House Counsel

WASHINGTON -- White House Counsel Bernard W. Nussbaum, the $500-an-hour Wall Street lawyer who came to Washington at the request of an old friend, resigned yesterday -- a casualty of the investigation into the Whitewater Development Corp.Mr. Nussbaum's resignation, characterized by other White House aides as a forced departure, is effective April 5."At all times I conducted . . . the duties of Counsel to the President in an absolutely legal and ethical manner," Mr. Nussbaum asserted in a letter to President Clinton.

About 60 sailors and Marines who shipped into Baltimore for Sailabration, the maritime festival marking the bicentennial of the War of 1812, combined shore leave with community service. They spent Monday volunteering at the Baltimore Station, a transitional housing and counseling center for men, many of whom are veterans. They were among the 4,000 military men and women who visited the city during Sailabration. They took in the sights, sampled the fare and, in many instances, donated their time and talent to local projects before their ships left Tuesday.

WASHINGTON -- White House counsel C. Boyden Gray may have brought the White House a problem with gay rights and civil liberties organizations with the disclosure of a speech last week in which he used the word "fag" and referred to former Rhode Island Representative Fernand St Germain as "a real crook." Mr. St Germain, a Democrat, has not been charged with or indicted for any crime.Mr. Gray, a Harvard-educated lawyer from North Carolina, made the comments Nov. 1 to about 35 members of the Montgomery County Republican Club in Chevy Chase.

In a seemingly unprecedented move, President Bush yesterday revoked a pardon he had issued just 24 hours earlier for a politically connected real estate developer who defrauded hundreds of low-income home buyers - acknowledging that White House aides had not fully described the scope of the crimes that had been committed and the context of the clemency application. The unexpected Christmas Eve reversal came after it was discovered that the pardon of Isaac Toussie had not met Justice Department guidelines, and that Toussie's father had donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee, prompting some of Toussie's victims to complain that he had been bailed out thanks to his White House ties.

WASHINGTON -- In appointing former Carter White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, one of Washington's certified political and legal wise men, to take over the same job from the departing Bernard Nussbaum, President Clinton is seeking to solve an internal White House problem that almost always arises in coping with a real or perceived scandal.When the trouble starts and intensifies, what usually happens is that the lawyers insist on clamming up and "protecting" the president. At the same time, the political advisers argue for "damage control" by putting out whatever can safely or reasonably be made public.

DALLAS -- Some people call them kooks. .....That doesn't bother Susan Pejovich, Mike McCullough and Hugh Sprunt. They have busy lives -- professional and personal. But their spare time is devoted to an unusual avocation: trying to uncover the cracks in the public accounts of former White House counsel Vincent Foster's death.Move over, Kennedy-assassination aficionados. Here come the Vince Foster conspiracy buffs.As we approach the sixth anniversary of Foster's July 20, 1993, death, officially ruled a suicide, this trio of local cybersleuths and 40 others around the country are keeping alive the idea that the Arkansas lawyer didn't die as government reports say he did.At the very least, they say, the investigations of his death were bungled, resulting in government cover-ups.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton telephoned Vincent W. Foster Jr. the night before he committed suicide in part because he knew that the deputy White House counsel was "having a rough time" at work, the White House said yesterday.The statement, confirming a report in Newsweek magazine, appeared somewhat at variance with a previous White House assertion that no one had known Mr. Foster was feeling troubled. But Dee Dee Myers, the White House press secretary, said the president had been aware only that it had been a difficult week for the office of the White House counsel, where Mr. Foster was the second-ranking official.

NEW YORK - A major fund-raiser for the Clinton library helped get the White House to pardon convicted perjurer William Fugazy after the Justice Department shot down the request, the New York Daily News has learned. New York supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis is a member of an elite advisory board to the Clinton library and has pledged to raise $1 million for the sprawling complex in Little Rock, Ark. Catsimatidis says his access helped overcome Justice Department opposition. "In the last 50 years, I don't know of anyone who's gotten a pardon who hadn't paid a lot of money to a lawyer or hasn't known somebody," he said Friday.

WASHINGTON -- Former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell finished a second day of questioning yesterday about the actions of bereaved and shaken White House officials in the hours and days following the death of deputy White House counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr.In Day 2 of the Senate's Whitewater hearings, lawmakers questioned Hubbell about the actions of Bernard Nussbaum, the former White House counsel who resigned last year after coming under fire...

