Justice Won't Be 'Soft' on Clinton

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WASHINGTON: The most dangerous question for Bill Clinton in the Justice Department review of his campaign fund-raising is not whether the President made illegal phone calls from the White House. TIME magazine reports that Attorney General Janet Reno's investigators are more concerned about whether those calls solicited "soft money" for party activities that made its way into "hard money" accounts financing specific campaigns.

It's going to be difficult if not impossible to prove the president was involved with how such funds were handled at Democratic National Committee Headquarters, says TIME Washington correspondent Michael Weisskopf. "No analysis of the President's phone log can prove Clinton knew the DNC staff was mingling hard and soft accounts," observes Weisskopf. But that's not daunting Justice investigators. AllPolitics reports that the inquiry is beginning with a massive computer search of White House telephone records, hoping to uncover who Clinton spoke with and whether those calls prodded any suspicious donations to the Democratic National committee.

  • For the latest on the campaign fund-raising investigation, click into TIME and CNN's AllPolitics, or get the details of what Justice is after in this week's TIME magazine story