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

DATE: FRIDAY, August 19, 1994                   TAG: 9408220067
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGMENT CALLS

WITH THE forced resignation of the No. 2 official in the Treasury Department, the Clinton administration - and the nation - have lost a savvy financial expert who had contributed much to the policies under which the U.S. economy has recently rebounded.

Nevertheless, Roger Altman had to go, and for reasons much of his own making.

Though a Friend of Bill from his and Clinton's days together as undergraduates at Georgetown University, Altman was not an Arkansas crony. Rather, he was a Wall Street investment banker who had made millions during the '80s.

His financial judgment, however, was not equaled by his judgment in governmental ethics.

As acting head of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the savings-and-loan cleanup agency, Altman allowed White House pressure to delay his recusing himself from the investigation of Madison Guaranty, the failed Arkansas thrift owned by President and Mrs. Clinton's one-time business partner. A mistake, but not an insurmountable one, since he ultimately did recuse himself.

He also informed the White House of the investigation into Madison. Another mistake, but also not an insurmountable one, since the decision ultimately was that nothing could be done about the investigation.

But in telling the Senate Banking Committee that he had had only one "substantative" contact with White House officials, Altman was simply not telling the truth. The number of contacts was more like 40.

And that was the mistake that cost him his job, as it should have. For this last mistake went beyond correctible error and into the realm of deliberate deception of Congress by an official of the executive branch - in the realm, that is, of trampling on the constitutional checks and balances.

It was not perhaps a very hard trampling. Absent White House pressure, Altman's ethical compass might have proved truer. But Altman chose to mislead Congress on a matter of import, and the result was an unacceptable misuse of power.

by CNB