[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 19 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: February 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
WHITE HOUSE ETHICS
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, imagine this: Ronald Reagan, as Governor of
California, becomes a 50-50 partner in a real estate deal with the
owner of a California savings and loan. The S&L goes under, is seized
by Federal regulators, and a series of criminal and civil
investigations is initiated by Federal regulators.
Governor Reagan becomes President Reagan. He appoints a close
personal friend and top campaign official, Jim Baker, to head the
independent agency charged with overseeing the S&L industry and with
bringing civil and criminal actions against S&L wrongdoers.
Press reports suggest that the President may be indirectly implicated
in a civil suit brought against the California S&L by the supposedly
independent Federal agency. As the expiration date for the civil
statute of limitations approaches, Mr. Baker meets at the White House
with Ed Meese, Mike Deaver, and other White House political officials
to discuss the status of the agency's investigation. The White House
meeting is shrouded in secrecy, only to be revealed weeks later because
of congressional prodding.
Of course, Mr. President, this is all fiction. But, it is fair to say
that if these events had indeed occurred during the Reagan
administration, the expressions of outrage in the press, and on the
floors of the Senate and House, the clamor for congressional hearings,
would have shot off the political Richter Scale.
Last Thursday, Roger Altman, a college classmate of President Clinton
and the acting CEO of the supposedly independent Resolution Thrust
Corporation, revealed for the first time that he sought out a meeting
with White House officials, allegedly to offer a heads up on the so-
called Madison Guaranty statute of limitations issue. According to Mr.
Altman's own account, he did not even seek a meeting with David
Kendall, President Clinton's personal attorney, but rather with White
House political officials--Bernard Nussbaum, Harold Ickes, and Margaret
Williams, the chief of staff for the First Lady.
With the exception of the New York Times and the Washington Times,
and today the Washington Post, the press reaction to the Altman
revelation--and the glaring conflict of interest it describes--has been
muted at best. In fact, USA Today reported that the Altman meeting was
``minor'' and there was probably ``nothing improper'' about it.
Apparently, Mr. Altman did not buy into this benign description, since
he finally recused himself from the Madison matter last Friday.
Mr. President, Mr. Altman's shocking revelation underscores the need
for full congressional hearings on the Madison-Whitewater affair. As
the New York Times editorialized yesterday:
Senator Donald Riegle, the chairman of the Senate Banking
Committee, needs to step up his committee's oversight
activities * * * Opposition leaders are right when they say
that a Republican White House that so recklessly meddled in
the Justice Department, the R.T.C. and other agencies would
be shelled with endless congressional investigations.
That is the end of the quote. It is the New York Times. I ask
unanimous consent that the editorial be made part of the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Feb. 27, 1994]
Slovenly White House Ethics
President Clinton and his helpers keep saying they have
nothing to hide on Whitewater. So some evil genie must be
making them act as if they do. The latest affront is the
boneheaded conclave convened by Deputy Treasury Secretary
Roger Altman to give a ``heads up'' to three White House
officials about the Resolution Trust Corporation inquiry into
a savings and loan association connected to Mr. and Mrs.
Clinton.
Mr. Altman said he wanted to brief Bernard Nussbaum, the
White House counsel, Harold Ickes, the deputy chief of staff,
and Margaret Williams, the First Lady's chief of staff, on
when the statute of limitations would run out on the R.T.C.
investigation of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.
That is an interesting question and not unrelated to other
questions that Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee
and other reasonably curious Americans would like to have
answered. Here are four:
1. Was Madison used to convert Clinton campaign funds to
personal funds for the then Governor?
2. Did a regulator appointed by Governor Clinton go easy on
Madison because it was owned by the Clinton's political ally,
James McDougal, who was also the Clintons' business partner
in the Whitewater Development Company?
3. Did the Clintons pay the same amount of money for their
half share of Whitewater that Mr. McDougal paid for his? This
question is important because it bears on whether Mr.
