Who Said What, And to Whom?

For a populace that has nearly ODed on O.J., the hearings that begin this week may well prove disappointing. Yes, there will be witnesses -- some from the White House -- answering questions under oath. But instead of bloody gloves and thumps in the night, their testimony will focus on when and what Treasury Department higher-ups learned about contacts between their underlings and White House aides concerning a Resolution Trust Corporation recommendation that the Justice Department consider . . . Are you still there?

Just possibly, though, the doings will be a bit livelier than expected when the House Banking Committee begins hearings Tuesday into Washington aspects of the Whitewater affair (the Senate Banking Committee will open separate hearings a few days later). Several high Administration officials will probably face sharp questioning as to whether they have been telling the truth. And there could be some entertaining partisan wrangling in the House Committee between Republicans trying to pose argumentative questions and Democratic chairman Henry Gonzalez trying to gavel such queries into silence.

In fact, it was only the possibility of scoring partisan points that tempted Republicans into agreeing to hold hearings now. At a meeting of G.O.P. congressional powers back in March, Iowa Representative Jim Leach, who by then had emerged as his party's leading Whitewater prober, protested that the timing looked all wrong. The hearings, he noted, could delve only into matters that special counsel Robert Fiske had finished investigating. By midsummer that would include only developments in Washington -- not any financial and real estate dealings in Arkansas by Governor Bill Clinton and his wife. Moreover, says someone familiar with the March meeting, Leach warned that "the chance was very real that Fiske was going to say no laws were broken ((a forecast that has proved precisely accurate)) and that we would hold a hearing that would be a big nothing." New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato, however, argued that Republicans should grab any opportunity to embarrass the Administration. He won.

Fiske has asked that the probers not look into the removal of papers from the office of White House counsel Vincent Foster after his suicide in July 1993 because the special counsel is still investigating that. Gonzalez has ruled out any questions in his House panel about any aspects of Foster's death. Leach once asserted that a midsummer probe could look into only 5% of all the questions concerning Whitewater; last week he reduced that estimate to 2% or 3%.

Even so, some top officials could be made to squirm, beginning with Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen. Jean Hanson, general counsel of the Treasury, has reportedly told investigators that she briefed Bentsen about 1993 meetings between lower Treasury officials and White House aides concerning a Whitewater-related investigation before press reports of the meetings surfaced. In March, Bentsen said he knew nothing about any such contacts before they came to light. Bentsen is expected to testify that he does not recollect any such briefing.