The White House Plays Ruff

...Most notably, the White House and its defenders have cited Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr's work for tobacco clients as possible grounds for his removal...

...Holder bought the story and in August 1995 declined to bring charges against Magaziner...

...I can tell you so that everybody will understand," he told TAS, "that I have never discussed and don't intend to discuss privately any aspect of the investigation with Senator Glenn...

...Magaziner called Charles Ruff...

...Eight months later, he closed the office and issued the final Watergate report...

...His best-known case was that of industrialist Armand Hammer, who was charged with illegally contributing $54,000 to Nixon (Hammer pleaded guilty...

...The FEC has said it disapproves, but so far Glenn has made no indication that he actually intends to pay off his campaign debts, as Ruff had requested before the commission...

...Faced with a possibly career-ending scandal, Glenn turned to Ruff...

...After all, Ruff argued, Glenn had tried to pay off the debt, but could not find enough donors willing to contribute today to a campaign that had failed in 1984...

...But Keating gave another $2oo,000 to Glenn's political action committee—which at the time did not have to be reported publicly...

...A landmark in the history of tobacco litigation, the case was named for Rose Cipollone, a New Jersey woman who died from lung cancer in 1981 after a lifetime of smoking...

...But in fact he had been part of the investigation nearly from the start...

...Yet even as he tied up the loose ends of Watergate, he also took on new investigations...

...Some indict me for press accounts even included the joke going around that Clinton needed someone who was smart enough to do the job and dumb enough to take it...

...Actually, there were a lot of questions about Magaziner's truthfulness, but Ruff argued that his client's apparent lie was actually just a mix-up attributable to incompetence at the White House counsel's office...

...and (2) it would be much tougher to prove a criminal charge of perjury...

...As one commissioner wrote, "The candidate, in order to be eligible for taxpayer funds, must agree to abide by certain contribution and expenditure limits, including a limit on the use of the candidate's person1 That prosecutor was none other than Bob Bennett, the Washington lawyer who is now defending Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case...

...But that changed when Robb hired Charles Ruff, who immediately went to work on his Justice Department connections...

...But the appointment of Ruff is surprising, since the administration has declared war on tobacco and has repeatedly used tobacco connections in attempts to discredit its opponents...

...Republican Fred Thompson's investigation has already been widened so much that its impact may be diluted, and Ruff's connections could prove to be his ace in the hole...

...The message said, in effect, that the grand jurors need not believe Wiechering's case against Robb...

...Meanwhile, the debt grew as interest accumulated through the 1980's and 1990's...

...Now, however, that lawyer is in the news...

...The Tobacco Institute is a trade group created by giant cigarette makers like Liggett, Philip Morris, and R.J...

...Ruff and his new client knew that (1) Lamberth clearly believed Magaziner was a liar and might well find him guilty...

...At their request, Lamberth referred the matter to the U.S...

...After Robb made an unimpressive appearance before the grand jury—and facts came to light that cast doubt on his testimony—Ruff convinced the Justice Department to allow the senator to make an unusual second appearance to amend his statements...

...You could have taken Glenn's conduct and described it in a way to make it look a lot worse," says a lawyer involved in the case...

...Glenn had a few things going in his favor...

...As it happens, Ruff holds a major IOU from Ohio Senator John Glenn, who is the ranking Democrat on the committee that will investigate the Clinton fundraising scandal...

...There he contracted a mysterious, polio-like disease that left him confined to a wheelchair...

...In some cases, Ruff has so deftly manipulated the legal system that he has saved public officials who looked like certain candidates for indictment...

...His name was mentioned for attorney general, but it turns out the president did not seriously consider any males for the position...

...In the last few months it has appeared to some Republicans that Glenn is paying his old lawyer back by working tirelessly to blunt the impact of the Senate investigation into Clinton campaign fundraising...

...And, because it happened in late 1992 and early 1993, Ruff's handling of the Robb case caught the eye of the incoming Democratic administration...

