Hill Gets Heat On Pakistan

Hillary Rodham Clinton has fended off campaign finance questions about Pakistan and her bid for U.S. Senate from New York.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton said a recent fund-raiser for her campaign had nothing to do with her husband's decision to visit Pakistan during his South Asia tour, which begins on Saturday.

"I don't talk about what I talked to the president about on any issue," said Democrat Clinton, when asked if she had spoken with the president about visiting Pakistan after her fund-raiser.

Last month, the First Lady's campaign raked in $50,000 from Pakistani-Americans at a Staten Island fund-raiser, where she said she hoped her husband would someday visit Pakistan. At the same time, the Clinton administration was weighing whether to that country to the trip to neighboring India. The White House last week announced plans for a brief Pakistan stop.

News about the fund-raiser was first reported by The Staten Island Advance, then picked by newspapers in India and by The New York Times.

Both Mrs. Clinton and her campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson stressed on Tuesday that the president has been saying for more than a year he'd like to visit Pakistan. And Wolfson pointed out that the First Lady has also taken donations from Indian-American contributors largely opposed to such a visit.

"If anybody thinks they can influence the president by making a contribution to me, they are dead wrong, and I think there is no evidence of that," said the First Lady, who was campaigning in Albany, N.Y.

Mrs. Clinton said if any of her contributors are giving money to her campaign with the hope of influencing administration policy, then "that is inappropriate and wrong."

She added "it would be very difficult to run for office in New York," if a Senate candidate refused to take campaign donations from any New Yorkers who belonged to an ethnic group with foreign policy concerns.

CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer reports the White House denied on Tuesday any connection between the fund-raiser and the Pakistan stop.

Also at the February fund-raiser was Lanny Davis, a special counsel to the president during the 1996 White House fund-raising scandals.

Now a lobbyist for the Pakistani government, Davis has urged the president to visit Pakistan - and said on Tuesday there was nothing unseemly about the First Lady's fund-raiser.

"Is there anything wrong with people concerned about issues to raise those issues with a candidate? That's about as shocking as finding gambling at Rick's casino," a reference to the movie Casablanca.

Mrs. Clinton's GOP Senate rival, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, had little to say about any of it.

"Whatever happened with Pakistan - or didn't happen - I don't know. Somebody else can figure that out," the mayor said at City Hall on Tuesday.

But a campaign finance reform group expressed concern.

Common Cause President cott Harshbarger said although the fund-raiser was not illegal, it still feeds the perception that political access can be bought.

"What we find troubling is that a group of Americans are being told that the price of admission is $50,000 to have access to a future U.S. Senator."

The fund-raiser questions took Mrs. Clinton off her campaign message Tuesday - blasting Giuliani and Republicans on Capitol Hill for neglecting public libraries.

"There are too many leaders on the Republican side, from Capitol Hill to Gracie Mansion (the Big Apple mayor's official residence) who year after year, come budget time, reject their responsibilities to our public libraries," she told the New York Library Association.

"This year, once again, the mayor of New York has proposed cutting the library budget by a whopping 19 percent," she added. "Imagine if someone in the Senate from New York...stood for a 19 percent cut to our libraries."

And to the New York State School Boards Association, Mrs. Clinton ridiculed school vouchers as "gimmicks", attacking Giuliani for supporting vouchers for parents who want to take their kids our of public schools.

No immediate comment on Mrs. Clinton's speeches was available from the Giuliani campaign.