Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 18, 1994 TAG: 9408180125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: WASHINGTON NOTE: ABOVE LENGTH: Medium
For weeks, President Clinton backed Altman, though congressional Republicans and Democrats said they had lost confidence in the 48-year-old former Wall Street investment banker.
Wednesday, Altman joined one-time White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum and Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell on the list of senior officials who have been forced to quit over Whitewater.
Facing unattributed White House press leaks calling for his resignation, Altman, whose anguished deliberations over whether to step down as head of the agency probing Whitewater were a focal point of his controversial testimony, called the president and quit.
``I regret any mistakes or errors of judgment,'' Altman wrote to his boss, adding that his resignation would become effective upon Senate confirmation of his successor.
``I believe you have taken the right step under the circumstances, and I regretfully accept your resignation,'' Clinton wrote in reply to his friend and political fund-raiser.
Senate Banking Committee members say they tentatively have accepted Frank Newman, the Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, as Altman's likely successor.
White House officials said Treasury general counsel Jean Hanson, who also offered conflicting Whitewater testimony, would resign within days. And speculation mounted that Treasury chief of staff Josh Steiner, who testified that he lied to his own diary about Whitewater, may be reassigned.
``Whitewater'' refers to a complicated series of property and banking transactions involving Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as allegations that administration officials tried to squelch investigations into the matter.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who recently replaced Robert Fiske, is gearing up his own investigation into Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which failed in March 1989 at a cost to taxpayers of at least $47 million. The Arkansas thrift is suspected of diverting funds to Clinton's gubernatorial campaign and Whitewater real-estate investment.
Members of both parties in the Senate demanded Altman's resignation for failing to disclose to the Banking Committee at least 40 contacts between the White House and agencies investigating Whitewater. They have accused Altman, who was the acting head of the Resolution Trust Corp., of leaking crucial information on its confidential probe to White House officials, who then briefed the Clintons, and of failing to disclose pressure from White House officials to keep control of the Madison investigation.
by CNB