...Shortly before her death, she sued the makers of the cigarettes she had smoked, and her family continued the suit after she was gone...

...The argument came almost verbatim from Ruff...

...A few years later Glenn found himself with another problem...

...And when reports surfaced that Democratic National Committee officials were privy to top-secret CIA information on campaign contributors, Clinton again turned to Ruff (the results of Ruff's investigations have not been made public...

...The lawyer displayed an imposing command of the English language...

...Their suspicions were heightened when a Robb supporter in southern Virginia used a police scanner to tape a car-phone conversation of Wilder laughing at Robb's troubles...

...Then-counsel Bernard Nussbaum "went on and on about the wonderfulness of Charles Ruff," Mundy adds...

...How would he respond...

...That's very cozy to have the ranking minority have that kind of relationship with the president's counsel," says one GOP source on Capitol Hill...

...When it still looked as if Robb would be indicted, Ruff persuaded the department to send an emissary from Washington bearing a special message for the grand jury...

...Ruff's job was to minimize the damage to Glenn in the committee's hearings and final report...

...That certainly doesn't apply to Ruff...

...He advised Glenn to express regret for bad judgment and not get in the way of the accusations against the other guys...

...I'm not going to talk about what I did or didn't do on behalf of a client," he said in an interview with TAS, adding that he has recused himself from all tobacco-related matters...

...In late 1989, Glenn faced a scandal of his own, when he and four other senators were accused of doing favors for savings and loan crook Charles Keating in return for large campaign contributions...

...In the end, Robb got off...

...Robb denied knowing anything about it...

...He still carried more than $3 million in debt from his 1984 presidential campaign—during which, like all other major candidates, he accepted federal matching funds...

...The American Spectator • June 1997 lengthy argument, "You've tried the front door, you've tried the back door, you've tried the side door, and now you're trying the trap door, and it isn't gonna work...

...Most of his debt is owed to four banks, and now the senator —whose personal fortune is estimated at more than Si° million—is offering to pay back just ten cents on every dollar his campaign owes...

...Although disappointed, Ruff apparently did not hold a grudge, because a short time later he came to the rescue of the Clinton White House...

...We were also attempting to prove that the Tobacco Institute...

...In the past, Ruff represented clients who let him plot strategy and run the show...

...The standoff ended a period in which both sides had at least paid lip service to the idea of cooperating with one another, and it could signal a long period in which Ruff takes the lead in stonewalling the House investigation...

...Rescuing Bill Clinton's presidency at its time of greatest peril would be the culmination of an extraordinary career...

...The Man Who Pulls the Strings After Watergate, Ruff moved to the Carter Justice Depa ent, serving in several high-ranking positions before becoming U.S...

...The FEC had never before granted such an exemption...

...We were trying to establish that the tobacco industry knew about the health hazards of smoking well before the Surgeon General's report in 1964," says Marc Edell, a Cipollone lawyer who traveled to Washington for the depositions at Covington & Burling...

...It also came to light that he had had a relationship with a young, blonde beauty queen named Tai Collins— a dalliance that proved particularly embarrassing when Robb confessed to having received a nude massage from 30 June 1997 • The American Spectator Collins in a New York City hotel room (Robb insisted the two did not have sex...

...Lamberth offered Magaziner a choice...

...With evidence accumulating that he may have known about and participated 29 days of the 1976 presidential campaign, Ruff looked `Gee I into allegations that Gerald Ford had diverted 9 remember d back then, 't be able to perjury...

...At the same time, Robb was in the midst of a bitter rivalry with then–Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder...

...In the past, however, Ruff was more talkative...

...Magaziner has been ioo percent truthful throughout these proceedings," Ruff told the Associated Press in January 1995...

...We later learned that Starr was referring to the White House's refusal to release counsel's notes of conversations with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton...

...There had been numerous attempts to raise funds to pay off the debt and there was no longer a problem of impacting an election...

