White House Kept Close Tabs on Probes, Papers Show

WASHINGTON — White House aides closely monitored congressional investigations into Whitewater-related matters and carefully planned strategy to counter the inquiries, according to 2,000 pages of internal memos and confidential notes made public Thursday by the White House.

The documents show presidential aides fretted in particular over congressional scrutiny of the handling of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster’s files after his suicide.

Others showed concern that Republican-controlled committees were attempting to cast a “shadow” on the character of President Clinton and advised White House witnesses to “stick to the facts . . . resist harassment” and continue to “govern America.”

The newly released documents had been the subject of an intense, months-long battle between the White House and a House committee that is investigating the firing in 1993 of seven longtime employees of the White House travel office.

Despite his initial claim that the records should be withheld from Congress on grounds of executive privilege, Clinton decided to furnish them to a panel headed by Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) to avoid a needless fight and to show that he had “nothing to hide,” White House officials said.

“The president decided that the best way to respond to half-baked attacks by Mr. Clinger was to provide him the documents,” Mark D. Fabiani, White House special counsel, told reporters.

Previously, White House lawyers had said that most of the documents subpoenaed by Clinger’s Government Reform and Oversight Committee fell into a privileged category because they reflected confidential advice by presidential aides on how to respond to Congress.

Clinger said Thursday that a review of the files shows that “most of these documents are not subject to any reasonable claim of executive privilege.”

Speaking to reporters in San Diego, where he was attending the Republican National Convention, Clinger said that furnishing the records at this time was “a cynical ploy designed to bury bad news during the Republican convention.”

He said that the new records provide further evidence that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was the driving force behind the firing of the travel office employees, a charge that Mrs. Clinton has disputed.

“The documents show a highly organized, well-orchestrated and deliberate attempt to conduct damage control,” he said.

Clinger also accused White House aides of improper action in debriefing witnesses after they had given closed-door statements to his committee.

The records showed that the aides had spoken with private attorneys who represented former presidential employees called as witnesses.

Fabiani said that there was “nothing inappropriate” in this action.

The documents were released 24 hours before a deadline set by Clinger for threatening presidential aides with contempt of Congress.

They provided little new substantive information on Whitewater-related inquiries but did show a marked concern at the White House over investigations resulting from the July 1993 suicide of Foster, who was a close friend of the Clintons.

Congressional Republicans have criticized the actions of Bernard Nussbaum, then White House counsel, in keeping federal investigators at bay after Foster’s death until he had searched the deputy counsel’s office for sensitive files kept there.

In one memo written as Congress looked into Nussbaum’s actions, White House lawyer Jane Sherburne ordered her staff to conduct legal research into such questions as “the obligation to cooperate with law enforcement authorities vs. protection of privileged material” and “basis for resisting identification/production of all documents in VF office and Bernie’s safe.”

Another Sherburne memo, labeled “privileged,” said that it would be helpful if White House aides could “identify friends--key members and staff” on Senate and House committees investigating the Foster case and other matters. This memo urged research regarding “limitations on legislative power to investigate.”