[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 16, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      A BAD INVESTMENT? ONLY POLITICS? NO; WHITEWATER IS MUCH MORE

                                 ______


                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 16, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member commends to his colleagues the 
following editorial from the March 16, 1994, edition of the Omaha 
World-Herald.

              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Mar. 16, 1994]

      A Bad Investment? Only Politics? No; Whitewater Is Much More

       Hillary Rodham Clinton asks the public to believe that 
     Whitewater is mostly about a bad investment that she and her 
     husband made in the late 1970s. President Clinton contends 
     the matter has been blown out of proportion by the press and 
     by partisan Republicans.
       But Americans can't afford to turn away from questions that 
     Whitewater has raised. The questions go far beyond whether 
     the Clintons made or lost money in their partnership with 
     James and Susan McDougal. The Clintons' problem is the 
     product of the apparently anything-goes ethical standards of 
     a small Southern state capital--standards that were imposed 
     on the executive branch of the federal government by the 
     Clintons and the Arkansas associates and old friends they 
     placed in positions of power.
       The resignation Monday of Associate Attorney General 
     Webster Hubbell creates a high-level vacancy in an executive 
     department that had already suffered from Clinton's failure 
     to make timely appointments. Hubbell was apparently a victim 
     of allegations that followed him to Washington from Arkansas.
       Hubbell, a former partner of Mrs. Clinton in the Rose Law 
     Firm, said he is leaving the Justice Department to deal with 
     accusations that he overbilled the Rose partners while a 
     member of the firm. Rose lawyers are also upset with Hubbell 
     because he ran up $500,000 in litigation costs for a brother-
     in-law who refused to pay.
       Questions have also been raised about how Hubbell, as a 
     Rose attorney, could have ethically represented the federal 
     government's Resolution Trust Corp. in the failure of 
     McDougal's Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan firm when Mrs. 
     Clinton, also a Rose attorney, had previously been an 
     attorney for Madison. Investigators are trying to learn 
     whether Hubbell told the RTC, which is in charge of the 
     government's S&L bailout, of the work that Rose had done for 
     McDougal. They are trying to find out whether he told his 
     client, the RTC, that members of his family had extensive 
     dealings with Madison.
       The administration handled Hubbell's exit with expressions 
     of regret that bordered on dissembling. Clinton said he 
     accepted the resignation with profound sadness. Attorney 
     General Janet Reno praised Hubbell as a tireless crusader for 
     justice. Hubbell said he came to the decision after a weekend 
     of reflection about his obligations to his family. Others 
     passed the word that the Clintons had not talked to him about 
     resigning.P
       But The New York Times reported that Mickey Kantor, the 
     U.S. trade representative, ``emerged as a broker in Hubbell's 
     weekend discussions,'' holding conversations with Hubbell and 
     with Thomas F. McClarty, the White House chief of staff. 
     Finally Kantor told McClarty that Hubbell had decided to 
     resign. McClarty told Clinton. Only then did the President 
     telephone Hubbell.
       The misguided spin attempt only made the administration 
     appear more devious at a time when it badly needs 
     credibility.
       Another transplant from the Rose Law Firm, Vincent Foster, 
     had been working on Whitewater documents the day he was found 
     dead in a Washington-area park last July, and apparent 
     suicide. The White House has yet to explain why Foster's 
     boss, Bernard Nussbaum, sneaked the documents out of Foster's 
     office before investigators were let in.
       That's the same Bernard Nussbaum, an old friend of Mrs. 
     Clinton, who was forced to resign this month for arranging 
     Whitewater briefings at which White House staff members 
     discussed information they weren't entitled to have. The 
     information came from an RTC report indicating that the 
     Clintons had benefited from the misuse of funds from Madison 
     Guaranty. In effect, Nussbaum used the machinery of the 
     federal government to help the Clintons deal with their legal 
     problems.
       Funds may have been channeled from Madison to Clinton's 
     campaign treasury, the RTC investigators said. Questionable 
     record-shredding may have taken place this year in Foster's 
     former office in Little Rock and in the governor's mansion 
     before the Clintons left for Washington.
       David Hale, a former municipal judge who headed a Little 
     Rock finance company, testified that he was twice pressured 
     by Clinton, then governor, to channel a $300,000 Small 
     Business Administration loan to a company controlled by Susan 
     McDougal. Hale said the federally guaranteed loans he helped 
     make to the friends of prominent politicians, including 
     Clinton, made a mockery of the government's intent that the 
     money be used to help black people who were trying to get 
     started in business.
       Documents suggest that Mrs. Clinton, as her husband's chief 
     political adviser, sometimes crossed the line between 
     professional and power broker when doing business with 
     Arkansas officials who owed their jobs to her husband.
       The possibility exists that the Clintons don't know about 
     everything done by overprotective friends and associates to 
     help the first family. But enough has come to light to 
     suggest the existence of serious flaws in the moral compass 
     that the Little Rock contingent carried with it to 
     Washington. For the good of the country and the health of the 
     government, the suspected flaws need to be examined, brought 
     to light and corrected.

                          ____________________