...Ruff's] tone was always the right balance between outrage that [Glenn] was in there in the first place and quiet acceptance of responsibility...

...After Starr won a court ruling ordering the White House to give up the documents, Ruff announced the White House will appeal the case to the Supreme Court...

...he could construct carefully worded, nuanced arguments at one moment and slip into folksy lawyerese the next...

...He was the number-two man on the Campaign Contributions Task Force, which prosecuted Richard Nixon's top fundraisers and extracted guilty pleas from several corporations that had made illegal contributions to the president's 1972 re-election campaign...

...Still, it was an extraordinary decision —and a giant relief for Glenn.2 The result of both the FEC and the Keating cases is that John Glenn is deeply indebted to Charles Ruff...

...People who can nod and wink and get things done...

...For one thing, he had to give up a large income from Covington & Burling (Ruff received $711,000 in termination payments from Covington, and financial disclosure records indicate he has investments worth between $2.1 million and $4.8 million...

...Ruff also knew that if Magaziner chose a criminal investigation, Lamberth would have to turn the case over to Clinton appointee Eric Holder, the U.S...

...In the event that Starr moves against the president, one administration source told the Wall Street Journal, the White House will go all-out to brand him a "nicotine-stained tobacco lawyer...

...Ruff also says there is nothing to worry about...

...But in a development that still has some observers shaking their heads, Ruff convinced the FEC to give Glenn a one-time-only release from the rules, allowing him to use his own money to get rid of the debt...

...Then again, he might not...

...Then Ruff became a candidate for the number-two job in the Justice Department, but his chances were sunk by a minor "nanny problem" of the type that also afflicted several other Clinton nominations...

...I just intend to rely on that failure of memory...

...He declined to answer further questions on the subject...

...To some Republicans, it appears the campaign probe could become another case in which Charles Ruff has the connections to steer an investigation in the direction he wants...

...He argued that [the dangers of smoking] had never been proven," Edell recalls, "and that the industry never withheld any information, never misled the public...

...In late April, when Starr requested a six-month extension of the Whitewater grand jury, he cited several instances of improper withholding of information, among them "assertions of privilege, which in some instances, the Independent Counsel believes are unfounded and invalid, and which have been or will be the subject of additional grand jury litigation...

...Do you forget the $234,000...

...In the end, Ruff stayed at Covington & Burling...

...Of course there is nothing improper about an attorney representing the tobacco industry...

...he asked the Washington Post in 1989...

...No, you don't...

...Robb's staff believed Wilder was spreading the scandalous stories...

...It was an insider's strategy, and Ruff displayed his mastery of the game in the case of Virginia Democratic Senator Charles Robb, a politician facing a scandal that seemed sure to wreck his career...

...The affidavit was so sloppy that Magaziner could not have known precisely what it meant, even though he offered it under his own name...

...Keating and various members of his family donated $34,000 to Glenn, which was reported publicly on federal disclosure forms...

...He could get whoever he wanted on the phone...

...Now, Ruff will only be able to make the case that his new client, the president, allows him to make...

...attorney for the District of Columbia...

...District Judge Royce Lam-berth did not buy Magaziner's story...

...Should that happen, Ruff continued, investigators might question the actions of the original Watergate prosecutors— including Ruff...

...After donating the maximum to himself, Glenn's campaign foundered, and he ended up unable to raise enough in contributions to pay the debt—and barred by law from paying it out of his own pocket...

...misled everyone regarding the nature and extent of the hazards of smoking...

...His contention was scarcely credible, since the working groups included more than 30o people, many from universities and public-interest groups that had no formal ties at all to the federal government...

...His name is Charles Ruff, and he is the Clinton administration's new White House counsel...

...the law...

...As for the House, at the time this article went to press, Ruff had risked a contempt of Congress citation for refusing to comply with parts of House Government Reform and Oversight committee chairman Dan Burton's subpoena for documents in the campaign fundraising scandal...

