EXPLOSIVE TAPE

The House Whitewater panel played a tape of a conversation in whicha lawyer with the Resolution Trust Corp. seemed to suggest that a staffer alter her report on Madison Guaranty, the failed savings and loan owned by the Clintons' former business partner, for political purposes. Reason: the lawyer said doing so would please RTC head Jack Ryan and other senior officials. "There are answers they would be happier about, you know, because it would get them, you know, off the hook, you know, and that would be about Whitewater." Ratan says: "What the Republicans are trying to show is that where politicians are concerned, people are treated very differently."