WASHINGTON -- Justice Department officials said yesterday that they would await a White House ethics review before deciding whether to open a criminal investigation of a former administration aide who had acted as a representative of a primary figure in criminal inquiries into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.On Tuesday Edward M. Rogers Jr., the former aide to White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, canceled a $600,000 contract to represent Sheik Kamal Adham, former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence.

WASHINGTON -- At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the CIA from 2003 to 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two al-Qaida operatives, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials. The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Alberto R. Gonzales has at last been hounded out of the attorney general's office, but President Bush's indignation at his exit in disgrace is misdirected at Democrats. Mr. Bush complained Mr. Gonzales' "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," but both men contributed mightily to the result. His longtime friend was thrust into a job he never understood and was ill-suited for. As the nation's top law enforcement officer, Mr. Gonzales continued to perform as the president's personal counsel, sacrificing independence and integrity to unwavering loyalty.

Washington -- A House committee voted yesterday to endorse criminal prosecution of Joshua B. Bolten, President Bush's chief of staff, and former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys last year. The 22-17 party-line vote of the Judiciary Committee calling for contempt-of-Congress proceedings against the two aides was referred to the full House for consideration. That vote is expected to occur after Labor Day when Congress returns from its August recess.

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats began laying the groundwork for finding former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers in contempt of Congress yesterday when, as expected, she did not appear at a congressional hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. In a party-line vote, a House judiciary subcommittee dismissed claims of executive privilege that Miers invoked through her lawyer in refusing to appear. The 7-5 vote was the first step in a process that could lead to Miers - who had been briefly nominated for the Supreme Court in 2005 - being found in contempt, although the timing of such a move was far from clear.

WASHINGTON -- The White House told congressional leaders yesterday that President Bush was asserting executive privilege in response to the request for access to senior officials and documents about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year. The sweeping declaration said that turning over such evidence would harm the president's ability to obtain candid advice from aides. Congress is left having to decide whether to move forward with contempt proceedings against Bush administration officials or accept a limited offer of cooperation that White House counsel Fred Fielding renewed yesterday in a letter to congressional leaders.

WASHINGTON -- White House political adviser Karl Rove more than two years ago began seeking input from the Department of Justice into how many U.S. attorneys should be fired in the second Bush administration, according to new e-mails released yesterday that show a deeper White House involvement in the firings of federal prosecutors last year. The e-mails also show that the Justice Department was willing to defer to Rove on the matter. According to new e-mails released yesterday, Rove in January 2005 asked the White House counsel's office about its plans for the nation's federal prosecutors and whether it would fire some or all of them.

Washington -- The House Judiciary Committee sharply broadened its investigation yesterday into the firing of eight top federal prosecutors, calling on the White House to provide legal documents and make current and former senior officials available for interviews -- including former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers. The Democratic-controlled panel is investigating whether the wave of firings in December may have been part of a political vendetta against prosecutors who did not bring criminal cases that would have hurt Democratic candidates in last year's midterm election.

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents interviewed White House staff members Thursday afternoon about a delay in the handling of a torn-up note written by Vincent W. Foster Jr., the White House aide who was found dead July 20, a Justice Department spokesman said yesterday.The FBI lent some agents to the U.S. Park Police to try to learn why the note, found Monday in Mr. Foster's briefcase by a colleague, was not given to the Park Police until Tuesday night, said Carl Stern, the spokesman.The Park Police are investigating the circumstances of Mr. Foster's death from a gunshot wound in a roadside park in suburban Virginia.

Washington -- The House Judiciary Committee sharply broadened its investigation yesterday into the firing of eight top federal prosecutors, calling on the White House to provide legal documents and make current and former senior officials available for interviews -- including former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers. The Democratic-controlled panel is investigating whether the wave of firings in December may have been part of a political vendetta against prosecutors who did not bring criminal cases that would have hurt Democratic candidates in last year's midterm election.

WASHINGTON -- Harriet E. Miers, a member of a diminishing circle of allies who came to Washington in 2001 with George W. Bush, is resigning as White House counsel at the end of this month, the White House announced yesterday. The ill-fated nomination of Miers to the Supreme Court in 2005 left President Bush tangled in complaints of cronyism and in dispute with his conservative allies. Her departure comes as the administration copes with the challenges of demonstrating its relevance during its final two years, with attention shifting to the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and renewing its energy among senior aides for whom time in office is ticking away.