Fowler Deeds
The New York Times
and Los
Angeles Times lead with local political stories but their national
leads concern the testimony before the Thompson committee of the most prominent
DNC official to appear thus far. USA Today leads with the shocking fine print in a
foreign relations bill. The Washington Post goes with the latest dustup between NATO
peacekeeping forces and Bosnian Serbs.
The big news at the fundraising hearings, says the NYT , is the
admission by witness Donald Fowler, the Democratic Party chairman during the
1996 election, that on several occasions, he intervened with Clinton
administration officials on behalf of large party donors. Perhaps the most
questionable piece of networking is one that Fowler testified he couldn't
recall, but which documents revealed for the first time yesterday strongly
confirm: namely, contacting the CIA at the behest of Roger Tamraz, an
international financier "with a questionable reputation" (says the
Times ) who was angling for Clinton administration support for a proposed
Caspian region oil pipeline, and who had given the Democrats $300,000.
The NYT says such interventions are probably not illegal, but against
DNC guidelines, which state: "In no event should any DNC staff ever promise a
meeting with or access to any government official or agency in connection with
a donation, or ever imply that such contact or access can be arranged, or ever
contact an administration official on behalf of a donor for any reason." When
this rule was quoted to Fowler yesterday by Republican Sen. Susan Collins, his
response was: "I am not a staff member of the Democratic National Committee. I
was a chair of the Democratic National Committee, and there is a clear
difference there." The LAT in its Fowler story emphasizes a part of his
testimony that the NYT mentions only in passing: that the fund-raising
scandal was really more the responsibility of then-presidential adviser Harold
M. Ickes who, Fowler said, often countermanded his advice.
Both of the Times run strong companion pieces to their hearing
coverage. The NYT weighs in with the news that during the last election
cycle, the DNC took at least $2 million in contributions restricted to generic
use by the party that, in violation of election laws, it then spent directly on
President Clinton's re-election campaign. And the LAT delves into
another aspect of Tamraz's activities: his secret talks with top aides of--talk
about covering your political bases--Boris Yeltsin to discuss donating $100
million to Yeltsin's presidential campaign in return for his support for the
Caspian oil project.
In covering President Clinton's goal of getting "fast-track" authority in
order to enter into free-trade agreements with more countries, the Wall Street Journal notes, in a lions-den reporting
strategy, that even in the Missouri congressional district of
arch-protectionist Dick Gephardt it is obvious that, post-Nafta, firms are
creating jobs and increasing pay due to increased export sales. In fact, the
Journal accompanies the piece with a chart showing that only three
states--Oklahoma, Washington, and Alaska--are exporting fewer goods since
NAFTA.
USAT flyspecks the latest revision in the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act, engineered by Jesse Helms, which puts
corporations--including at least seven big tobacco companies--at the head of
the line of claimants to $1.3 billion in Iraqi funds frozen in U.S. banks, and
puts Pacific Gulf war veterans, many of whom are suffering the effects of Iraqi
chemical munitions, at the end of it.
Incidentally, it's nice to see that USAT isn't afraid to express an
opinion within a news story--generally a no-no at the other majors. Note the
scare-quotes in the following: "The only veterans covered...would be injured
survivors of Iraq's 1987 missile attack upon the frigate USS Stark .
Families of the 37 sailors who died in that 'accidental' incident already had
been given $27.3 million in compensation by Iraq before the gulf war."
