[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 27 (Friday, March 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          WHITEWATER HEARINGS

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, yesterday, I delivered a letter to the 
distinguished majority leader expressing my hope--and I believe the 
hope of most Senate Republicans--that we will be able to find some way 
to hold public and bipartisan hearings into the so-called Whitewater 
affair.
  On Wednesday, independent counsel Robert Fiske met with my 
distinguished colleagues, Senators D'Amato and Cohen, to outline his 
concerns about how public hearings may affect his investigation.
  It is certainly understandable that Mr. Fiske would want to protect 
his own prosecutorial turf. That is his job. But Mr. Fiske must 
understand that Congress has its own job to do as well.
  As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in today's Washington Post, and I 
quote:

       The prosecutor's interest is prosecution. The public 
     interest is disclosure. The prosecutor tries to find 
     breachers of law. The public needs to know about breachers of 
     trust.

  So, Mr. President, public hearings are not meant to supplant or 
second-guess Mr. Fiske's investigation. On the contrary, hearings are 
essential if the Senate is to fulfill its own constitutional obligation 
to oversee executive branch activities. Unlike Mr. Fiske, the Senate 
has this oversight obligation, an obligation that Mr. Fiske has himself 
publicly acknowledged.
  And needless to say, Mr. President, public hearings offer President 
Clinton a valuable opportunity to remove the ethical cloud now hanging 
over the White House.
  Of course, Senate Republicans want to cooperate with Mr. Fiske to 
ensure that hearings do not needlessly interfere with his 
investigation. And that is why we want to be both fair and flexible 
when it comes to the timing of the hearings and the way the hearings 
are structured.
  First of all, there is a consensus on this side of the aisle, at 
least, that no witness appearing at a Whitewater hearing should be 
granted immunity. No immunity. Period. That is what Mr. Fiske 
requested, and Senate Republicans are willing to accommodate his 
request. As I said on Wednesday, this should solve the so-called Iran-
Contra problem.
  Second, we are prepared to do whatever we can to prevent the public 
disclosure of the contents of the RTC criminal referrals concerning 
Madison guaranty. Of course, preventing public disclosure will require 
the cooperation of our democratic colleagues, as well.
  And finally, Mr. President, we are willing to give the independent 
counsel a little breathing room, perhaps a few weeks, to conduct his 
separate investigation into the recently revealed meetings involving 
White House, Treasury, and RTC officials.
  Mr. President, I have no idea what, if anything, lies at the bottom 
of Whitewater, nor do I know what the Whitewater hearings may or may 
not disclose.
  But it is becoming increasingly clear, with the daily drip-drip-drip 
of allegations, that hearings are the only way to put the Whitewater 
episode behind us so that we can move ahead to the vital issues facing 
our country.
  And those who oppose hearings should remember this: we would not have 
known about the White House-Treasury-RTC meetings if Banking Committee 
Republicans had not used the opportunity of an RTC oversight hearing to 
ask Whitewater-related questions. In other words: if there had been no 
hearing, there would have been no disclosure and no subpoenas.
  I think we ought to remember that. If there had not been that 
hearing, a lot of these things that are coming out now would not have 
been known.
  Mr. President, in a poll out yesterday, a plurality of the American 
people want congressional hearings on this matter. The American people 
deserve a full accounting of Whitewater, and they deserve hearings that 
are conducted in a fair and bipartisan manner. Senate Republicans are 
willing to work with our Democrat colleagues to achieve these important 
goals.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Charles Krauthammer 
article be reprinted in the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that 
an editorial appearing in today's Los Angeles Times, supporting the 
oversight role of Congress in the Whitewater matter, be reprinted in 
the Record as well.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                        No Immunity, No Problem

