[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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