[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  2050
 
                       THE CLINTON YEARS: PART 3

  Mr. DORNAN. Madam Speaker, I was glad to yield to the gentleman. 
Anything for a North Carolinian. North Carolina, ``First in Flight.'' I 
am even wearing my Wright Brothers tie tonight.
  There is nothing more frustrating here than having to interrupt your 
thoughts as the clock is chasing you.
  Madam Speaker, I want to continue what I have just loosely called 
``the Clinton years, part 3,'' and begin tonight with something from 
yesterday's Wall Street Journal that I found very disturbing. It is a 
description of the fine State of Arkansas that matches something I 
tried to describe in this well in September and in October of the 
election year, 1992.
  There is a newsletter that has just come into my possession by Kevin 
Phillips, published by the American Political Research Corporation. It 
is called the ``American Political Report.''
  The headline is, ``Whitewater, The Politics of a Second Watergate.''
  When you say this to anyone in the dominant media culture who is a 
gentleman and admits they are liberal, a lady of the same honor, and 
they are rare, most of them claim that they are perched on some 
Olympian peak of moderate perfection. When you mention in the same 
breath Whitewater or Watergate or refer to Whitewater as White 
Watergate, as does the great columnist for the New York Times, Bill 
Safire, they go ballistic on you.
  Here are some of the subtitles in Kevin Phillips' American Political 
Report:
  ``Clinton, Whitewater and the Polls,'' and the polls are moving 
severely against Mr. Clinton. ``The Clinton Scandals, a 20th Century 
Political Perspective.'' I will come back to that. ``The Hillary Rodham 
Factor, the Clinton Scandals in the Midterm Elections.'' That is a 
fascinating part 4. ``June Congressional Hearings on Whitewater.'' It 
may be a lot sooner than June, after what happened in this House today. 
By a vote of 408 to 15, the House of Representatives, the people's 
great Chamber, has joined that 98 to 0 vote in the U.S. Senate to start 
hearings as soon as possible.
  ``Six Clinton Legal Vulnerabilities,'' this is a nightmare for the 
White House, ``Obstruction of Justice, Shredding of Evidence, 
Intimidating or Offering Payment to Witnesses or Offering Promotions, 
Jobs to Arkansas Troopers,'' which was not mentioned in there. This is 
under that heading number 6 of ``Legal Vulnerabilities.''
  ``Whitewater Illegal Financial Dealings, Troopergate.'' There it is. 
Good, Kevin. ``Sexual Harassment, Wrongful Death Conspiracy.''
  Then category 7, ``A Clinton Vulnerability Scenario.'' That is truly 
a nightmare.
  Number 8, ``Impeachment Possibilities,'' the big ``I'' word finally 
in print, albeit in a newsletter.
  Number 9, ``The Clinton Scandals and the Impact on '96.'' And then 
under the headline of ``The National Politics,'' it says, ``Clinton Job 
Approval.'' It gives Time, Yankelovich, NBC, Gallup, USA Today, 
Singlinger. These are all about a week to 2 weeks old. They are all 
dropping.
  Let us just take a look at the headlines in the news magazines. I 
misplaced U.S. News & World Report, but Mort Zuckerman's publication is 
just as tough as this newsletter. Here is Time Magazine: ``It is a 
jungle out there. The administration is in retreat, embarrassed by new 
disclosures, unable to head off congressional probes.'' Remember, this 
went to bed 4 days ago.
  Here is the Newsweek headline, ``Clinton's Bleak House. Bill Clinton 
Looking to Combat His Whitewater Blues.'' The President made a flurry 
of spirited public appearances last week, including pounding on a 
podium in the immature, stridently saying, ``No'' nine times. More 
about that in a second.
  ``Hillary Rodham Clinton, the First Lady Found Her Own Medicine in a 
Trip to Denver To Sell the White House Health Care Plan.'' Still 
stalling, or as one columnist observed, a modified hangout, Watergate 
term.
  ``Stunned by More Bad News, the President Tries to Change the 
Subject.''
  Tonight on all three networks, particularly on CBS, they devoted 
about 10 minutes on the CBS show to all of the various Whitewater 
stories breaking today. On ABC, they described the vote of this House 
today to hold hearings as the Democrats conceded to, and then the 
reporter took a deliberate, dramatic pause and said, ``To do the best 
we could, because we do not have specific dates yet or anything really 
substantial on when we are going to have the hearings.''
  The Los Angeles Times, which, remember, has 4 of the Arkansas 10 
troopers that were talking, 4 on tape recording, here is the L.A. Times 
of yesterday, a story correctly predicting what would happen today in 
Little Rock. ``Ex-municipal judge accused of fraud tries to implicate 
Clinton. David Hale's trial begins next week in a case related to 
Whitewater.''
  Of course, he plea bargained today. Interesting that the U.S. 
attorney down there in Little Rock, Paula Casey, could have had him 
plea bargain months ago. This all would be much further advanced. Maybe 
some of it is resolved to the Clintons' satisfaction, if she had not 
stonewalled former Judge David Hale's offer to plea bargain and tell 
all and then, after she had stopped him and demanded that he go to 
trial, then she recused herself as having a biased background on the 
whole Whitewater mess.
  Here is today's L.A. Times, ``Clinton Treasury Aide Given Early 
Briefing on Failed Arkansas Thrift. Political appointee Roger Altman 
was told that the Madison Guaranty S&L Case would go to the Justice 
Department. He is also a regulator, raising a possible conflict.''
  Beneath that another story, ``Republicans had planned to raise the 
Whitewater issue at hearings on Thursday.'' Chairman Gonzalez, who has 
called for the impeachment of a sitting President 3 times in the 12 
Reagan and Bush years, my friend Henry Gonzalez, instead calls for a 
select panel to probe the controversial matter.
  We do not know if that 408 to 15 vote today is going to grow into a 
select panel, but if it does, it will be more of a jungle out there for 
the White House. As a matter of fact, when I pick up the papers these 
days, an old Beatles tune always rings in my head: ``I Saw The News 
Today, Oh Boy.''
  Now, here is the Wall Street Journal, yesterday, ``Rose Law Firm Will 
File Ethics Complaint in Arkansas About Hubbell's Expenses.'' That is 
Webster Hubbell, best golf buddy of Bill Clinton.
  The Rose law firm has decided to file a complaint with the Arkansas 
ethics authorities about undocumented expenses incurred by former 
Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell. How can they blame that on 
the Republicans?
  Of course, they cannot. It is impossible. As I said in my special 
orders last week, walk out the hall here a few steps to the Statutory 
Hall, which was the House Chamber for 50 years from 1807 to 1857, and 
statue number 7 around to your left, in between Jefferson Davis, the 
Senator from Mississippi who became the President of the 10 breakaway 
Confederate States, and on the other side is Robert Fulton of steamboat 
invention fame, and there is one of the two statues from Arkansas that 
every State is allowed to put in this incredible building, the world's 
greatest governmental building ever. There is the distinguished face 
and form of Uriah Rose, the founder of the Rose law firm, an appointee 
to the Geneva Convention at the turn of the century, around 1908. By 
1908, President Teddy Roosevelt, was the first President of the 
American Bar Association.
  And that Rose firm, was the first firm west of the Mississippi, when 
Arkansas was just a frontier State. It is really tragic what has 
happened to the 60 partners down there, now that they are going to find 
themselves possibly, as some columnists suggest, in a state of 
bankruptcy within months.

