White House releases overnight guest list

By Matthew Vita, Washington Post, 9/23/2000

ASHINGTON - The White House said yesterday that 404 people had stayed overnight at the executive mansion or Camp David since Hillary Rodham Clinton launched her campaign for the US Senate, many of them donors who have given in excess of $600,000 to her campaign.

Seeking to quell a brewing controversy over whether Mrs. Clinton improperly used government resources in her bid for a New York Senate seat, the White House denied that President Clinton or his wife were trading the perquisites of the presidency for political support. It declared defiantly that they would continue to entertain their friends overnight until Clinton leaves office.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign said about a quarter of the overnight guests were contributors to her campaign but that there was no connection between campaign checks and sleepover invitations. The names of several Massachusetts residents were on the guest list, including Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Democratic donors John Manning of Boston and members of the Schuster family of Chestnut Hill.

''It is a basic common sense issue that your friends and people who you would have come stay at your home would also, in some instances, support your effort financially,'' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said. ''But any suggestion that there's anything more to that or there's any connection between that, is absolutely false and cannot be supported by any facts.''

Hillary Clinton, campaigning in Greenburgh, N.Y., yesterday, said, ''There just really isn't any reason for anybody to raise any questions about it.'' Her GOP opponent, Representative Rick Lazio, termed the disclosure ''absolutely insufficient'' because it did not include the dates of the visits.

The list released yesterday includes a number of leading Democratic Party donors and fund-raisers as well as major contributors to President Clinton's legal defense fund and future presidential library.

It also features numerous contributors to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign as well as prominent New York political figures who could be helpful in her race, including former state assembly majority leader Michael Bragman, Manhattan borough President Virginia Fields, former representative Floyd Flake and state Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli, the Nassau County Democratic leader.

An analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that studies campaign contributions, said the people on the list had contributed a combined $108,000 to Clinton's Senate campaign and an additional $516,000 to related political committees for which she has been raising campaign funds.

In all, according to the group, about 40 percent of the guests have been activecontributors this election cycle, giving a combined $5.5 million in campaign contributions, of which 98 percent went to the Democratic Party or Democratic candidates.

The courting of wealthy contributors has long been a part of any administration,.

In the aftermath of the 1996 campaign, President Clinton was widely criticized for rewarding donors with overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom. But the guest list released by the White House reveals that the Clintons not only have continued to host sleepovers for friends and backers - but have done so at a stepped up pace.

According to figures made public by the White House in February 1997, the Clintons hosted 938 sleepovers at the executive mansion during the president's first term, or roughly 19 a month.

The latest list shows that in the 14-month period between July 1999 - when Hillary Clinton began her ''listening tour'' to sound out a Senate bid - and the end of August, 404 people spent the night at either the White House or Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains - a pace of nearly 29 visitors a month.

The list includes friends from Arkansas, political figures like King Juan Carlos of Spain and former president Jimmy Carter, and celebrities like Jimmy Buffett, Chevy Chase, and Steven Spielberg.

It also includes longtime Democratic Party donors, such as Smith Bagley - an heir to a tobacco fortune-and his wife Elizabeth Bagley, a former ambassador to Portugal. Terry McAuliffe, a businessman who has helped raise many millions of dollars for both Clintons, was an overnight guest, along with five of his family members.

Among the big contributors to Hillary Clinton's campaign who were guests of the Clintons is S. Daniel Abraham, the founder of the Slim-Fast diet drink company who has contributed $76,000 to her campaign. Abraham is the leading Democratic Party donor this election, having contributed $1.1 million.

Another is Haim Saban, chief executive of Fox Family Worldwide, who has donated $18,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign. He and his company have donated more than $500,000 to the Democratic Party and helped raise much more.

Saban said he and his wife Cheryl have spent the night twice at the White House, the first time before Hillary Clinton decided to run. ''This attempt by the Republicans to try to connect the two is the biggest load of baloney that I've ever heard,'' he said.

Another guest was Norman Pattiz, founder and chairman of Westwood One, the country's largest radio network, who said he spent the night once, in August 1999, at the president's invitation. Pattiz is a lifelong Democrat who has contributed $313,000 to the party this year and $16,000 to Clinton's Senate campaign.

The Lazio campaign demanded that Hillary Clinton also release the dates. ''New Yorkers deserve to know if she was there, ''getting to know'' these big donors or if they were merely renting out these taxpayer owned monuments like a cheap motel,'' said campaign manager Bill Dal Col.