THE WHITE HOUSE

                      Office of the Press Secretary
                      (Hilton Head, South Carolina)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                  December 30, 1997

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Hillary and I want to thank the thousands of people who contributed so generously to the Presidential Legal Expense Trust. We also want to thank Michael Cardozo, the Executive Director of the Trust, the co-chairs -- Father Theodore Hesburgh and Nicholas Katzenbach -- and the other trustees, John Brademas, Ronald Olson, Eliot Richardson, Michael Sovern, John Whitehead and Barbara Jordan, who served until her death in 1996. Hillary and I are immensely grateful for their assistance.

In light of the trustees' decision to dissolve the Trust, we have asked the Counsel's Office to advise us concerning the ethical and legal requirements that would govern any future efforts to address both the substantial legal fees already accumulated and those that will be generated by the need for on-going representation.

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