                              {time}  2100

  What a tragedy, that the four partners coming to Washington, what is 
now being called the gang of four: Hillary Rodham, Webster Hubble, 
Vince Foster, dead since July 20, and now William Kennedy, William 
Kennedy III, no relation to the Massachusetts Kennedy family. Here is 
the Wall Street Journal article from today.
  ``Kennedy, Clinton's ethics gatekeeper, hasn't paid taxes on nanny's 
wages.''
  Before White House Associate Counsel William Kennedy III, became a 
Clinton gatekeeper on ethical issues, he worked for Nussbaum, who has 
resigned under a cloud, who had on his desk a parody of James Carville, 
Clinton's campaign manager's theme sign about staying on message, ``It 
is the economy, stupid,'' and Nussbaum had on his desk, ``It is the 
ethics, stupid.'' That sign must have fallen on its face when they were 
all conducting these midnight raids into Vince Foster's office.
  It says, ``Kennedy became a Clinton gatekeeper on ethics, yet he had 
a hidden problem of his own, unpaid taxes owed on a nanny's wages, but 
he disclosed it to only one person in the Clinton camp,'' surprise, 
surprise, ``Vincent Foster, the Deputy White House Counsel who died 
July 20th.''
  Notice, very few of the papers say ``committed suicide.'' They say 
``alleged suicide,'' or ``who died.'' I may be naive, but I am still 
clinging to the theory of suicide, because anything else is so 
Shakespearian. I will be on this floor if there is ever a murder or 
even an indication of the body being moved. I will be on this floor 
calling for the resignation, merciful resignation, of the Clinton team 
from the White House, that is for sure.
  Here is the headline of the distinguished Washington Times: 
``Gonzalez Gives In, Calls For Hearings. Hale Might Hold Pieces To The 
Whitewater Puzzle. Grand Jury Likely To Hear of Clinton's Deals.''
  It is interesting that Hale might be the John Dean of this breaking 
scandal, the first one who comes forward and tells all to save himself. 
Dean went to jail. It looks like Hale if going to jail for 10 years, 
maybe with good behavior he will get 5, but this thing grows 
exponentially.
  Here is a column I meant to put in the Record from last week when I 
spoke on St. Patrick's Day and the following day, ``In Defense Of 
Arkansas.'' It says,

