CLINTON CHOICE EXITS HER BABY SITTER ILLEGAL ALIEN, TOO

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993                   TAG: 9302060153
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON CHOICE EXITS HER BABY SITTER ILLEGAL ALIEN, TOO
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 Wood 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."
Administration sources said Friday that one person believed to have been a finalist for the position, Washington lawyer Charles F. C. Ruff, was not under consideration. Former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles, a friend of Clinton's from their days as fellow governors, remains under consideration for attorney general, sources said.
The sources said Ruff had what they viewed as a far less serious situation involving Social Security tax payments for a domestic worker - a situation that apparently has arisen for a number of those being considered for sub-Cabinet nominations as well - but that in the current climate, it was unlikely he would be named attorney general.
Ruff said Friday night that he had employed a woman to do domestic work for one day a week for the past eight or nine years for whom he had not paid Social Security taxes until the issue arose during the Baird nomination hearings. Ruff said he was under the erroneous impression that no tax payments were required for the woman. He said he has since paid about $3,300 in back taxes.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB