Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993 TAG: 9302060091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON CHOICE EXITS
Federal Judge Kimba Wood, President Clinton's expected choice for attorney general, withdrew from consideration Friday, saying her baby sitter had been an illegal alien for seven years. The announcement came two weeks after a similar problem torpedoed Clinton's first choice, Zoe Baird.Wood, 49, had been cited by senior administration officials as Clinton's near-certain choice as recently as early Friday, when they said she likely would be named unless problems developed during an FBI background check.
Administration officials said Wood was asked three times - once by the president - if she had problems related to hiring illegal aliens and had insisted she did not.
When a background check intensified and Wood supplied her household employment records, her hiring of the alien baby sitter was detected. After additional consultations with White House legal advisers, she was urged to withdraw her name, according to a senior administration official.
"I understand and respect Judge Wood's decision not to proceed further with the possibility of being nominated as attorney general," Clinton said in a statement. "I was greatly impressed with her as a lawyer, a judge and a person. . . . I wish her well."
In her statement Friday, Wood said Clinton asked her in a White House interview whether "I had a `Zoe Baird' problem. I said I did not, and I do not."
She acknowledged hiring a baby sitter in March 1986 even though the woman had an expired entry visa. Wood said she "complied with all immigration laws" during that period and paid "all required taxes." Baird, the Connecticut corporate lawyer who withdrew two weeks ago, had not paid Social Security taxes as Wood did.
Wood said, "In March 1986, it was lawful to openly employ aliens who were in the country, like my baby sitter, on an expired visa as long as all required taxes and forms were filed," she said. "However, although all my acts were lawful, my baby sitter, like anyone pursuing legalization, was not legally in this country from 1980 until she obtained legal residency in December 1987."
A senior administration official, speaking anonymously, said Wood did not appear to have broken any laws. Still, with the public outcry that followed Baird's disclosure that she hired an illegal couple, "we weren't about to risk that again."
Two other finalists were said to be Washington attorney Charles F.C. Ruff and former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles. It was not immediately clear if Clinton would make his pick from those two or start his search anew.
Baliles, governor from 1986 to 1990, spearheaded what became a 12-year, $10 billion highway-construction program and is credited with helping raise teachers' salaries to near the national average.
A native of Stuart in Patrick County, Baliles is a graduate of Wesleyan College in Connecticut and the University of Virginia Law School. He joined the state attorney general's office in 1967 and became known as a specialist in environmental law. He later won a state House seat and served as Virginia's attorney general. During his last year in that office his peers declared him the best attorney general in the nation.
When he was elected governor in 1985, the Democratic ticket shattered precedent by including a black candidate for lieutenant governor - Douglas Wilder - and a female candidate for attorney general - Mary Sue Terry.