The chief House investigator of campaign finance abuses promised Sunday to file contempt charges this week if the White House fails to produce certain documents. Democrats accused him of grandstanding and charged Republicans with their own cover-up.
On a second investigative front, President Clinton's former White-water partner, Susan McDougal, accused prosecutor Kenneth Starr of demanding that she lie to justify his own lengthy investigation.In both the campaign finance and Whitewater cases, investigators charge the White House with failing to turn over documents they say are crucial to their probes. The Clinton administration claims executive privilege in some cases and calls Starr's request a "fishing expedition."
"The public has a right to know and the Clinton administration ought to quit playing games with the law," House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, has requested White House counsel Charles Ruff appear before his committee on Thursday. He said if Ruff does not come with documents about former administration officials and Asian contributions to the Democratic Party, "We will move a contempt citation."
Contempt citations, which must be approved by the full House, would result in a referral to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Burton, R-Ind., said the White House has "stonewalled" by withholding documents based on attorney-client privilege. The White House has denied that and has agreed to provide Burton's committee access to documents, if confidentiality of sensitive material is guaranteed.
Burton, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said no material of a national security nature would be made public. But, he added, "The American people have a right to know whether or not their foreign policy was compromised by illegal foreign contributions, so I'm not going to make a carte blanche commitment" to confidentiality.
A focus of the investigations is whether China, possibly through Asian-American fund-raisers, channeled illegal funds to U.S. politicians.
Newsweek, in its edition released Sunday, quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying that the Chinese cabinet approved sending nearly $1 million to the United States in 1995 with the aim of influencing U.S. policy.