Clinton aides challenge claim by ex-FBI chief

WASHINGTON — Under strong pressure from former President Clinton's advisers, CBS' "60 Minutes" has agreed to read a statement denying a charge being made on tonight's program by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

In the statement, Sandy Berger, Clinton's national-security adviser, challenges Freeh's assertion, also made in his new book, that Clinton failed to press Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to cooperate with an investigation of the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in that country, 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. Freeh discusses the claim in tonight's interview with Mike Wallace.

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."

The fuss comes amid sniping between the Clinton camp and Freeh, who chastises the former president over terrorism and numerous scandals in the book, "My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror," due out this week.

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said he told Wallace that he had supportive accounts from five other former officials 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."

In the book, Freeh, whose strained relations with Clinton were no secret, says he was so determined to distance himself from Clinton that he sent back a White House pass so all his visits would be deemed official. That, he said, antagonized Clinton. He is also scathing toward Clinton's handling of the Khobar Towers bombing, claiming Clinton refused to ask Abdullah to let the FBI question bombing suspects being held by the kingdom.

Carson called the book "a total work of fiction by a man who's desperate to clear his name and sell books."

Daniel Benjamin, a former Clinton counterterrorism official, said Freeh is "factually wrong" and the former president "pushed the crown prince quite hard," and won Saudi cooperation that led to indictments in the case.

Clinton aides are furious with "60 Minutes."

"The fair journalistic question is why they didn't call and get comments for their story from people who were in the room," said Lanny 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.