Clinton Defends Campaign Fund Raising Supports Gore, Wife’s Chief Of Staff; Can’t Recall Soliciting Gifts Himself

President Clinton Friday offered a vigorous defense of his administration’s campaign fund raising, arguing that ethical standards have not been compromised and dismissing accusations against himself and the two latest players in the unfolding drama.

Saying they were “highly ethical people” who did what they thought was right, Clinton defended Vice President Al Gore, for soliciting contributions from his White House office, and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams, for accepting a $50,000 contribution in the White House.

The president also said he was not sure whether he ever made calls from the White House to solicit campaign donations.

“I simply can’t say that I’ve never done it. But it’s not what I like to do, and it wasn’t a practice of mine,” he said. But, “once I remember in particular I was asked to do it and I just never got around to doing it.”

The administration’s fund-raising practices have not undermined its credibility, the president said. He justified the practice of holding kaffeeklatches at the White House for donors and allowing many of them to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom as a break from the isolation of the presidency.

At an afternoon news conference that essentially was a 49-minute interrogation on fund raising, Clinton said that as far as he knew, Williams’ acceptance of the campaign check was the only time an administration official had accepted one, and in hindsight, it should not have been done.

He said he didn’t believe Gore or Williams would ever “knowingly do anything wrong.” Williams has come under fire for accepting a $50,000 check from Johnny Chung, a California businessman. Many analysts say it was illegal to receive such a contribution at the White House, but Clinton said it wasn’t a violation since she had not solicited the donation and had passed the check directly to the Democratic National Committee.

“In retrospect … she should have said to the gentleman in question … ‘I think you ought to go mail it yourself,”’ Clinton said. “And that’s what I think the White House should do in the future.”

He cast Gore’s efforts to raise money from his White House office as an valiant attempt to avoid being swept away by the Republicans’ financial advantage in an election where there was deep political division between the parties and “the stakes were high.”

But Clinton was less forgiving of the Democratic Party in the unfolding fund raising saga, saying he was “livid” and “stunned” to learn the party had failed to check the source of many contributions that are now being returned because they were illegal or improper.

“I was livid. I am stunned that in 1996, after all we’d been through in the last 20 years, that could have happened. It took my breath away,” Clinton said. “I was upset when I saw a proposed brochure that says, ‘This is the access you get to the president and the White House if you give this amount of money,”’ he said. “I thought that was wrong.”

Clinton stuck to his earlier statements that no quid pro quo existed on the contributions and that none had resulted in a change of policy, in the awarding of a contract or in an appointment. He also repeated that the disclosures haven’t justified an independent counsel to investigate the fundraising.

Having spent the morning with aides and lawyers reviewing possible questions, he answered the barrage from reporters with apparent ease. He occasionally glared down at notes before responding, and at one point joked that anyone with whom he had posed for a picture might want to remove it from their wall because of the cloud hanging over him with the fund raising.

But, mostly, he succeeded in keeping his temper in check and stuck to his overall message of the need for campaign finance reform.

“The real problem … unless you just believe that all transactions between contributors and politicians are inherently suspect … is that these campaigns cost too much money, they take too much time, and they will continue to do so until we pass campaign finance reform,” he said.

The president called the coffees “fairly pedestrian events in the sense that nothing very juicy was discussed” but said he “enjoyed them enormously.”

As far as he knew there was “no specific price tag on coming,” he said. “I still believe as long as there was no specific price tag put on those coffees, just the fact that they would later be asked to help the president or the party does not render them improper,” Clinton said.

He said only about one out of nine of the 938 guests who have stayed overnight at the White House were financial contributors or raised money for his campaign. “This job, even when you’re traveling, can be a very isolating job,” Clinton said. “I get frustrated going to meetings and going where all you do is shake hands with somebody or you take a picture, no words ever exchanged,” he said.

“I look for ways to have genuine conversations with people. I learn things when I listen to people. But I can tell you this: I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON OTHER TOPICS Clinton said he hoped to convince Russian President Boris Yeltsin at their two-day summit beginning March 19 in Helsinki that the expansion of NATO to include several Eastern Bloc nations would not be a threat to Moscow. Clinton said he was right to certify Mexico as a country cooperating with the U.S. on drug trafficking despite opposition in Congress. He reiterated his position that late-term abortions should be available to women who would lose their child-bearing ability, but suggested he might sign a bill restricting the practice. He announced that Gulf War veterans will have until 2001, instead of two years, to file claims for compensation for “Gulf War syndrome.” From wire reports