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that his relationship with Hammer and his company did not look good. In 1992, before President Clinton settled on him as his running mate, Gore’s father wrote a memo for Clinton on his ties to Occidental to prepare him for possible questions about it. After the e******n, however, Gore resumed his old relationship with the company and its new chairman, Ray Irani.
Occidental, for example, loaned $100,000 to the P**********l Inaugural Committee to help pay for the ceremony and the celebrations surrounding it. And Gore used his connections to bring in money from Occidental for the Clinton/Gore re-e******n campaign. According to a memo from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, Occidental gave $50,000 in response to one of Gore’s “no controlling legal authority” telephone calls from his office in the White House. Indeed, since Gore became part of the Democratic ticket in the summer of 1992, Occidental has given more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes.
Irani might lack Hammer’s high profile the old chairman traded quips with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show but he has been as cozy as his predecessor was with occupants of the White House. Two days after he slept in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House, Irani’s company dropped $100,000 on the Democratic National Committee He was also one of 130 guests at Clinton’s second official state dinner, on Sept. 27, 1994, where then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his wife were the guests of honor. Occidental had some interest in Russian oil; in the spring of 1994, Irani had traveled with the late Commerce secretary Ronald Brown on a trade mission to Russia.
SecThe Center for Public Integrity January 10, 2000