Rep. Lazio Blames Rival Clinton for Probe Into Securities Trades

NEW YORK —  Senate candidate Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.), who revealed federal regulators were investigating some of his securities trades, accused Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday of being behind the probe.

The investigation started following a report in the New York Times last week that Lazio made a 600% profit in just a few weeks in 1997 by investing in securities of a company controlled by some of his biggest campaign donors.

“The Clintons are about tearing people down, that’s their m.o., and I’m not going to be dragged down into the mud by them,” Lazio said after speaking Friday to the Assn. for a Better New York.

“I think it’s really transparent and the Clinton campaign is going to have to answer for itself,” he said.

New York Republican State Committee Chairman Bill Powers accused the Clinton administration of leaking word of the SEC probe Thursday, the same day an independent counsel had found that, despite Mrs. Clinton’s statements to the contrary, there was “substantial evidence” she had a role in the dismissal of longtime employees of the White House travel office soon after President Clinton took office in 1993.

Lazio, a four-term congressman from Long Island, said in a statement Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had asked “that we provide them with copies of certain account statements and trading records.”

He said he will provide all information and answer any questions asked of him by the SEC.

Powers, in a separate statement Thursday, attacked the probe as “a carefully orchestrated political attack” by Clinton’s campaign and her husband’s administration.

A Clinton campaign spokesman said “desperate campaigns make desperate charges.”

In Washington on Friday, SEC spokesman Chris Ullman said, “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.”

Opinion polls show Lazio quickly closed in on the first lady in their race for the New York seat being vacated by the retirement of Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Lazio only entered the race a month ago, when the previous Republican candidate, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, withdrew after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.