White House Agrees to Release Fund-Raising Documents

WASHINGTON — The House committee looking into campaign fund-raising abuses reached an accord with the White House on Tuesday over thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents that presidential aides have withheld from congressional investigators.

White House Counsel Charles F. C. Ruff said that he will send Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, all the subpoenaed documents he is seeking, except for a relatively small batch of papers that the White House considers privileged.

“I believe this is a victory for the people’s right to know,” Burton said as he canceled a hearing scheduled for today in which he intended to tell Ruff that the White House’s withholding of documents constituted contempt of Congress.

The compromise resolves a bitter standoff between Burton and Ruff that threatened to significantly delay congressional hearings.

Under the deal, every time the White House holds back a document it will provide a description to Burton, who will challenge presidential exemptions on a case-by-case basis instead of fighting over whether the White House has a right to withhold documents.

As part of the agreement, Ruff dropped his insistence that Burton’s investigators examine certain documents at the White House. Ruff had expressed concern that the House committee might leak sensitive material to the press, which Burton said Tuesday he may do if he believes “it’s important for the American people.”

In a letter to Burton, Ruff said that he intends to turn over 2,000 documents to Burton’s committee by the end of the day Tuesday and to fully comply by June 13 with requests for documents concerning Democratic fund-raisers John Huang, Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and others.

The deal will add to the 300,000 pages House investigators already have obtained. In addition, staff members intend to depose as many as 140 people with knowledge of the wide-ranging controversy.

Even with the White House deal, Burton suggested that the congressional hearings he is planning will take place well after the July hearings planned in the Senate.

“I don’t want to go into the hearings half-cocked,” he said.

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, also has expressed frustration with the White House’s reluctance to surrender documents. But his relations with presidential aides have been far smoother than Burton’s.