Clinton Assails Perot Over Gossip About White House : Politics: The dismissal of a U.S. attorney is cited as an example. The President also says some members of the press ‘ought to be ashamed.’

ANNAPOLIS, Md. —  After months of wary silence, President Clinton lashed out at Ross Perot on Thursday, telling a group of newspaper editors that Perot, who ran as an independent presidential candidate last fall, and some members of the press “ought to be ashamed of themselves” for publicly repeating “gossip” about his Administration.

“I don’t think we ought to be out here rumormongering, myself. I think it does very little to support the public interest,” Clinton said, speaking to an audience of newspaper editors gathered at the U.S. Naval Academy here. Clinton also questioned why Perot has not endorsed the Administration’s economic plan, which he described, with some exaggeration, as “85% what Ross Perot recommended in the campaign.”

Since criticizing Perot more than 10 months ago, during the early stages of the presidential campaign, Clinton has been extremely cautious about his references to the Texas billionaire. But he dropped his restraint after an editor from the avowedly conservative Washington Times cited several recent remarks by Perot deemed critical of the Administration. In one, the billionaire industrialist questioned why the Administration had dismissed Jay B. Stephens, the U.S. attorney in Washington and a Republican. Another involved reports about purported mistreatment of military officials by White House aides.

Visibly irritated, Clinton labeled as an “abject lie” rumors that his aides had snubbed military officials. And there seems to be no substance to that rumor or many others being widely circulated in Washington and on talk radio programs.

But Clinton then mentioned specifically and appeared to deny the one story that does seem true--that early in the Administration an unidentified female aide snubbed Army Lt. Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey.

McCaffrey discussed the incident in an interview published Thursday in the Washington Post but said it had been greatly exaggerated.

Clinton also denied--as Administration officials consistently have done--that the decision to ask all U.S. attorneys to submit resignations had anything to do with Stephens, who has been investigating the actions of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), a Clinton ally in Congress.

“They were all replaced, and they will all be replaced, just like the Republicans replaced them when President Carter was defeated by President Reagan,” Clinton said. U.S. attorneys--the top federal prosecutors in federal judicial districts--are presidential appointees who traditionally are replaced after control of the White House shifts to a different party.

Stephens had publicly suggested that replacing him might jeopardize an investigation into whether Rostenkowski violated any laws in connection with the use of House postal or campaign funds. But Clinton disagreed with that assessment, saying that, until new U.S. attorneys are appointed, career prosecutors will manage their offices.

“There is no reason to believe that any particular case will be pursued in a different manner,” he said.