By Amanda Costikyan Jones
WASHINGTON – The tiny town of Oxford ranked second only to Bethesda in the amount residents sent to the Clinton Legal Expense Trust last year, thanks to a pair of $10,000 contributions from brothers Thomas and Edmund Stanley.
The Stanleys were two of only three people in Maryland to send the maximum allowable contribution to the trust. And the brothers said they have already sent in new $10,000 gifts for 1999.
“I have tremendous respect for President Clinton and the constructive role he has played in many areas — the environment, peace, certainly handling of the economy,” said Thomas Stanley. He said he wants to do “whatever I can do to help him avoid the distractions of the unfortunate developments of the last few years.”
Edmund Stanley said he contributed because he has “always been a very strong supporter of the president and Mrs. Clinton. “It’s a shame that a presidency generates such unbelievably large legal bills,” he said.
The brothers retired to Oxford after long corporate careers, Thomas with RCA in Princeton, N.J., and Edmund with Bowne & Co. Inc., a New York financial documents company where he was chief executive officer for many years.
Both brothers said they are Democrats who regularly give to political candidates, although Thomas Stanley said his gifts are “not ordinarily of that ($10,000) level.”
Federal Election Commission filings show that in 1998, Thomas Stanley gave a total of $16,400 to the Democratic party and the re-election campaigns of Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.
Edmund Stanley and his wife, Jennifer, gave $29,675 to the Democratic party and a wide variety of candidates.
Both brothers said they discussed their support for the president but did not deliberately coordinate their giving.
“I see my good brother Ted almost daily, or certainly three or four times a week,” Thomas Stanley said. “When this first developed, which of us first asked the other (about it), I don’t know.”
Like his brother, Thomas Stanley mentioned the first lady as part of the reason for his support of the Clintons’ legal expense trust.
“Also in my motivation is the tremendous regard I have for Mrs. Clinton,” he said. “This goes to help her with some of her travails too …. I think she’s a real contributing factor in the welfare of the country.
“Principally, I’m a Democrat from my youth,” Thomas Stanley said. “The Democrats have consistently, in my view, been more constructive in what they have done for the country.”
