Democrats Deride Gop Inquiry Republicans Agree To Expand Fund-Raising Probe In House, But The Move Is Called Meaningless

Amid fierce partisan wrangling, the House panel investigating campaign fund-raising abuses voted Thursday to broaden its inquiry beyond the White House - but Democrats decried the gesture as nothing more than a show.

After a lengthy, acrimonious hearing, Republicans agreed to expand the scope of their inquiry to include campaign finance abuses anywhere in the federal bureaucracy. But Democrats - who want to expand the inquiry to include GOP fund-raising problems - saw the move as meaningless because Republicans also gave committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., sole authority to issue subpoenas, and he has indicated that his priority will be the growing controversy over foreign-linked donations to the Democratic National Committee.

The two parties are at odds over whether the House campaign financing investigation should focus exclusively on foreign-linked donations to President Clinton’s reelection campaign or also should look into possible wrongdoing by the Republican Party and congressional campaigns.

House Democrats, led by Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, fought for an inquiry that would mirror the one in the Senate, where investigators have issued subpoenas to both the Clinton and Bob Dole presidential campaigns and intend to take aim at improprieties by Congress as well.

“This investigation is whatever the chairman wants,” Waxman said after the daylong committee hearing. “I don’t think it bodes well for our working together when they’ve gone off clearly in a partisan direction.”

While vowing to be fair, Burton repeatedly refused to say whether he actively would look into allegations of congressional wrongdoing.

Fearing the worst, Democrats sought to limit Burton’s authority to issue subpoenas unilaterally without a vote of the full committee. While Burton’s position gives him that authority, most oversight committee chairmen in the past have cleared subpoenas with the minority party.

“Power should not be concentrated in any one individual,” Waxman told Burton. “Mr. Chairman, you might think that if you have all this power, you may not abuse it, but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

So far, Burton has issued more than 100 subpoenas, all of them focusing on key figures in the Democratic fund-raising controversy, including White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Democratic National Committee fund-raiser John Huang.