influence the election, and again last month before Vice President Al Gore's trip to China. Former prosecutors say the briefings were improper given the White House's heavy role in the fund-raising scandal. - IBD

A seating chart for a Democratic fund-raising dinner on June 1994, shows that Nancy Soderberg, a deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs, was seated at a table with James Riady, and John Huang, then a Commerce Department official. Administration officials on Monday called Ms. Soderberg's attendance at the dinner ``appropriate.'' But the appearance of a senior National Security Council aide at a political dinner raises additional questions about whether political fund raising and foreign policy overlapped at the Clinton White House. - NYT

FBI crime lab agents produced inaccurate and scientifically flawed testimony in major cases but did not commit perjury or fabricate evidence, the Justice Department inspector general said today. In a 500-page report, Inspector General Michael Bromwich recommended censure, transfer or other discipline for five agents. He said the chief whistleblower, scientist-agent Frederic Whitehurst, should be transferred from the lab because his ``overstated and incendiary'' allegations had poisoned his relations with others. - (AP)

The State Department changed written testimony submitted to a Senate panel last week in what critics say was an effort to downplay China's shipping of chemical weapons components to Iran. The critics charge the Clinton administration is minimizing potential law violations in the China-Iran arms arrangement so it won't have to impose severe economic sanctions against Beijing. - WASHINGTON TIMES

The FBI used the OK City bombing investigation as an excuse to tap the phone of a man who was suing the FBI over Waco. [I don't have the exact quote. Saw this story in Pgh. Post-Gazette - HJK]

PRESIDENT Clinton offered contributors to his election campaign a "thank you" trip with him on Air Force One, the ultra-secure Boeing 747 that Americans regard as a vital taxpayer expense to protect its leaders. The government almost certainly subsidised the fares, as the Democratic Party paid only the equivalent of a first-class ticket for the flight aboard a plane that costs huge amounts to maintain, as well as $36,000 (#22,000) an hour to fly.

In the last four years, Alexis M. Herman, President Clinton's nominee to be Secretary of Labor, and her aides at the White House have done several personal and business favors for a close friend of Ms. Herman's who bought her management-consulting firm in 1993, interviews and Government records show. Ms. Herman, who directs the White House Office of Public Liaison, has invited the friend, Vanessa J. Weaver, to the White House more than two dozen times and taken Ms. Weaver's sister on a trade mission, the records show. Ms. Herman's assistance has provided a high-level entrie for Ms. Weaver, a former Procter & Gamble manager who moved to the Washington area from Los Angeles a few years ago. NY Times

In the nine months after he resigned from the Justice Department in 1994 and before he pleaded guilty to charges of bilking his former law firm, Webster L. Hubbell had more than 70 meetings with Clinton administration officials, records show. An appointment calendar, telephone message slips and other documents obtained by The Washington Post indicate that the extent of Hubbell's contacts with