Gop Alleges Interference In Whitewater Testimony But Regulator Denies Being Influenced By Hillary Clinton Or White House Aides

Citing newly discovered notes from a 1994 White House meeting, Republicans on the Senate Whitewater panel said on Thursday that senior Clinton aides tried to influence the testimony of a former Arkansas regulator who is a crucial witness in the Whitewater investigations.

But the White House denied the Republican accusations, and said the new evidence merely showed that officials were interested in having the witness provide reporters with the same account she had during the presidential campaign.

At a Senate Whitewater committee hearing on Thursday, the Republicans disclosed the notes, taken by former White House communications director Mark Gearan about a meeting held Jan. 7, 1994, a few days before President Clinton had requested the appointment of an independent counsel.

The former regulator, Beverly Bassett Schaffer, who had been appointed head of the Arkansas Securities Department by Governor Clinton, has consistently denied that she had done anything improper or was influenced by Hillary Rodham Clinton when she represented a savings and loan that had issues before Schaeffer.

The Gearan notes show that the officials discussed sending one of three Clinton advisers - Paul Begala, Bruce Lindsey or Michael Waldman - to go over Schaeffer’s account of her communications with Hillary Clinton over Madison Guaranty. Clinton’s representation of the savings association is at the center of several Whitewater investigations.

According to the notes, Harold Ickes, a White House aide, indicated in language laced with expletives that Mrs. Schaffer was a critical witness, and that if the White House mishandled her, “we’re done.”

“Let’s not talk it to death - let’s just get it done,” Gearan records Ickes as saying. Ickes then rejects the idea of sending a White House aide because “it will come out,” and instead suggests that someone from outside of the administration be sent to review her account and “make sure her story is okay.”

The three people listed as possible emissaries were John R. Tisdale, a former partner of indsey in Little Rock, Ark.; Skip Rutherford, an Arkansas friend of the president, and an unidentified New York lawyer who was listed simply as a friend of Begala’s.

Following that list, Gearan wrote, “Quinn - arm’s length,” an apparent reference to Jack Quinn, who was an aide to Vice President Al Gore and is now the White House counsel.

In addition to Gearan and Ickes, the other aides at the meeting were David Gergen and Bernard W. Nussbaum, a White House official said on Thursday.