...But given Glenn's indebtedness, it remains an open question whether Ruff would even need to ask for special consideration...

...Ruff was trying to hit on everyone at the Justice Department," says Mundy, "saying this prosecutor was out of control...

...In return, Keating was seeking to short-circuit proposed government regulations that would have curtailed some of his S&L's more spectacular—and risky— investments...

...Also, the job seemed a nearly impossible task...

...Ruff had almost unlimited access to the Justice Department during that time—at the highest levels," says Alicia Mundy, a Washington journalist who wrote extensively on the case...

...When Magaziner and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton organized their health care task force and its working groups, they issued a strict edict: Everything having to do with the project had to be kept strictly secret...

...The doctors cited the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires bodies like the health care group—which are made up of both government employees and private citizens—to meet in public...

...But aside from the hypocrisy of bashing Starr while hiring Ruff, Clinton's actions are easy to understand...

...in his eighteen months on the job, Ruff earned high marks for bringing to the office at least some level of organization...

...But the effort had barely gotten started when a doctor's organization, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, sued, contending that the names of working-group members and the records of their meetings should be made public...

...John Glenn's Debt While Ruff no doubt won eternal thanks from Ira Magaziner and Charles Robb, it is the gratitude of another celebrated client that may prove far more valuable to Ruff in the coming months...

...Keating sat in his office and wrote him a check for $ioo,000 on the spot...

...In 1967 he came to Washington as an attorney in the criminal division of the Justice Department...

...Ruff took over the office in 1975, when all that remained were a few clean-up prosecutions...

...Reynolds...

...Ruff is often remembered as the last Watergate special prosecutor, the man who turned off the lights, packed up the papers, and closed the office in June 1977...

...When it became clear that lead prosecutor Robert Wiechering had gathered damaging evidence against Robb, Ruff responded by launching an effort to discredit Wiechering...

...attorney 's office...

...In so doing he agreed to abide by the law stipulating that matching-funds recipients are allowed to contribute no more than $5o,000 of their own money to their own campaigns...

...That would effectively turn campaign loans into campaign gifts...

...he joined in July 1973, just two months after original special prosecutor Archibald Cox set up shop...

...He didn't get much press for that, but it was very important work...

...The Justice Department started an investigation...

...if found guilty, he would likely be fined for his actions...

...Ruff argued that the affidavit used phrases like "federal government employees" interchangeably with other phrases like "special government employees" and "participants...

...It was the counsel's office that had drafted Magaziner's affidavit in which he had said, "Only federal government employees serve as members of the working group...

...And it did not...

...just don't Charles Ruff is all of that...

...According to Mundy, Ruff used his access to stay in almost daily contact with Terwilliger...

...Then, when the White House wanted information from the Justice Department on the Chinese investigation, Ruff was drafted to make the call...

...Simply put, the president is in trouble, facing investigations by Starr, the Senate, the House, and the Justice Department...

...It's all just real friendly...

...He was what I call a down-in-the-dirt prosecutor in the sense that he was grinding out investigations and cases that were important in the campaign contributions area," says Henry Ruth, who served as special prosecutor after Leon Jaworski left and before Ruff took over...

...In fact, he appears to have taken the job because it will be so difficult...

...Edell," he told his opponent during a BYRON YORK is an investigative writer with TAS...

...Things got worse when Collins cashed in on her newfound notoriety with a photo spread in Playboy...

...Beyond his role as in-house investigator, Ruff's biggest challenge will be dealing with the outside agencies— Starr, the House, and the Senate—that are probing various Clinton scandals...

...Before the Senate Ethics Committee's final hearings, news leaked out that the special prosecutor hired by the committee had concluded that Glenn and McCain were less guilty than the others.1 On the other hand, Glenn was clearly involved with Keating...

...And on that August day, a high-powered Covington lawyer made it clear to Edell that he didn't think much of the Cipollone family's argument...

