WHITEWATERGATE?

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The Senate established a special Watergate-style committee totake a harder look at Whitewater mattersinvolving President andMrs. Clinton. A bipartisan resolution, which passed 96-3, places the panel under supervision of the Senate Banking Committee and sets a Feb. 1 target for completion. "We must ascertain whether purely private interests have been placed above the public trust," said banking chairman Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), who has led a drive for new Whitewater hearings since the GOP gained a congressional majority. On his list of questions: whether White House andTreasury Department officialsimproperly interfered with regulators investigating the failure of an Arkansas savings and loan that had ties to the Clintons, whether records were moved afterthe suicide of former Clinton aide Vincent Foster, and whether there were improprieties involving the finances of Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), a veteran of Congress' Iran-contra committee, will chair the special panel.