Too much iced tea, Gore explains to FBI

WASHINGTON - In FBI interviews, Vice President Al Gore changed his answers when confronted with documents in a fund-raising investigation and suggested he may have missed a key discussion during a meeting because he drank too much iced tea, FBI documents show.

In a 10-month span in 1997 and 1998, Gore's initial denials to the FBI gave way to varying explanations- from hazy memory to the possibility he was in the bathroom when the president and political aides discussed the sensitive topic of fund-raising phone calls, FBI memos show.

One FBI summary stated that in a 1997 interview Gore said "discussions of the fund-raising calls for him and the president would not have been discussed" at a key 1995 meeting.

Gore also said "the number of telephone calls to be made by the president and vice president was never discussed with him, and he doubts that the issue was ever discussed with the president," the FBI summary added.

Gore's account of the meeting took a new turn 10 months later when handwritten notes turned up that appeared to quote the vice president as talking about fund-raising phone calls at the meeting.

In the later FBI interview, Gore said 23 times that he was unable to recall aspects of the Nov. 21, 1995, meeting and other fund-raising issues brought up by the FBI. One note from the Nov. 21 meeting states: "VP: `Is it possible to do a reallocation for me to take more of the events and the calls?' " The vice president's allocation is typed in as 10 calls. Another note states: "VP: `Count me in on the calls."'

Gore "did not specifically recall the (reallocation) quote seemingly attributed to him," said the FBI summary.

Trying to explain other parts of the meeting that he said he didn't recall, Gore told the FBI he normally sits next to the president in such meetings, and that the two sometimes consult while the meeting is going on, thereby missing the surrounding discussion.

"The vice president also observed that he drank a lot of iced tea during meetings, which could have necessitated a restroom break," the FBI summary stated. "It was not uncommon for him, and for that matter the president, to excuse themselves from meetings to use the restroom."

"This whole matter has been investigated for years now by everyone from the FBI to partisan Republican members of Congress, and absolutely no one has ever made any credible allegations of wrongdoing," Gore spokeswoman Laura Quinn said last night. "There is absolutely nothing new here.".