...In the final political contributions for his personal use while in Congress...

...Already, there are indications that the battle with Starr is intense...

...In an affidavit for the lawsuit, Magaziner said under oath that the health care working-groups were composed entirely of federal employees and thus could legally be kept from public scrutiny...

...It was a pretty bold move," says Mundy, "sending [a Justice Department official] down there to stand in front of the grand jury and say, 'just because this prosecutor says Robb should be indicted doesn't mean you have to indict him...

...It was fun while it was happening," he says of his Watergate days, "and I hope it helped me develop as a lawyer...

...In 1977, as he was closing the office, Ruff spoke at length to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward...

...He joined Covington & Burling in 1982...

...Now it turns out the president has hired his own nicotine-stained tobacco lawyer...

...I represent my clients by handling the political as well as the legal ramifications of their case," he once told an interviewer...

...And so far, the president seems determined to withhold critical information from both the independent counsel and Congress...

...Ruff and Magaziner decided to take their chances with Hold31 er...

...There's no question Mr...

...But after the paper printed excerpts from the tape, Robb's office found itself under intense criticism for distributing an illegally recorded tape...

...The Clinton people loved him for that," Mundy says of Ruff's The American Spectator • June 1997 handiwork...

...But that doesn't have one thing to do with whether I would compromise a vote or access to my office or my personal principles...

...2 Despite his victory, Glenn is still trying to skirt the rules...

...a look at his background shows that he is not only an exceptional lawyer but something of a miracle worker as well...

...The session led to allegations that the five had improperly intervened on behalf of their rich and crooked benefactor...

...I think it was because of a desire to help this candidate out," says Sharon Snyder, an FEC spokeswoman...

...It was an example of a case where it would have been possible to over-try it," the lawyer continues...

...For decades Covington & Burling has been the Institute's main representative in Washington...

...In addition to Glenn, it turns out that Michael Madigan, Thompson's chief counsel for the campaign finance investigation, is a friend of Ruff's...

...The gratitude of another celebrated client—John Glenn —may prove far more valuable to Ruff in the coming months...

...Before it was over, five people —three of them top Robb staffers—pleaded guilty to criminal charges...

...in illegal acts, Clinton needs a first-rate lawyer with first-rate connections in Washington—and a his- / Watergate Ruff, 57 years old, has long been a part of Washington's Democratic establishment...

...A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University Law School, he traveled to Africa in the early 1960's to teach law at the University of Liberia...

...In the end, the committee accepted Ruff's contention that Glenn had exercised bad judgment but had not done anything wrong (the committee reached a similar conclusion in McCain's case...

...Appearing outraged, the judge publicly accused Magaziner of lying and said he might be guilty of perjury, criminal contempt of court, or making a false statement...

...First the president asked Ruff to investigate when an open feud developed over who did what when the FBI notified the National Security Council of allegations that the Chinese government had attempted to influence American elections...

...attorney for the District of Columbia...

...In the late 1980's, rumors circulated around Washington that Robb had attended parties at which there had been extensive cocaine use...

...33...

...He could face a civil hearing—before Lamberth himself—on the issue of whether he had lied intentionally...

...Like the others, Glenn denied Keating's big contributions had anything to do with his special attention to Keating's case...

...The American Spectator • June 1997 Then, in January of this year, Clinton tapped Ruff to be White House counsel...

...From there he moved back to academics, joining the faculty of Georgetown University in 1973...

...This time he worked his legal magic for health care czar Ira Magaziner, who found himself caught in a jam that could have sent him to jail...

...For them, if Ruff said the moon is made of blue cheese, the only question was, 'what brand...

...Almost immediately, he became entangled in the fundraising scandal...

...The other members of the so-called "Keating Five" were Democrats Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle, and Republican John McCain...

...government, the office was in disarray after years of chronic mismanagement...

...In mid-October, less than three weeks before the election, Ruff announced that he had found no evidence to support the charges...

