Clintons’ Legal Fund Shuts Down Lawyer Bills Leave Them $2.9 Million In Debt
With contributions dwindling far below the amounts needed, trustees of the 3-year-old legal defense fund established for President Clinton and the first lady said Tuesday they are closing the operation.
The fund took in only $79,702 during the first 11 months of this year, leaving the Clintons with about $2.9 million in unpaid legal bills, resulting primarily from the lengthy Whitewater investigation, officials said.
Clinton has said he would pay off any remaining legal debts after he leaves office in 2001. However, he immediately asked White House lawyers on Tuesday for other options for paying off mounting legal bills.
Known officially as the Presidential Legal Expense Trust Fund, the operation generated more trouble and criticism than some Clinton supporters felt it was worth. Embarrassed trustees decided to refund more than $600,000 in contributions collected last year by Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, a central figure in investigations of Democratic fund-raising activities, on suspicion that most of the individual $1,000 checks and money orders from a Buddhist sect represented illegal foreign funds.
“The notoriety associated with that incident had a chilling effect on contributions to the trust fund,” acknowledged Michael H. Cardozo, the fund’s executive director.
The Justice Department and congressional committees began investigating the fund late last year, leading to associated legal expenses of nearly $90,000, Cardozo said.
The fund had taken in $1.3 million since its establishment in June 1994, and it paid legal bills of $766,134 for the Clintons after expenses and taxes.
Cardozo said the Clintons accepted the trustees’ recommendation to close down the fund effective today, after which no further contributions will be accepted. Under rules adopted by the trustees - co-chaired by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame University, and former Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach - registered lobbyists, federal employees, political action committees and labor unions were barred from providing support.
No contributions greater than $1,000 were accepted from the 9,293 persons who gave to the trust, officials said. The fund released names and addresses of all donors; contributors’ occupations included business, law, medicine, consulting and law enforcement.
Cardozo said the Clintons will have to come up with another way to raise money to pay their legal bills, including fees associated with the sexual harassment suit filed against the president by Paula Corbin Jones.
“The president has many friends and supporters who would like to be helpful to him,” he said.
The fund was a lightning rod for controversy, largely because it was the first for a sitting president. Former President Nixon had accepted donations to help cover some Watergate-related legal bills after he resigned from office, but he paid the bulk of his legal fees himself.
Clinton told a news conference last year he owed his lawyers more than his $200,000-a-year salary and legal fund could cover. But he said “if I stay healthy” after leaving office, “I’ll be able to pay my bills and earn a pretty good living.”