Above The Fray

The White House wasn't involved in the passport scandal . . . technically

CHIEF OF STAFF James Baker may not have "orchestrated" the fishing trip made by State Department officials through Bill Clinton's confidential passport records four weeks before the election. But he knew about it, as did his political aide Janet Mullins, says a report by Sherman Funk, the department's inspector general. And neither did anything to stop it.

The dirty tricks began in September, when Bush partisans, including White House aides, began circulating unsubstantiated rumors that Clinton had contemplated renouncing his citizenship to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Funk found no "conspiracy" to damage Clinton. But he said Steven Berry,...

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