White House releases lengthy list of overnight guests

Lazio campaign demands more detailed information

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an attempt Friday to counter charges by New York Republicans that Hillary Rodham Clinton was rewarding donors to her Senate campaign, the White House released a list of the first family's overnight guests at the White House and Camp David from July 1999 through August of this year.

RESOURCES Overnight guests of the White House: Read the complete list of names Analysis: Who made the White House guest list?   MESSAGE BOARDS Bill Clinton's legacy N.Y. Senate race

The list's July 1, 1999 start date was chosen because that is when the first lady began her "listening tour" to decide whether she would seek the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, administration officials said. Mrs. Clinton is battling New York Republican Rep. Rick Lazio for Moynihan's long-held seat.

The administration and the Clinton campaign insisted Friday there was no connection between campaign donations and guest invitations. In a terse statement, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said, "The Clintons will continue to invite guests to visit them at the White House and at Camp David during the president's remaining months in office."

In addition to the 361 people named Friday by the White House, administration officials said another 43 family members and friends of Chelsea Clinton stayed at the residence or at Camp David. They declined to release those names.

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Word from the Hillary Clinton campaign 'Stayovers' scrutinized for years The mis-named bedroom in question Entertainment luminaries topped 1997 list

The White House did not release the dates guests stayed at the residence or Camp David, nor did it disclose which of them had given money, leaving the task of matching the list to election records up to observers. The Lazio campaign suggested that the information was deliberately incomplete, and pushed the Clinton campaign to release a list that included the exact dates of when each guest was treated to an overnight stay.

"We demand that Mrs. Clinton release the dates of the sleepovers of all of her White House and Camp David guests," said Lazio campaign manager Bill Dal Col. "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 cheap hotels."

Lockhart said it was "basic common sense" that the first couple would have friends stay with them at the executive mansion, and that some friends would also be contributors. "But any suggestion that there is any connection through that is absolutely false," he said after the list was made public.

"What do you expect you're going to do when you run for office?" an agitated Lockhart said. "You're going to go to your friends."

Lockhart also said the president and first lady held to a strict policy of only inviting house guests when they knew they would be on the premises -- either in the White House or at Camp David.

The Lazio campaign has argued that the Clintons' house guest practices represented "a basic abuse of power," and has attempted to make the guest roster a campaign issue to accompany Lazio's insistence that Clinton join him in an agreement to cease use of all unregulated "soft money" contributions.

Release of the list, Lockhart said Friday during his afternoon briefing, was made all the more troublesome by the activities of some in the press, whom he accused of willfully breaking a 2 p.m. EDT embargo.

"This list was released after a non-journalist gossip monger on the Internet started this a week ago, without any facts," he said, referring to the Drudge Report's Matt Drudge. "And I stand here today among some of you who have broken the agreement on putting it out before the agreed upon hour."

Word from the Hillary Clinton campaign

Top Hillary Clinton campaign aides did not dispute that many of those on the list had contributed either to the first lady's campaign or to Democratic committees that are supporting her candidacy. Roughly one in four names on the list donated money, the campaign said.

But campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "If the question is whether people were offered stays in exchange for contributions, the answer is no."

One high-ranking campaign aide said an internal campaign analysis indicated that roughly 100 of those who stayed overnight had made "hard money" contributions directly to the first lady's campaign.

Of those, the campaign analysis found that roughly 65 to 70 contributed the maximum hard money contribution of $2,000. By law, contributors can give $1,000 for the primary and another $1,000 for the general election.

The campaign was still attempting to match those who stayed overnight with a list of the larger, unregulated "soft money" contributions to Democratic committees that support the first lady's campaign.

But a CNN review found that many on the list had made such contributions, including former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and his wife, who gave a combined $52,000 in hard and soft money; and Slim Fast CEO S. Daniel Abraham and his wife, who also contributed a combined $52,000 in hard and soft money.

The Associated Press said guests Norman Pattiz, chairman of the Westwood One radio network, gave $300,000; while Vinod Gupta, president of InfoUSA, gave $100,000.

Other guests included longtime Democratic donors who contributed more than $150,000 to President Clinton's legal defense fund, including $30,000 from John Manning of Boston, chief executive officer of Boston Capital Corp.; $20,000 apiece from programming executive Haim Sabin and his wife, Cheryl; $5,000 from actor Chevy Chase; and $90 from Nancy Adkins, a friend from Arkansas.

