Russ Feingold: “When a big corporate political donor is invited to press his company's case at the White House before the President, he…”

“When a big corporate political donor is invited to press his company's case at the White House before the President, he is probably going to expect results. But the attempt by Federal Express to buy influence with the Clinton Administration over an economic dispute with Japan, which was disclosed last week, has not helped anyone. Instead of advancing his company's interests, Frederick Smith, the Federal Express chairman, has probably set them back. Thanks to the now well-documented tendency in this White House to mix policy-making with insatiable political fund-raising, a sensible objective for the United States has been tainted and the 1996 Democratic fund-raising effort has been revealed once again as structurally corrupt. President Clinton says he is proud of the fund-raising he and his party carried out in recent years, and that there were no direct quid pro quos for donors. But the episode involving Federal Express, first reported in the Washington Post, provides a case study in why the system he embraces not only has polluted American politics but has actually damaged American interests abroad.”