...It turned out an old friend, George Terwilliger, was overseeing the Robb case...

...Or he could take his chances on facing possible criminal charges...

...Especially when defending a political official accused of wrongdoing, Ruff had the connections to intervene in investigations and head them off before they reached the indictment stage...

...Furthermore, bending the rules for Glenn would not influence the election, which had been lost years before...

...As Woodward listened, Ruff outlined a strategy that would prove enormously useful to the Clinton White House two decades later: "I'd say, 'Gee, I just don't remember what happened back then,' and they won't be able to indict me for perjury and that, maybe that's the principal thing that I've learned in four years...

...candidates who accept federal money are expected to raise the money to pay their debts...

...It was nothing short of a miracle —and a bipartisan one at that, since Ruff had done it with a Republican Justice Department...

...Ruff says he made the move "because it offered an opportunity to work in areas that I cared a lot about, including juvenile delinquency and abuse...

...Today Ruff is reluctant to discuss whether the lessons he learned while on the Campaign Contributions Task Force in some way prepared him to work in a White House besieged with allegations of illegal campaign fundraising...

...But his appoint- what happene ment did not attract much attention, in part because he is simply the latest in a and they won tory of getting Democrats out of trouble with long line of White House counsels...

...In April 1987, Glenn joined the other senators in a meeting with the federal regulator who was overseeing Keating's companies...

...Ruff's strategy was to prevail on high-ranking officials in the Justice Department to undermine the actions of the lower-ranking Justice Department prosecutors who were building the case against Robb...

...With friends on the committee, Ruff might be able to work his contacts for Bill Clinton the way he has done for previous clients...

...And he appears to have had some success...

...They had come to take depositions in the case of Cipollone v. Liggett...

...32 June 1997 • The American Spectator al funds...

...like so many others in the D.C...

...The supporter gave the tape to Robb's office, which, hoping it would damage Wilder, passed it on to the Washington Post in 1991...

...The Cipollone suit was widely reported in the press, but the high-powered Washington lawyer's involvement was seldom, if ever, mentioned...

...In the mid-eighties he worked for tobacco industry clients and also developed a reputation as a top whitecollar-crime lawyer...

...The brightest spot for Ruff—and the White House—is the Senate...

...A spokesman for Glenn denies any conflict...

...Glenn again hired Ruff, who approached the Federal Election Commission (FEC) with a simple request: would they please make an exception to the $50,000 rule for Glenn...

...Saving Ira Many observers thought Ruff was a shoo-in for a top job in the Clinton administration...

...It's not something Ruff is particularly eager to discuss...

...Although the case took many years to decide, Edell eventually lost...

...He alleged that Wiechering was a right-wing partisan out to get Robb...

...For a while it seemed certain that Robb himself would be indicted in the affair...

...Later that year he got the job that helped make his reputation—a high-ranking position on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force...

...Thus, Magaziner could not have been lying...

...It the end, Ruff's legal savvy and connections may not be enough to save Bill Clinton from himself...

...Madigan] always says, 'Yeah, I know Chuck well, we've practiced together,"' says a Capitol Hill source...

...Among the many topics discussed was Ruff's fear that Congress would re-open the Watergate inquiry at some point in the future...

...And Eric Holder just happened to be a former Justice Department colleague of Ruff (the two are cosponsors of a private anti-violence program in Washington...

...The White House BY BYRON YORK plays Ruff n August 16, 1984, several attorneys gathered in a conference room at Covington & Burling, a blue-chip law firm with offices just blocks from the White House...

...Holder has since been tapped as President Clinton's choice for the number-two post at the Justice Department...

...We're confident that an investigation would totally vindicate him...

...The Man for the Job After missing out on a chance to work for Bill Clinton's first administration, Ruff surprised many observers when he left Covington & Burling in 1995 to work for District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry as the city's corporation counsel...

...Glenn has objected to the cost, the scope, and the subject matter of the investigation...