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       The White House counsel has resigned under pressure. Ten 
     Clinton aides have been subpoenaed by the Whitewater special 
     prosecutor looking into improper contacts between the White 
     House and independent S&L regulators. The administration has 
     promised the urgent erection of a ``fire wall'' to prevent 
     further contacts. The deputy Treasury secretary has 
     ``recused'' himself from investigations that touched on the 
     Clintons' involvement in Whitewater. In short, the White 
     House has pledged itself to a wholesale cleanup of its 
     Whitewater ethics.
       How did all this start? With a congressional hearing.
       On Feb. 24, the Senate Banking Committee held oversight 
     hearings on the Resolution Trust Corp. It was here that 
     Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, acting head of the 
     RTC, revealed under questioning that he had briefed the White 
     House counsel on the RTC investigation of Madison Guaranty, 
     the failed Arkansas S&L to which the Clintons had numerous 
     and questionable ties.
       This was the first and, thus far, only congressional 
     hearing on Whitewater. Without it we might still not know 
     about the secret contacts between Clinton aides and the 
     agency investigating the Madison bank. Even the president 
     admitted at this press conference on Monday: ``I didn't know 
     about, for example, Roger Altman's meeting until he testified 
     to it on the Hill.''
       A week after Altman's testimony, The Washington Post 
     revealed that there had been two more such meetings. The 
     first of these had tipped off the White House that the RTC 
     was going to make a ``criminal referral'' to the Justice 
     Department in which the Clintons were named as possible 
     beneficiaries of Madison's possibly criminal activities.
       This is not the first time that a congressional hearing has 
     led to a cascade of other revelations. The Watergate tapes 
     were discovered not by the press, not by prosecutors, but in 
     the course of congressional hearings.
       Republicans are now demanding Whitewater hearings. The 
     Democrats, having seen how much damage was done in half a 
     day, continue to stonewall. This is the same party that in 
     1990 had the House Banking Committee spend two days in public 
     hearings on Neil Bush's involvement in the collapsed 
     Silverado S&L. At the time, Democrats were gleeful about 
     making Bush the ``S&L poster boy.'' Now that the S&L poster 
     girl might turn out to be named Clinton, they express deep 
     concern about the partisanship of such hearings.
       This is the same party that bathed the country in Iran-
     contra hearings. That put every syllable of Anita Hill's 
     charges against Clarence Thomas on national TV. That even saw 
     fit to hold hearings on a total fiction, the so-called 
     October Surprise.
       If Bill Clinton were a Republican, we would now be in our 
     third month of hearings of a Select Committee on Whitewater. 
     We would by now have a pretty good idea of the financial, 
     political and--a particular interest of Mrs. Clinton's--moral 
     conduct of the Clintons during the ``decade of greed'' that 
     they ran so successfully against in 1992.
       So much for the hypocrisy. What about the public interest? 
     The Democrats are trying to hide behind the Whitewater 
     prosecutor, who is advising against hearings on the grounds 
     that they might adversely affect his investigation. Aren't 
     they right? Would not congressional hearings interfere with 
     the prosecutor's work?
       To which there are two answers. First, they do not have to. 
     In fact, in this case, the prosecutor's own investigation of 
     secret White House-RTC contacts was helped--indeed, 
     triggered--by a disclosure elicited in congressional 
     hearings.
       True, the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter 
     were famously overturned because of the immunity they had 
     been granted in congressional testimony. To which the remedy 
     is: no immunity.
       If in congressional Whitewater hearings those subpoenaed 
     decide to take the Fifth Amendment and not testify, fine. 
     That is their right. The public will then have to wait for 
     the press and the special prosecutor to ferret out the story. 
     Nothing lost.
       If, on the other hand, they do testify, much will be 
     gained. The American people will learn about Whitewater today 
     rather than next year. They can begin to make judgments based 
     on the sworn testimony of the people involved.
       But second, even if there is some disruption of the 
     prosecutor's case, so what? Every prosecutor wants control. 
     But a prosecutor's interests are not necessarily the same as 
     the public interest.
       The prosecutor's interest is prosecution. The public 
     interest is disclosure. The prosecutor tries to find breaches 
     of law. The public needs to know about breaches of trust. The 
     public's interest in Whitewater is not, say, to see Hillary 
     Clinton or her Rose law partners on trial. It is to find out 
     simply what happened.
       This capital has just endured a decade during which the 
     criminalization of policy differences and ethical lapses 
     became the norm. Perhaps it is poetic justice that the fate 
     Democrats visited on Republicans should now rebound on them. 
     But that would just compound the injustice.
       The public interest is served best not by criminalizing but 
     by publicizing. The most important objective of these 
     inquiries is not to put people in jail (though that may 
     happen) but to help us reach a judgment. Congressional 
     hearings would do just that.
                                  ____


                        The Rapids of Whitewater

       A congressional investigation of the Whitewater affair now 
     seems not just possible but inevitable. Probably it is some 
     months off. Republicans who are pushing for hearings say they 
     are ready to wait while a federal grand jury in Washington 
     hears testimony involving possible criminal wrongdoing. That 
     is a responsible course, and the congressional Democratic 
     leadership, rather than trying to block an investigation, 
     should seek an early compromise on just what one would 
     involve.
       The first of 10 White House employees subpoenaed by the 
     grand jury, including two members of Hillary Rodham Clinton's 
     staff, were heard Thursday.
       White House staff members, it was learned last week, had 
     been briefed on the tangled Whitewater affair by federal 
     regulators, raising serious concerns about whether the 
     investigation was compromised. Those concerns have already 
     forced the resignation of Bernard Nussbaum, the President's 
     counsel.
       In these circumstances Republicans, quite naturally, scent 
     scandal and with it political opportunity. But to dismiss 
     their clamor for congressional involvement as solely a 
     product of partisanship would be to demean the legislative 
     role. Congress' legitimate oversight responsibilities should 
     not be in dispute. Disturbing questions have been raised 
     ranging from the possible illegal diversion of funds from a 
     federally regulated bank in the 1980s to possible obstruction 
     of justice just in recent months. Answers are needed.
       Special Counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. fears that hearings 
     could jeopardize potential prosecutions arising from his 
     investigation. An agreement by Republicans not to compel 
     testimony with grants of immunity is designed to alleviate 
     that worry.
       Conflict need not inevitably arise between Congress and the 
     special counsel. Both should be committed only to getting at 
     the truth in the Whitewater case. Is that too much to ask?

