Clinton’s Red-Faced Over Way Aides Paid

Faced with a barrage of questions and embarrassing revelations about political fund raising, the White House said Thursday night that it was ending the practice under which some of its employees were paid by the Democratic National Committee.

“Frankly, it’s not worth the hassle,” the White House press secretary, Mike McCurry, said in explaining the change.

McCurry said the White House chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, had decided to shift the aides to the White House payroll after President Clinton ordered a review of the practice.

McCurry said he thought that four White House aides were currently on the Democrats’ payroll, and that about 20 altogether had fallen into that category since Clinton took office in 1993.

McCurry produced legal memorandums sent to the White House by the justice department in 1982 and in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was president, declaring that it was legal for the White House to employ aides whose salaries were paid by political committees.

The problem faced by the Clinton White House was not one of legality but of appearance.

Despite the apparent legality, the potential for misuse and embarrassment was illustrated by a report Thursday on NBC News that an aide on the Democratic National Committee payroll had access to a White House data base that is not supposed to be used for political work.

The presence of the White House aides who have been on the committee’s payroll was reported Thursday by The Washington Post, and there is a certain irony in the president’s apparent surprise. McCurry said the practice of White House aides being paid out of committee funds stemmed from Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise to trim the White House staff by 25 percent.

There was some confusion Thursday about just who the current committee staff employees are, and where. McCurry said two were on the staff of Vice President Al Gore, and that one each worked in the White House scheduling and advance office and the public liaison office.

The disclosure of the committeepaid workers, first reported by NBC News and then by The Washington Post, added to the controversy surrounding the White House and the Democratic Party over questionable fund-raising practices during the presidential campaign.

The head of a House investigating committee called on the White House for a complete list of everyone who has received any compensation from the Democratic National Committee or any other political entity.

McCurry’s briefing on Thursday was dominated by questions about money, politics, foreign policy and fund raising. He acknowledged that a businessman with ties to the government of Paraguay helped alert the White House last April to a threatened coup in Paraguay.

The businessman, Mark Jimenez, is a legal U.S. resident from the Philippines. His company and his employees have together given more than $800,000 to Clinton’s campaigns and causes since 1993. Clinton allowed Paraguay’s president, Juan Carlos Wasmosy, to take refuge in the U.S. Embassy until the threat of a coup threat subsided.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that on the day the aborted coup began, the Democratic National Committee received $100,000 from Jimenez and that Paraguay was a big market for Jimenez’s growing computer business.