PRESIDENT Clinton has strongly defended his vice-President, Mr Al Gore, and an aide of Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton from charges of illegal fund-raising activities in last year's election.
But he admitted that he himself may have made similar fund-raising calls from the White House to those Mr Gore made and which have been criticised by Republicans and the media. Mr Clinton said he could not remember if he had made such calls.
Mr Gore has admitted that he made fund-raising calls from his White House office with a Democratic Party credit card. Ms Maggie Williams, Ms Rodham Clinton's chief of staff, has admitted that she accepted a $50,000 cheque in her White House office from a Chinese businessman during the election campaign. She passed it on to the Democratic Party.
Mr Clinton insisted in a press conference yesterday that neither Mr Gore nor Ms Williams had broken the law which forbids "soliciting" funds for political purposes in a government building. But he approved of the pledge by Mr Gore that he would not make any more fund-raising calls from the White House.
Concerning Ms Williams, the President said that although she had done nothing wrong, he was satisfied that in future anyone offering election contributions while in the White House would be asked to make them directly to the Democratic Party.
Mr Clinton called several times for campaign finance reform to eliminate the need for presidential candidates to raise such large sums of money. But he repeated that he never "knowingly" changed a policy because of contributions from lobbyists.
He also said that the rules for access to the White House should have been been stricter to prevent visits by business people who later exploited them for their own ends. He had assumed that the normal system of checks would have kept out such people, but this had proved not to be the case.
The President also strongly defended the practice of inviting hundreds of persons to stay overnight in the White House, a number of whom were prominent contributors to his cause.
It was a strong performance by the President who has been under continuous pressure almost since his re-election last November because of reported fund-raising abuses.