       It is time to come to the defense of Arkansas, recently 
     maligned with an image of a close-knit political circle of 
     mutual back scratching. In this department, Little Rock as 
     nothing on Washington, DC. With Webb Hubble leaving the 
     Justice Department, Jamie Gorelick is about to arrive. Ms. 
     Gorelick's nomination, which went before the Senate last 
     week, was fascinating because of all the people she has 
     defended: Clark Clifford and Robert Altman,

not Roger, no relation, I believe; I had better check that out,

       on the First American Bank, where they worked when it was 
     secretly owned by the Bank of Credit and Commerce 
     International, or BCCI, one of the largest banking scandals 
     in this country.

  Guess what? I found out who writes these fascinating articles in the 
Wall Street Journal. It is Robert Bartley. He was unflappable on Meet 
the Press Sunday, before the guns of David Broder and company.
  He has said to folks that since Michael Kingsley and others accused 
him on Nightline, excuse me, on Crossfire, and in print in the New 
Republic, that he was one of the proximate causes of a suicide, namely, 
Vince Foster, that he said, ``What do these people expect me to do, dry 
up and blow away, or to defend my honor?''
  Here is an article that I think is going to be probably the most 
quoted over the next months, from what I have always, goodnaturedly, 
called a schizophrenic magazine, because most of the reporters are 
liberal, like Michael Kingsley, and yet Fred Barnes is one of its 
senior editors, and that is the New Republic.
  Wait until I read what the New Republic says about the scandals 
interlocking in Arkansas, by L.J. Davis.
  Here, it is so powerful. It is quoted in a long editorial, the 
longest I have seen yet in any paper in the Wall Street Journal, 
obviously written by Robert Bartley. and I will cut to the chase here 
and read the part that fascinated me, because I had said the same thing 
on the House floor over 1 year and 7 months ago.
  ``Arkansas,'' Mr. Davis, L.J. Davis, writes in the New Republic, a 
liberal, moderate magazine, ``there is a close resemblance to a Third 
World country, with a ruling oligarchy, a small and relatively 
powerless middle class, a disenfranchised, leaderless populace.''
  The Wall Street Journal says, ``This kind of civic culture we see in 
many actual Third World countries.'' I have witnessed it all through 
the torments of Central and South America, over many trips down there, 
when I was on the Committee on Foreign Affairs a decade ago.
  ``We see this kind as likely to produce a spoils-to-the-victor, 
above-the-law approach to government; that is to say, the kind of 
careless arrogance we have seen in the handling of Whitewater, in the 
White House passes, in Webb Hubble's law firm billings, in Travelgate, 
in intervention into an ongoing corruption trial, in the handling of 
Vince Foster's death, and in the handling of various individuals, 
including Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Lannie Gunier, and Chris Emory, a 
White House usher, dismissed over phone conversations with Barbara Bush 
over how to set up her computer,'' home laptop computer, with no 
warning, and less than a week's notice; Chris Emory, long-time White 
House usher, turned into the street.
  ``Whitewater is not merely about a land deal,'' the Wall Street 
Journal continues, ``it is about all of these things, and about the 
place they are bidding,'' The Clintons, ``to assume in Washington,'' 
which God knows, is guilty of enough sins of its own, ``and above all, 
it is about hypocrisy.''
  ``Say that one after another the explanations are innocent. Hilary 
was lucky in commodities and unlucky in land speculation,'' wishing 
they had lost money. ``Jim Blair and Patsy Thomason are just friends.'' 
She was on the Hill today. More about that later.
  ``James and Susan MacDougal and David Hale and Dan Lassiter are just 
former friends. Lay aside all suspicions and accept every cover story. 
We are now supposed to believe that Bill Clinton was elected President 
to reform the sins of the high-flying 1980's? Yes, the key word there 
is ``hypocrisy.''
  Madam Speaker, here is something that my friend, Senator Don Nickles, 
sent over. He is chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, as 
I have been chairman for 2 years over here a few years ago of the 
Republican Study Committee. He sent over documentation that I would 
like to include in the Record at this point, about all of the 25 
separate allegations of ethical or legal wrongdoing that were turned 
into hearings and/or investigations during the Reagan and Bush 
administration.
  ``Despite the presence of at least five separate instances or 
allegations of wrong during the Clinton administration,'' and Senator 
Nickles lists them, ``Congress has yet to conduct a single hearing or 
the slightest investigation. On three occasions during the Reagan 
administration congressional committees conducted investigations or 
hearings concurrent with investigations by an independent counsel. Four 
of 19 congressional hearings or investigations conducted during the 
Reagan administration were led by the then-Republican controlled 
committees of the United States Senate,'' which was from 1981 through 
1986 under Republican control.
  ``A recent opinion poll revealed that 60 percent of those surveyed 
believe Whitewater requires a full-scale Federal investigation. Here 
are the areas where Republicans in the Senate feel there should be or 
should have been investigations:
  ``Scandal one, Travelgate.''
  I have here an article, a good column by Mark R. Levin that says, 
``Whatever happened to Travelgate? Why did that disappear?'' This is 
last week. He opens up with a memorandum from William J. Clinton to 
``All the Heads of Departments and Agencies,'' just a few months ago, 
October 4, 1993: ``The Freedom of Information Act has been one of the 
primary means by which members of the public inform themselves about 
their government. Federal departments and agencies should handle 
requests for information in a customer-friendly manner. The use of the 
act by ordinary citizens is not complicated, nor should it be. The 
existence of unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles has no place in its 
implementation.''

