NEW YORK -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's U.S. Senate campaign said Wednesday it will return a $22,000 donation from a businesswoman linked by congressional investigators to a drug trafficker.
Her opponent, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, also faced questions Wednesday about a donation.The New York Times reported that Giuliani's soft-money campaign committee received a $100,000 donation from a company whose holdings include a company identified in 1998 as the nation's top dumper of toxic chemicals.
The donation to the Clinton campaign was made by Vivian Mannerud, whose Airline Brokers Co. runs charter flights between Cuba and Miami.
Mannerud has been linked by congressional investigators to drug smuggler Jorge Cabrera, who made a $20,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee in 1995 from a bank account in which he kept profits from drug trafficking.
"We are returning the money because the contribution was inappropriate," Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Wednesday.
In 1995, Mannerud reportedly promised Cabrera an invitation to a Miami fund-raising dinner honoring Vice President Al Gore if he gave the money. The DNC eventually returned the donation.
Three weeks after attending the party, Cabrera was charged with smuggling 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. He pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 19 years in prison and fined $1.5 million. Mannerud was never charged with any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, the mayor's Washington-based Giuliani Victory Committee, set up to accept soft-money donations that legally bypass federal fund-raising restrictions, received a $100,000 check from the Renco Group, the Times reported.
Among Renco's holdings is the Utah-based Magnesium Corporation of America, which was cited in a 1998 federal Environmental Protection Agency report as the nation's top dumper of toxic chemicals.
The donation, found in campaign reports filed in Washington, was transferred to the National Republican Senatorial Committee where, the Times said, it would likely be used to finance direct mailings for Giuliani.
Kim Serafin, a spokeswoman for Giuliani's campaign, did not immediately return phone calls today seeking comment.
A spokesman for the national Senate fund-raising committee, Stuart Roy, told the Times it was unfair to hold Giuliani responsible for the donation since it went to the Republican Senatorial Committee. He did not comment on the fact that it was originally made out to the Giuliani Victory Committee.
The report about the Giuliani donation came a day after Clinton attacked her Republican opponent's environmental record. During an appearance Tuesday, Clinton also questioned the mayor's campaign payments of $1 million to conservative direct-mail fund-raising guru Richard Viguerie. With Viguerie's help, Giuliani has outraised Clinton in their Senate race, $19 million to $12 million.
Giuliani campaign spokeswoman Juleanna Glover Weiss dismissed criticism of Viguerie by saying, "when the Clintons get in trouble or need a scapegoat, they always blame the vast right-wing conspiracy."