[Mb-civic] '60 Minutes' to Include Clinton Camp's Denial of Freeh's Accusations - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

'60 Minutes' to Include Clinton Camp's Denial of Freeh's Accusations

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 9, 2005; Page A09

Under strong pressure from former president Bill Clinton's advisers, 
CBS's "60 Minutes" has agreed to read a statement denying an explosive 
charge being made on tonight's program by former FBI director Louis J. 
Freeh.

In the statement, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, Clinton's national security 
adviser, challenges Freeh's assertion that Clinton failed to press 
then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to cooperate with an investigation of 
the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and used the occasion 
to ask for a contribution to his presidential library. The Saudis made 
such a donation last year -- six years after the 1998 meeting.

Berger, who was at the meeting, said: "The president strongly raised the 
need for Saudi officials to cooperate with us on the investigation into 
the attack on Khobar Towers at the time when the FBI was attempting to 
gain access to the suspects. The president did not raise in any fashion 
the issue of his library."

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said he told CBS's Mike Wallace that he had 
supportive accounts from five other former officials who were at the 
meeting, including those briefed about a private conversation between 
Clinton and Abdullah. Freeh was not there, and Carson said Wallace told 
him he had not spoken to the source upon whom Freeh relied for his account.

Said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco: "We will continue to report on this 
segment until it is broadcast on Sunday night, at which time our 
audience will find it to be both fair to the former president and 
factually accurate."

The behind-the-scenes accusations come amid sniping between the Clinton 
camp and Freeh, who chastises the former president over terrorism and 
numerous scandals in a book, "My FBI," due out next week. Although 
Clinton gave Dan Rather and "60 Minutes" the first interview about his 
autobiography last year, his aides are furious with the program, with 
some saying CBS has learned little from its botched report about 
President Bush's National Guard record.

"The fair journalistic question is why they didn't call and get comments 
for their story from people who were in the room, such as Sandy Berger, 
and why they took until Friday afternoon to get that done," said Lanny 
J. Davis, a former White House lawyer, who tried to persuade "60 
Minutes" producer Jeff Fager to allow him or another Clinton spokesman 
to appear on tonight's segment.

Carson, who called the Freeh book "a total work of fiction," said 
Clinton aides were not aware that CBS would report Freeh's charge about 
the Abdullah meeting until a Washington Post article Friday.

"From the very beginning, '60 Minutes' was clear that the only response 
they would take to this story was from President Clinton. . . . They 
could not have been more vague about the actual allegations," Carson said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100801128.html?nav=hcmodule
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