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I add that this same expression has been 
indicated by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and also 
expressed today in the Portland Press Herald in Maine.
  So I think there is no doubt about it, and I can say with some 
authority, having been chairman of our party--the Republican Party--at 
the time of Watergate. I remember how the White House did not want to 
hear any bad news, and how the White House unfortunately did not tell 
the public, did not tell the press, and did not tell the American 
people.
  I am not comparing the two. But I am just saying when people do not 
have information, they cannot make a judgment. There is a lot of 
information the American people do not have. Once they got the 
information on Watergate, they made a judgment. They made a very severe 
judgment. They want the information on Whitewater, so-called 
Whitewater. Nobody knows what it is.
  When Watergate started, it was a third-rate burglary. When it ended, 
it was a mess, and it caused great damage to, I think in many cases, 
the country, and also to the Republican Party, and brought about a lot 
of changes in ethics laws and everything that deals with ethics.
  It just seems to me that if any lesson was learned from that chapter 
in history, it should be that there ought to be disclosure, there ought 
to be hearings. There were hearings at that time, day after day after 
day, on live television, gavel-to-gavel hearings. In fact, I felt there 
was too much coverage, so much coverage we could not do our work.
  So I just suggest that I think the time--it is not here now, it is 
going to be very soon. I believe that the leadership can work out the 
responsible hearings. There are a number of committees that have 
jurisdiction; four or five committees in the Senate. If everybody 
starts doing something, that will not be a very efficient way to do 
business. So I hope we can work something out.
  It also seems to me that in the case of Mr. Altman and Mr. Hubbell--
Mr. Roger Altman is No. 2 at Treasury, and Mr. Webster Hubbell is No. 3 
at Justice--it seems to me that they have compromised themselves, and 
it seems to me it would be in their interests and in the President's 
interest if they sort of took administrative leave without pay until 
this matter has been cleared up, or until their names have been 
cleared.
  I do not think they can continue in their present roles while this 
cloud is hanging over each of them, and maybe others that I am not 
aware of who have been involved in some of the secret meetings and in 
some of the activities, not only in the past several months but in the 
past several years.
  Sooner or later everybody who is involved is going to be held 
accountable. You have to be accountable. In politics, you have to be 
accountable, in business, anything anybody does. Sooner or later 
somebody is going to call you to account.
  It may touch the White House, it may touch the Treasury, it may touch 
the Justice Department, or somewhere else. But sooner or later, in my 
view, there will be hearings, there should be hearings, and I hope when 
that time comes, it will be on a bipartisan basis.
  I remember on the Iran-Contra hearings--I believe this is correct--I 
think I am the first one who suggested hearings. I suggested that 
Congress stay in session and complete the hearings as quickly as we 
could. There was a bipartisan agreement to have hearings, and it 
involved a Republican White House and Republican President. It seems to 
me that we had 20 hearings--Congress had 20 hearings, congressional 
committees in the House and Senate--during the Bush and Reagan 
Presidencies. For 12 years, Congress was not a bit reluctant to have a 
nice little congressional hearing over very minor matters. Of course, 
the Democrats controlled the Congress. The Republicans controlled the 
White House. Now the Democrats control the White House and the Congress 
and, suddenly, Republicans are accused of playing politics for wanting 
the same treatment that we gave to Republican Presidents for 12 years, 
at least 20 different times.
  The public wants to know. My view is that the public will know, and 
the sooner we get on with our work, the more we can focus on health 
care, crime, welfare, and the other issues. I believe--and I may be 
wrong--we should shift the focus away from the President and Mrs. 
Clinton and back to the Congress, so the President and Mrs. Clinton can 
pursue their agenda, which is primarily health care, crime, welfare, 
the same issues we are dealing with.
  Mr. President, I hope we can resolve this matter. There are other 
things that can be done. We do not want to be obstructionists. We just 
want to be treated the same way. There should not be a double standard. 
We cannot hide behind special counsel and say we cannot do it because 
of that special counsel. We can take care of the special counsel's 
concerns. That can be worked out. So I think that sooner or later we 
need to say, OK, if there are not going to be any hearings, if that is 
a final answer, then I think we deserve to know so we can pursue 
whatever activity might be necessary. But it is a matter of importance 
to the public, and it should be important to the public. I am hopeful 
that it can be addressed on a bipartisan basis.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________