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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon A. Langston who wrote (36716)	9/14/2000 8:35:01 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

IT JUST GOES ON AND ON AND ON............ Democrats Tied to Questionable 1995 Funds Request September 14, 2000 7:51 am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Justice Department is reportedly investigating a former Democratic Party official on suspicion of linking a presidential veto to a campaign contribution he is believed to have solicited in 1995, The New York Times says. In an article posted on its Web site, The Times reported a briefing memorandum prepared for Donald Fowler, then Democratic national chairman, instructed him to tell Texas trial lawyer Walter Umphrey in late 1995 that Fowler knew Umphrey would "give $100K when the president vetoes tort reform, but we really need it now," so "please send ASAP." Umphrey is one of a handful of powerful Texas trial lawyers whom Vice President Al Gore began cultivating a few weeks earlier and whom he has continued to woo, with lucrative results for the Democratic Party, The Times said. It said Gore himself was supposed to have called Umphrey before Fowler but did not, according to his aides. The legislation that Fowler was being reminded to mention was a Republican-backed bill to limit punitive damages awarded in state and federal courts. "It was well known in late 1995 that the president was likely to veto the ... bill," The Times said, and Clinton did so in May 1996. In the months after the president's veto, Umphrey's law firm contributed a total of $40,000 to the Democratic National Committee, The Times said. "Explicitly linking campaign donations to official actions is improper and, in some cases, illegal," the paper noted. "POSSIBLE, MAYBE EVEN PROBABLE" It said the young aide who wrote the briefing memo declined to comment, Umphrey did not return the paper's calls, and Fowler said he would never have used the language in the memo. But Fowler, now a communications executive in South Carolina, acknowledged that it was "possible, maybe even probable," that he had had at least one conversation with Umphrey. The Times said several law-enforcement officials had told it that the memo's suggestion of "heavy-handed fund-raising" had led Robert Conrad Jr., head of the Justice Department's campaign finance task force, to open a preliminary investigation into the matter. Democratic Party officials told Reuters they believed Republican sources had leaked the story to The Times. Gore's spokesman at the White House, Jim Kennedy, said the briefing memo was among documents that the White House had turned over to the Justice Department long ago for a continuing probe of Democratic fund raising during the 1996 presidential election. "I think it's curious that (the article is appearing) so close to the election," Kennedy said. "The Republicans and others have had this for three years. Why would it be so important now if it wasn't then?" But the Bush campaign was quick to respond to the new suggestions of improper fund raising, saying the article raised questions about the "old Al Gore." "This is just what Al Gore was hoping he could sweep under the rug," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Attorney General Janet Reno said last month that she had decided against appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Gore over his account of a 1996 fund-raising event at a Buddhist temple in California and "coffees" at the White House.