Panel Asking Gramm About Packwood Gift

The Senate Ethics Committee sent a letter to Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Tex., Thursday inquiring about a possible violation of campaign finance laws raised by the committee’s investigation of Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore.

According to documents compiled during the committee’s investigation of Packwood, the Oregon senator deliberately deleted passages recorded in his diary March 6, 1992. Those passages referred to Packwood’s concerns about a $100,000 contribution from the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Gramm then chaired, to the Oregon Republican Party.

The original diary entry also discussed a conversation Packwood had with Gramm about the contribution.

“And what was said in that room would be enough to convict us all of something,” Packwood said in the original entry, which he tape-recorded for later transcription into the diary. “He (Gramm) says, ‘Now, of course, there can’t be any legal connection between this money and Sen. Packwood, but we know that it will be used for his benefit.’ “

“I think that’s a felony,” Packwood added.

The senator later retaped that entry, substituting an innocuous passage about campaign finance. When the Ethics Committee asked Packwood about the revision, Packwood said he deleted the original entry because he had learned that he was incorrect in thinking that the contribution violated the law.

The committee, however, found that the original entry “raised questions about the possible violation of campaign finance laws,” according to the committee’s documents, and asked Gramm for an explanation.

Gramm’s office downplayed the inquiry, saying the $100,000 was a normal, perfectly legal contribution to the state party.

“I cannot even begin to fathom why (Packwood) thought it was illegal,” said Larry Neal, Gramm’s spokesman.