Reno Says She Tried To Give Warning Attorney General Assumed Fbi Information About China Would Reach White House

Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday she thought the FBI’s evidence last year that China might be trying to influence U.S. politics was so serious that she wanted to make sure the White House was informed.

She even placed a telephone call to thenNational Security Adviser Anthony Lake to discuss the matter.

Reno said she failed to reach Lake but was confident that the information would be passed on to high-level White House officials.

The detail sheds new light on an FBI briefing last June with two National Security Council staff members that led the bureau and the White House into a rare public disagreement earlier this week.

During a Monday news conference, President Clinton complained that he had only recently learned about the alleged Chinese activities. Clinton said the FBI agents who briefed the NSC staffers “asked that they not share the briefing, and they honored the request.”

“The president should know” about such allegations, Clinton said.

Hours later, the FBI fired back, insisting that the FBI agents had not placed any restrictions on passing the information “up the chain of command at the NSC.”

Reno said she has ordered a review of procedures used by the Justice Department and the FBI to collect information and brief Congress and the White House. But she tried to downplay the flap, telling reporters at her weekly press conference, “People just had a different understanding of what was said.”

Earlier, White House spokesman Mike McCurry also said the situation was merely the result of a misunderstanding. But President Clinton still wants his current national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, and his White House counsel, Charles F.C. Ruff, “to look into it, get the facts assembled and make any recommendations they want to make,” McCurry said Wednesday.

Reno said she was notified last May about the FBI’s findings that China might be trying to influence American politics.

“I thought it was serious enough to make sure that we had the FBI advise the White House,” Reno said.

Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg said Reno then placed a telephone call to Lake, now Clinton’s embattled choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

“I was not able to reach Lake,” said Reno, who was traveling outside Washington when she made the call. She said she did not try to reach him again “because I was told the briefing went forward” and expected that the NSC staffers would pass the information on to Lake.