The L.A. Times report did have some new details. LaBella accused senior Justice Department officials of using a double standard that protected high White House officials. There is some new evidence, testimony that Gore was “attentively listen[ing]” to a fund-raising discussion that he later could not recall. But the speculation in Washington was over the source of the leak. Administration officials saw a GOP plot to smear Gore. They noted that the Republican chief counsel to the 1998 impeachment, David Schippers, had seen the full DOJ report. To NEWSWEEK, Schippers denied that he was the leaker. Republicans suspected score-settling among rival staffers at the Justice Department. The only certainty is that the voters will hear more about Gore’s fund-raising role in 1996 as the 2000 presidential campaign heats up.
