Clinton's campaign money scandal - 14 March 1997

Mark Twain, as usual, said it simply and exactly, and said it best. The aim of a journalist is to attract people to read something they're not interested in.

Well, I am about to attempt an acid test to see if I can turn up, as you must with an acid test, turn up any gold in the examination of material about political corruption that legions of Americans say is as dull and lumpish and phoney as anything to come out of Washington since they can remember.

On the other hand, there are serious people who believe it could bring down the administration, which in a non-parliamentary country does not mean having the chief executive resign, have all his party go out with him and get ready for a new election. It means impeaching the president, or causing him to resign because he sees his impeachment is inevitable. This has happened only once in American history and then only 23 years ago, when President Nixon resigned after the proper procedure that leads to impeachment had been followed. And what, pray, may that be?

Once serious charges have been brought, the House Judiciary Committee looks at them and either throws them out or votes them. That committee charged Nixon with three counts of obstructing justice in a criminal conspiracy, of violating his oath to uphold the Constitution and of defying a subpoena issued by a committee of Congress. These charges were then passed on to the full House of Representatives which sits as a sort of Grand Jury. The House passed them by 412 votes to 3.

Then it was left to the Senate, which sits as a trial court with the Chief Justice in charge. As most of you know, it never got that far. Mr. Nixon, who till a day or two before he quit, swore that he would (a favourite occupation of his) soldier on, heard from his closest allies in the Senate that he had no sign of support there. So, admitting no wrong, but explaining that he'd discovered his political base had shrunk, he resigned.

Now, am I saying that any serious American thinks it likely or possible that Mr Clinton might go the same way home? I am. For what? For – wait for it – soliciting money from inside the White House for his presidential campaign, which is illegal. Maybe soliciting even from a foreign government. Let me first throw in the news that the great majority of Americans doesn't think his downfall is likely and, when polled to approve of Mr Clinton's presidential performance, give him the remarkably approving figure of 60%. To be truthful, after more scandalous details were added this week to the mounting pile, his popularity has declined to 55%.

Still, that surely shows that most Americans don't think this scandal amounts to anything, or they're bored with it or dismiss it because they say that what the Republicans and the investigative reporters are charging Mr Clinton and his Party with, could apply just as scandalously to the Republicans and their recent presidential candidates. In other words, they all do it.

Which may be a childish response but there's lots to show it is the general attitude of a public which, in the past 20 years or so, has shown less and less trust in politicians. Usually it comes out, by the way, not distrust of their own man, not their Congressman, their Senator, but of the others who go to Washington.

First then, simply. What is it all about? Well, I've stayed off this topic for so long because it is not simple. Its ramifications are complex indeed. But I decided the time had come when, last week, one of the ablest and most serious reporters in the United States, ran a column speculating on the possibility that Mr Newt Gingrich might well be the next President of the United States. Mr Ginrich, rather Speaker Gingrich.

The order of succession after the President is the Vice President and then if he dies, is disabled, removed from office, resigns, the Speaker of the House. Yes but, you say, these charges of corruption or illegality have been directed at the president, haven't they? Vice President Al Gore is famous for his purity and rectitude. Well yes. Until last week, when he, too, was accused of illegally asking people to contribute money, asking from inside the White House.

Suddenly Mr Squeaky Clean was seen as Mr Slightly Tarnished. And in no time the pundits and prophets were saying, "Well, perhaps Gore is not, after all, going to be the Democrats' nominee for president in 2000 AD"

Well, I'll try and make it as simple as it can be made without stating as a fact anything that is no more than an accusation. First, the law. I'm quoting now from a report written more than 60 years ago, "Because of the general belief that corruption and large campaign funds go hand in hand, both the State and Federal Governments have passed regulative laws, usually referred to as Corrupt Practices acts".

This true sentence reminds me that the first piece I wrote about such goings on was in 1939. In dismal fact, the first federal act to prohibit campaign contributions from a particular class of citizens, from civilian employees of the government then, was in 1883. Since then, during every presidency, there's been a clamour for a reform, once and for all, in the permissible system of raising money for individual campaigns. Note, individual!

The present federal law which, as I say, has been shaved, trimmed, enlarged, fiddled with, for over 100 years, the present law says individuals may contribute $1,000 to a candidate, Bill Clinton, Joe Blow or whoever. But companies, corporations may not contribute larger amounts to single candidates, only to a party's chest. There's the rub. And there's the underground tunnel for corruption.

Where companies contribute a million dollars, say, ostensibly to the party, and quietly, some, or much of it is filtered off to help the election of an individual – the party's nominee for president, say. The loopholes are many and many are invisible to the onlooker's naked eye. Now the exploiting, or indirect use, of vast amounts of money in this way is called "soft money".

The story's been building up for, oh, the past three months, that Mr Clinton has let into the White House, invited in, some very dubious characters including an arms manufacturer for a foreign government, a convicted felon, a drug dealer and many, many more innocent, but rich, citizens and given them breakfast or coffee or dinner or had them stay the night, in exchange for a whacking contribution – 50,000, 100,000, quarter of a million. Mr Clinton has returned a lot of it.

The details are complicated and squalid, involving a Chinese American who once worked for the government but then quit and became a powerful pitch man for the president. The story really began to hit the public nerve when it was alleged that the present Chinese government might have succeeded in contributing, through third or fourth parties, to... well, what? The Democratic Party? Or, to the re-election of President Clinton?

President Nixon had a committee known colourfully as Quip, the committee to re-elect the president, and managed to launder a million dollars or so in secret contributions. It was one of the scandals attached to Watergate. But it pales before the stories about two Chinese Americans and the Chinese government and worst of all, Mr Clinton, in effect, renting out the Lincoln bedroom of the White House at $50,000 a night. That was the item that stuck in the throat of many citizens and, naturally, one that the Republicans have played up as demeaning to the presidency and an outrage against good taste.

How about the lesser charge against Vice President Gore that he solicited funds by telephone from inside the White House? Well, the law of 1883, as amended in 1993, does not include the president and vice president as people to solicit funds from within the White House. Federal property, the law says.

And in a specific judgement of the Supreme Court handed down the year I was born, it said that a person who posted a letter of solicitation from outside a government building was not soliciting until his letter had arrived in and was read in a government building. So, by one reading of the law, Vice President Gore's phone calls didn't violate the law. The soliciting didn't happen where the call was made but where the call was received.

Aha! No wonder Mr Gore lays his hand on his heart and says he's as pure as the driven snow. But he won't do it again. No wonder the President, a lawyer, too, remember, has looked at the tangled law and says he did no wrong. Nothing illegal. But it's a dreadful system and ought to be reformed. Everybody seems to agree on that, though I should say, as I've indicated, they've been deploring the system of heavy money-raising for campaigns for 114 years. This time, yet another Senate committee has been appointed to investigate.

The Republicans, knowing full well their own side can produce some pretty murky stuff, approved money to investigate only Mr Clinton and the Democrats' possible illegalities. A healthy uproar, from, incidentally, some brave Republicans, has extended the investigation to illegalities and to a review of soft money in both parties.

Meanwhile, there's a continuous demand from the media, and from many members of Congress, for an investigation by an independent counsel. The Justice Department, under Attorney General Reno, says, but it is, itself, doing a thorough investigation of the Clinton White House. Mr Clinton is Miss Reno's boss, but doesn't at this moment see any need for an outside independent counsel.

Believe me, it's going to happen. Pretty soon, Miss Reno will have to learn what's wrong with the administration investigating itself. A problem as old as the Ancient Romans. They were the ones who asked the obvious, nasty question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who shall police the policemen?

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