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

DATE: SUNDAY, April 3, 1994                   TAG: 9404030110
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL ROSS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Long

HE'S EXPERIENCED IN STANDING UP TO PRESIDENTS

Two decades ago, it was Watergate and a confrontation with another president - Richard Nixon - that changed Leach's life, propelling him into politics.

Then a rising diplomat, Leach had just been assigned to Moscow when Nixon fired Archibald Cox as special Watergate prosecutor. Outraged by the abuse of power, Leach promptly resigned from the Foreign Service, saying his conscience no longer allowed him to serve in Nixon's government.

He was elected to Congress in 1976.

Leach, 51, is at first blush an unlikely person to take on the president. Though a fiscal conservative, he is so liberal on social issues that fellow Republicans frequently deride him as a "crypto-Democrat."

Indeed, Leach's main targets have been Republicans - Nixon, Ronald Reagan for Iran-Contra, and the GOP leadership for its embrace of the religious right.

Until now, Leach was perhaps best known for the crusade he waged in the House Banking Committee in the 1980s to stave off what he warned was an impending S&L crisis by requiring thrifts to increase capital and restrict speculative investments. Democrats and Republicans alike admit they were wrong while he alone was right.

Here are Leach's views on Whitewater:

Q: The polls suggest Americans are still unsure what Whitewater is about and have trouble understanding the Clintons' role in it. So to start with, what is Whitewater about, and why should Americans care about it?

A: Whitewater is about conflicts of interest involving a real estate investment in which one-half of a partnership put in substantially more resources than the other half. They also involve the intermixing of taxpayer guaranteed resources with a private venture to the potential advantage of a public official. That is what makes the circumstance a public rather than simply a private interest. It should be stressed that on the public record is the fact that a failed savings and loan infused far more capital into Whitewater than then-Gov. [Clinton].

In a nutshell, you have a conflict of interest in multithousand-dollar proportions which may have contributed to multimillion-dollar losses for the taxpayer when the S&L subsequently failed - due in part to its investment in Whitewater and other real estate ventures of quasi-similar composition.

Q: You have been conducting your own Whitewater probe and have turned over the results to Special Counsel Robert Fiske. What evidence did you find to show that money was diverted from Madison Guaranty to Whitewater?

A: We provided a series of check stubs that show money flowing [into Whitewater] from Madison-affiliated entities. Then there is on the public record the Madison Marketing $7,500 check that went to pay off a Clinton loan. [RTC investigator] Jean Lewis has indicated that she found approximately $70,000 going into Whitewater over a six-month period alone.

So you have three precise sets of evidence. One is the $7,500 check; one is the $30,000 transfer for which there is also a check trail; and thirdly, the check stubs that relate to a series of small transfers in an earlier time period. That is the evidentiary circumstance laid on the table.

Q: And do you believe the Clintons were aware of at least some of these transfers?

A: If one views the former governor and former first lady of Arkansas as passive investors with little involvement in the deal-making ethos of the politics of the time in Arkansas, then it is credible to assume that they might not have known. On the other hand, if one's assessment of [the Clintons] is a little more skeptical, one might reach a different conclusion. Those are judgmental elements at this time, not proven circumstances.

But let me stress that Whitewater also received an infusion of funds from a small business investment corporation [Capital Management Services] and its former head, who has plea bargained with the special counsel, has alleged that the governor urged him to make this particular loan and that the funds for this loan originally came from a substantial loan from the S&L Madison Guaranty. So these are the allegations on the table, though they are by no means proven.

Q: Polls indicate that most Americans believe the media are paying too much attention to Whitewater. How have the media handled it, in your view?

A: Yes, we have given too much attention to the issue. My own sense is that what you have here is an issue of public ethics that deserves being raised - and then deserves being resolved. All the minority ever requested almost five months ago was for a hearing on the subject. If that hearing had occurred, this would have been a one- to three-week issue. As it worked out, the decision to deny public accountability piqued public interest, and particularly press interest, and the issue escalated. . . . It's my view that accountability is in order, but that a constitutional crisis is not.