Further, the guest list included veteran Democratic fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe and his family; and several New York political leaders, including former state Assembly Majority Leader Michael Bragman, Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields, former Rep. Floyd Flake and state Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli, the Nassau County Democratic leader.

The full complement of those who stayed at the White House included 51 individuals listed as Arkansas friends of the first family, another 102 individuals listed as "longtime friends" and 86 individuals listed as "friends and supporters."

Additionally, 77 "officials and dignitaries" were listed, including mayors, governors, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former President Jimmy Carter and his family. And 45 individuals from the world of "arts, letters and sports" were listed, including entertainment industry figures such as Jimmy Buffet, Chase and his wife, Danny Devito, Ted Danson, Quincy Jones, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Will Smith, Jada Smith, Steven Spielberg, Walter Cronkite and former CNN President Rick Kaplan.

'Stayovers' scrutinized for years

Criticism of the so-called White House sleepovers is not new.

The president's 1996 push for a second term brought a tangled web of probes into his and the Democratic Party's campaign fund-raising practices. The allegations of fund-raising improprieties still haunt President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, who is looking to take Clinton's place in the residential wing of the executive mansion.

The 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election effort was routinely critcized for "auctioning" nights in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder.

Attorney General Janet Reno meets with reporters during her weekly news briefing, Friday, at the Justice Department in Washington

Attorney General Janet Reno said Friday she saw nothing wrong with the practice of allowing people to stay overnight at the executive mansion.

Asked on Friday morning if overnight stays at the White House for political donors are ever a violation of federal law, Reno replied, "If I invited you to my house, and you stayed overnight, and you gave me a contribution ... we'd look at it on the facts of that case. I don't think it would be a crime."

Reno said the Clintons had a right to have friends and supporters stay overnight.

"You've just got to look at the particular facts, and if the president of the United States wants to invite somebody to stay at what is, in effect, his home, for a four-year period or an eight-year period, he ought to be able to do it," she said.

The mis-named bedroom in question

The Lincoln Bedroom, which served Abraham Lincoln as a refuge and office, rather than a bedroom, became synonymous to some critics and observers with the lowest form of campaign politicking. High-rolling donors to the Democratic Party, many said, neither earned nor did they deserve such access to a national landmark.

Republicans and independent watchdog groups decried the "sleepover" practice -- going as far back as the months leading up to the 1996 election -- saying the president's choice to allow campaign contributors to slumber on such hallowed ground soiled the institution of the presidency, and the sanctity of the White House.

The bedroom was one of a number of related fund-raising gaffes, which many Republicans denounced as intentional and willful manipulations of campaign finance laws.

Among those: Gore's attendance at an illegal fund-raiser held in a California Buddhist temple -- Gore continues to insist he didn't know it was a fund-raiser; the infiltration of improper Chinese and Indonesian campaign donations to the Democratic National Committee; and a series of social "coffees" hosted by Clinton at the White House.

Entertainment luminaries topped 1997 list

CNN, in conjunction with the Campaign Study Group, assembled a list of overnight Lincoln Bedroom guests in 1997. The list was compiled after Clinton was sworn in for his second term and the Republican-controlled Congress launched multiple probes into how the president secured the means to propel his re-election effort.

The Clinton administration released a list of campaign donors who were granted overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom

Those guests, the survey concluded, contributed a total of $5.2 million to the DNC between 1995 and 1996 -- and may have given significantly more.

Among the biggest donors were investor Dirk Ziff, who gave an estimated $411,000; movie producer Spielberg, who donated an estimated $336,000; retired businessman William Rollnick, who gave some $235,000; and Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, who contributed about $225,000.

CNN found 24 overnight White House guests who gave $100,000 or more to the DNC.

Also on the list were David Geffen, Spielberg's partner in the entertainment company Dreamworks SKG; Barbra Streisand; Olan Mills, known for his chain of photography studios; and Peter May of the DWG Corp.

Still, the Lincoln Bedroom's role may not have changed too much since it was first used by the nation's first Republican president. While he used it as an office -- his ghost is still said to walk the nearby halls -- he often met there with friends and campaign contributors who sought government patronage jobs as rewards for their political support.

Lincoln was elected in part by outspending opponent Stephen Douglas 2-to-1, waging the first-ever $100,000-campaign in U.S. history, with heavy backing from the emerging railroad industry.

CNN's John King, Judy Woodruff, Ian Christopher McCaleb, the Associated Pressand Reuters contributed to this report.