This scene would be just another unfortunate moment in the private collapse of a once widely admired public man. But it has taken on new significance to Senate and Justice Department investigators who have moved beyond the original charges–that the Oregon senator sexually harassed female staffers–to look at possible criminal violations. Senate Ethics Committee documents question whether Packwood “may have improperly solicited financial support for his wife.” A spokesman for Packwood refused to comment on the divorce.
Packwood’s divorce proceedings, held in January 1991 but largely ignored at the time, provide some clues. The senator’s legal strategy was to reduce his alimony payments by convincing the judge that he was broke, and that his wife was perfectly capable of supporting herself–thanks to job offers from several friends of the senator. The strategy ultimately backfired: the judge socked Packwood with higher alimony payments. Now investigators would like to know what prompted those job offers: friendship or some kind of quid pro quo?
Packwood, who chaired both the Senate Finance and Senate Commerce committees in the early ’80s, tried to explain on the witness stand why, with an income of $125,000 a year, he could no longer support his family. As he described it, he lived in a two-room Washington apartment with “only small windows…It’s literally sunk in the basement.” He drove an 8-year-old Plymouth. His gross monthly pay came to about $10,000, but after deductions for tax, insurance and retirement, his take-home pay worked out to only $4,800 a month. And, he said, his monthly bills, including $1,500 in temporary alimony for Georgie, totaled $6,200.
Meanwhile, he noted, his wife had her choice of several lucrative business opportunities. One of the most serious offers, Mrs. Packwood’s lawyer told the court, was from an Oregon transportation broker named Tim Lee, who once served on Packwood’s Senate staff. In 1985, Lee complained to a Senate subcommittee hearing chaired by Packwood about government regulation. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call unearthed hearing testimony last week in which Packwood bragged about how “we” had helped Lee break a “logjam” caused by a federal regulatory agency, allowing Lee’s company to grow dramatically.
Four years later, after learning that the Packwoods were “having problems,” Lee offered to help Mrs. Packwood expand an antiques business she had run over the years from home. According to divorce-court testimony, Lee would invest up to $100,000 in her business and pay her a salary of up to $25,000 yearly. Both Lee and Packwood testified that the offer was Lee’s idea, not Packwood’s. Packwood’s spokesman said the help Packwood gave Lee in handling federal regulators was routine constituent service and denied that Packwood had talked to Lee about returning the favor. Lee told NEWSWEEK: “I’ve got no comment. I’ve tried really hard to help the senator, and no matter how hard I try it comes out wrong.”
Investigators are also interested in another former Packwood aide turned lobbyist who was a sometime client of Mrs. Packwood’s antiques business. After the Packwoods separated, the former aide, Steve Saunders, talked to Georgie about the possibility of paying her an hourly fee to take his Japanese clients’ wives on antiques-buying sprees in the Washington area. Mrs. Packwood testified that nothing came of the offer. But the Portland Oregonian and CNN reported last month that only a few weeks before Packwood left his family, the senator arranged for questions to be asked at a Senate hearing that were apparently helpful to Mitsubishi Electric, a Saunders client. Saunders could not be reached for comment, and Packwood’s spokesman refused to confirm even that the senator had put in the questions.
Packwood, who was ordered to increase Georgie’s support payments from $1,500 to $2,500 a month, faces the prospect of huge legal fees if he becomes the subject of a criminal inquiry But thanks to his role as ranking Republican on the Finance committee, and his aggressive political fund raising, corporations are still contributing. Packwood may have lost his family, but a survey by Knight-Ridder newspapers showed he can still depend on executives from Salomon Brothers, Amoco and Dole Food to donate to his defense fund.
