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From The Post Reno: No Part of Funds Probe Yet Completed (Oct. 13) News Analysis: Will the Public Force Action on Campaigns? (Oct. 13) Aide Says Agency Didn't Get Request for Coffee Tapes By George Lardner Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 13, 1997; Page A01 A top official of the White House Communications Agency has told Senate investigators that his unit never received a memo White House lawyers say they sent WHCA last April, asking for videotapes of President Clinton's coffees with campaign contributors. In a deposition Friday, Steven Smith, WHCA's chief of operations, swore that his agency was never asked for any videotapes or other records of the controversial coffees until about two weeks ago. All he received last April, he said, was a two-page list of individuals and organizations caught up in the investigations of the 1996 campaign's fund-raising practices. White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff has said he sent WHCA and all other White House units a four-page memo, an assertion that he repeated yesterday on nationwide television. Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Ruff said the 44 coffee tapes discovered Oct. 1 and 2 were among the materials WHCA was asked to search for months ago. Ruff implied that WHCA was at fault for the belated discovery. But less than an hour later, the White House tentatively acknowledged another foul-up and said it appeared to have been made "inadvertently" by the White House Military Office, the way station for paper traffic between Ruff's office and WHCA. Run by a political appointee, Alan P. Sullivan, the White House Military Office supervises the 845 career military personnel in WHCA and gives them their day-to-day instructions, including which events their audiovisual crews should record. Smith's statements contradicted the story that was put out last week by White House lawyers and seems certain to amplify congressional anger over belated production of subpoenaed White House records and a companion debate over who was asked for what and when. Sullivan referred all questions to White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis. Davis said: "We understand that the military office, when it was producing copies of [Ruff's four-page April 28] directive, may have inadvertently neglected to photocopy the first two sheets of the directive, in which reference to materials relating to `coffees' was expressly included." Quipped one Senate investigator: "This sounds like a new Clinton application of `Don't ask, don't tell.' " In addition to the 44 coffee videos turned over to congressional and Justice Department investigators on Oct. 4 and 5, the White House has found more than 100 other WHCA videotapes and audio tapes of "DNC finance-related events" and plans to make them public this week. These feature Clinton at fund-raisers across the country, and sources said they show him heaping praise on controversial money men John Huang and Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie for their support. Still other subjects covered by congressional subpoenas, such as Clinton's radio addresses, have yet to be tracked down. WHCA has been widely depicted as having told White House lawyers that it did not videotape private or closed events such as Clinton's coffees. Ruff sustained that impression on television yesterday when asked if "WHCA lied to you." "This isn't a matter of lying," Ruff said. "This is a matter of good solid career people who pushed the wrong button or asked the wrong question of the computer." In fact, according to Smith's account, WHCA was never asked the right question to put to the computer because it was, in effect, withheld from the agency. The new headache for the White House dates back to April 28 when Ruff addressed his four-page memo to all White House units, calling on the first page for "a thorough and complete search of ALL your records in hard copy, computer or other form" and explaining the need for "all responsive documents." The second page asked for "any documents or materials referring or relating" to a number of subjects, including "White House political coffees" and Democratic National Committee "fundraising meetings or events." The last two pages, labeled "Attachment A," contained a long list of named individuals and organizations, such as embattled DNC fund-raiser Huang and the Indonesia-based Lippo Group, where Huang was once an executive. Smith "only got attachment A," Donald T. Bucklin, senior counsel for the Senate investigating committee, said yesterday. "He didn't get the instructions or the next page mentioning the coffees." WHCA searched for the names and individuals and found six documents that it submitted to Sullivan at the White House Military Office. Sullivan, in turn, sent them on to Ruff with a May 6 cover memo saying that "we have searched our files and found the six attached documents referring to or relating to the individuals or entities identified in the [April 28] memorandum." In addition, Davis said yesterday, Sullivan in his response to Ruff "included, as an attachment, our directive, all four pages. Therefore, we had no reason to know, or even suspect, that the entire document hadn't been forwarded to WHCA." Davis said he still has "no independent knowledge" that WHCA got only "Attachment A" since he has not seen Smith's six-hour deposition. Asked what Sullivan had to say for himself, Davis said he was unaware that "anyone in the White House counsel's office had interviewed him" as of yesterday afternoon and said there were no plans to do so. "We are not inclined to conduct an internal investigation concerning the communications between the military office and WHCA, given that these matters are now under investigation by various other authorities," Davis said. The Senate committee headed by Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) began asking specifically for WHCA videotapes in August following inquiries from The Washington Post about the possible existence of snippets from the first few minutes of private events such as the coffees. At first, White House lawyers told the panel there were no such tapes, but in late September, a 29-year-old lawyer in Ruff's office, Michael X. Imbroscio, learned there was a searchable database. On Oct. 1, a WHCA representative took Imbroscio to a basement computer terminal where he could check either an "event" index or a "photo op" index. He said he tried a couple of coffee dates, got some "hits," and ended up with the 44 coffee videos. Imbroscio also told reporters last week that a WHCA representative told him in late August on the first of several visits to WHCA that there were tapes of "open events," such as bill signings. But when he asked about coffees, Imbroscio said the WHCA official told him "those are not the types of meetings we do." It was WHCA's Smith who spoke with Imbroscio, and Smith said in his deposition that Imbroscio never mentioned "coffees" on that visit. "He said it [the coffees] never came up," Bucklin said. The White House delay until Oct. 4 in turning the tapes over to the Justice Department has also infuriated Attorney General Janet Reno. Ruff had a regular weekly meeting with her on Oct. 2 and said nothing about the discovery. He apologized yesterday, saying she should have been informed more promptly. "I have no excuse for this other than to assure . . . everybody who's listening that never in my life have I and never would I conceal any information from the attorney general," Ruff said. Reno, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," drew a distinction between the belated production of the tapes and their contents. Asked about the ones she has viewed so far, she said, "We do not have any indication of criminal activity" on the part of any official covered by the Independent Counsel Act. Republicans and some Democrats are insisting that she seek appointment of an independent counsel to investigate both Clinton and Vice President Gore. Ruff said he had reviewed most of the new DNC tapes to be released this week and said, "What you're going to see is, I suspect, the same speeches that you've been watching if you've been attending recent DNC events." Members of the Thompson committee took strong exception to the White House contention that the White House coffees, booked by the DNC, were not fund-raisers. Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said for one get-together, held in the Oval Office, a DNC employee wrote Clinton that five expected guests "are good for $100,000 contributions. And seven days later," Specter said, "four of them give $100,000." Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said the White House is relying on a technicality, because checks did not change hands at the coffees themselves. "In a sense that most people would understand, they were fund-raisers," Lieberman said. "I think credibility is lost when we continue to insist on technical legal points." Staff writer Susan Schmidt contributed to this report. © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company Back to the top Go to Campaign Finance Report | Go to Politics Section