Clinton, while Governor, received gifts or claimed undeserved
tax deductions in connection with Whitewater.
4. Did Mrs. Clinton's law firm behave properly in its
dealings with Madison and bank regulators?
Given that such questions are now before a special counsel
and the R.T.C., a meeting between Mr. Altman and top White
House aides was improper on its face. It could never have
taken place in a White House that had even a rudimentary
respect for the common-sense rules on conflict of interest.
The Clinton team has taken the nation back to the sham ethics
of the early Reagan Administration. That crowd believed
conflicts of interest could not exist since they could not
conceive of letting any law or rule of propriety interfere
with the political and financial interests of the President
or his buddies.
The stated reason for this meeting will not wash.
Information on the statute of limitations could be had from
the newspapers or a brief memo from the R.T.C. legal staff.
Senator Alfonse D'Amato and Representative Jim Leach
therefore have reason to suspect that the goal of the meeting
was to control political damage or compromise the R.T.C.'s
investigation. Who knows what the White House has learned
about the R.T.C. findings? After all, it was only through Mr.
D'Amato's efforts that the Government released an R.T.C.
document suggesting that Mrs. Clinton's law firm had failed
at proper disclosure of its dealings with Madison.
In response to bad publicity, Mr. Altman has recused
himself from the R.T.C. inquiry on Whitewater. His R.T.C.
deputy should now take over all his duties at the agency
until a permanent director is appointed. Senator Donald
Riegle, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, needs
to step up his committee's oversight activities. Other
Democrats like Senator John Kerry need to cease their myopic
defense of Mr. Clinton on a matter about which neither the
Senator nor the public has been fully informed.
Opposition leaders are right when they say that a
Republican White House that so recklessly meddled in the
Justice Department, the R.T.C. and other agencies would be
shelled with endless Congressional investigations. It is time
for the Democratic Congressional leaders, Thomas Foley and
George Mitchell, to try to educate this White House about the
normal protocols of governance. Explaining what
Representative Leach meant when he said ``arm's length''
would be a start.
Clinton aides behave as if their President had deep
deposits of public trust. In fact, that account was pretty
slim when Mr. Clinton got to Washington, and it is just about
tapped out now.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, the bottom line is: The American people now
know about Mr. Altman's unseemly meeting with White House officials
precisely because Banking Committee Republicans used the opportunity of
an RTC oversight hearing to ask Madison-related questions. If there had
been no hearing, it is unlikely this information would have surfaced
any time soon. And it is clear that Mr. Altman recused himself only
because of the negative publicity his meeting inspired.
The Altman revelation also raises other important questions: Did Mr.
Altman have any contacts with the FDIC while the FDIC's legal division
was preparing its conflicts-of-interest opinion regarding the Rose law
firm? If so, what were the nature of these contacts? Has Mr. Altman had
any discussions with Webster Hubbell, a former partner of the Rose law
firm and now Associate Attorney General, regarding the RTC's criminal
referrals on Madison and the RTC's pending civil investigation? And has
Mr. Hubbell himself had any contacts with officials at the FDIC, the
RTC, or the White House about any element of the Madison-Whitewater
affair?
Why did White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum meet with Mr. Altman in
the first place? Surely, he was aware of the impropriety of such a
meeting. He had a lot of experience in the Watergate hearings. Has Mr.
Nussbaum been in touch with the RTC, the FDIC, or the Justice
Department about Madison-Whitewater?
Mr. President, you know you are heading in the right direction when
tough questions are responded to not with substantive answers, but with
personal attacks. Unfortunately, David Wilhelm, the chairman of the
Democratic National Committee, took this low-road approach when he
fired off a letter last Friday personally attacking the integrity of
Senator D'Amato, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee.
If Mr. Wilhelm believes these bullying tactics will somehow
intimidate congressional Republicans, I have some bad news for him:
They will not. We will continue to ask the tough questions until the
American people get the full accounting of Whitewater that they
deserve.
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