ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 3, 1997 TAG: 9704030061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Released documents portray a White House eager to exploit its chief occupants' powers.
Eager to raise millions for President Clinton's re-election, Democratic fund-raisers laid out precise and ambitious goals: Events with the president should raise $50 million, those with Vice President Al Gore, $10.8 million; those with Hillary Rodham Clinton, $5 million, according to documents released Wednesday.
``Ugh,'' Clinton scribbled alongside a memo from aide Phil Caplan that detailed the Democratic Party's expected debts and even recommended budgeting $1 million for ``potential fines'' after the 1996 election.
``I think we can do better w/mail if we have the right message,'' Clinton wrote back another time when then-Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes raised concerns that the Democratic Party wasn't raising enough money to spend in federal races.
The documents were among hundreds of pages from Ickes' White House files that were turned over last month to congressional committees investigating allegations of fund-raising abuses. The papers were released Wednesday by the White House.
The memos portray a White House eager to exploit the money-drawing powers of its chief occupants while intimately coordinating a Democratic fund-raising machine it now admits was out of control.
Many of the memos are blunt - laying out precise and ambitious goals.
One page attached to an Ickes memo projected the president should raise $50.2 million by attending fund-raising events, while Gore should bring in $10.8 million and Mrs. Clinton an additional $5 million.
The first lady was slated for a variety of fund-raising activities in the documents, from making 10 calls to donors to being host for a ``Pakistani event'' that would raise $100,000.
If the various lists of fund-raisers were added up, the total associated with the president's possible attendance could have been as much as $70 million - from coffees and dinners to a conference call expected to yield $100,000.
``The fund-raising needs for the DNC will require a very substantial commitment of time from the president, the vice president, the first lady and Mrs. Gore,'' Ickes wrote in one memo directly to Clinton and Gore.
The words ``very substantial'' were underlined.
The release of the documents dominated the daily press briefing at the White House, where officials once again found themselves defending the extensive time spent by the president, vice president and presidential aides on political fund raising.
``The Republicans outspent us,'' and it was a ``difficult political contest,'' White House counsel Lanny Davis said.
Press secretary Mike McCurry added: ``If you ask the Republican National Committee to present you with their analogous set of documents. ... you'd see the same thing.''
The White House documents show that at least in one instance Ickes was kept apprised of the large amounts of money raised by a handful of donors who attended two coffee klatches with Clinton in June 1996.
``Harold, here are the coffee attendees [with POTUS] and amts. raised,'' read a handwritten cover letter faxed to Ickes from the DNC about two weeks after the coffees.
An accompanying list showed that each attendee had raised or donated between $50,000 and $100,000 - for a total of $1 million. Some had asterisks alongside their names to denote ``contributions are in installments.''
The White House originally insisted there was no fund raising associated with the dozens of coffees. More recently, however, aides have acknowledged that fund-raisers were expected to contact participants - either before or after the coffees - to see if they would give more.
Other memos debate fund-raising tactics the Democratic Party apparently considered in its all-out effort to keep pace with the better-financed Republicans.
For instance, one memo from late 1994 suggests the DNC was considering transferring so-called soft-money donations to tax-exempt groups, but wanted to keep the amount around $500,000 to avoid scrutiny since federal regulators had not ruled on the legality.
``Grants of amounts much larger would risk drawing public, press and FEC and/or IRS attention,'' the memo stated.
Both parties made donations to tax-exempt groups. Now Senate investigators are probing whether the parties or candidates misused such organizations for political gain.
An October 1994 memo from an unknown author to then DNC-Chairman David Wilhelm proposed asking a major California fund-raiser and donor, entertainment executive David Geffen, to ``advance monies against'' a fund-raising event that was still two months off.
The White House also considered using Democratic Party fund-raising lists to solicit money for the Clintons' legal defense fund, but did not carry out the idea because the rules setting up the fund barred solicitation, officials said.
The papers also document another fund-raising tactic used by the party that allowed donors to avoid national notice. National committee fund-raisers asked donors to give directly to state parties, and that money didn't show up on the national party's public financial reports.
Among several donors who took that route were two tobacco companies - Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds - a Chippewa Indian tribe and Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak. The tobacco company contributions came even as Clinton was planning regulations to crack down on tobacco sales to minors.
The papers detail a constant anxiety inside the White House about the Democrats' cash flow.
``The DNC will have no cash on hand, a $7 million bank debt, and approximately $1.5 to $2 million in obligations. Not a particularly satisfying situation,'' reads one memo from late 1995.
That memo urged a rapid escalation in scheduling of fund raising, recommending that $180 million be raised over the first 10 months of 1996.
The president apparently had his own eye for detail.
``Where are we starting after Bday pty?'' Clinton wrote back Ickes on one fund-raising memo, apparently seeking a list of events that would follow a major fund-raiser planned for his August 1996 birthday.
Then-DNC Chairman Donald Fowler suggested a 1995 Christmas dinner at the White House should be viewed as a possible fund-raiser. ``This dinner will be an accountability event for prior projections and commitments,'' he wrote.
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB