[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.
____________________