                              {time}  2110

  I call upon all Federal departments and agencies to renew their 
commitment to the Freedom of Information Act, to the underlying 
principles of government openness and to its sound administration.
  Again, rhetoric, and in fact the truth is exactly the opposite. At 
that very moment the White House was stiffing The Wall Street Journal 
on the autopsy reports that are still locked up and could technically 
be locked up for 2 more years, right through this election coming up in 
November. They are still stiffing The Wall Street Journal, which has to 
sue Dow-Jones, the owners of the The Wall Street Journal in a case 
called Dow-Jones versus The Department of Justice, still suing for the 
police investigative reports on Vince Foster's death which has caused a 
fascinating duel between two big papers in New York, both with about a 
million circulation, the Daily News versus the New York Post.
  I received today, at my request from one crusading young reporter, 
Chris Ruddy, all of his stories, 12 of them over the last month that 
had been in the New York Post, countering him with a selectively leaked 
criminal investigation by the U.S. Park Police, whom I have defended 
twice on this House floor lately, a little bit in the blind, but they 
are the Nation's oldest uniformed police force founded in 1797, George 
Washington's third year, George Washington, the father of all character 
issues.
  The reporter that wrote the counter story to Chris Ruddy's 
fascinating series tin his counterpiece that said, ``Vince Foster,'' 
front-page story, ``case closed,'' said that the investigating officer 
said people should have been arrested, including the recently resigned 
Bernard Nussbaum for obstruction of justice. And in his story, the 
Daily News story, one of the investigators, a senior officer or a 
captain, I believe, of the Park Police, when asked by Nussbaum, ``Can't 
you run just a normal investigation here,'' said, the captain of the 
police said, ``Normal investigation? Is if this were a normal 
investigation, all of Mr. Vince Foster's files would be in the back 
seat of my car on the way to the police station.''
  I watched Crossfire tonight and I saw my colleagues on the Republican 
side from the Banking Committee, Toby Roth, use a line that I think he 
would admit I mentioned to him earlier tonight. Toby had just witnessed 
these two tapes playing on a VCR here in the Capitol. And I said, 
``Toby, this Whitewater is soaking, migrating like water into the 
popular culture. These two tapes contain the opening of Saturday Night 
Live two nights ago last Saturday and nine nights ago when Nancy 
Kerrigan was the host, drawing an audience of millions. The night Nancy 
was the host they opened up with a mock press conference where Bill 
Clinton says that his wife had been arrested on the grounds she was the 
sole person guilty of everything, charged there with a number of 
heinous crimes up to and including--you just have to see the show to 
believe the list of crimes. Very little was left out. And two Democrats 
came into our cloakroom to see that, Chairman George Miller, head of 
the Democratic Policy Committee, and their caucus or conference 
chairman, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, and they were trying to laugh. But I 
could see the pain in their face, and I recognize that pain. It was the 
pain in my own face when Richard Nixon was going down in flames in 
Watergate.

  The opening of Saturday Night Live two nights ago was something that 
must have taken that young cast of players an entire week to rehearse, 
and the makeup must have taken them all day long Saturday. They made 
themselves up as about 20 of the current rock stars from Cher to KD 
Lang to you name it, Elton John, and all of them were singing the story 
of Whitewater. And it was amazing because some of the rock stars are 
unintelligible to the generational era say of anybody over 30, maybe 
over 25, and they had a crawl at the bottom of the TV screen, a 
videograph giving you all the lyrics. And the lyrics tracked the entire 
Whitewater story going back several years, and except for some gaps, 
all of the facts were accurate.
  Madam Speaker, this is soaking into the popular culture.
  Here is an editorial from today's Washington Times. It is entitled 
roughly, ``Hillary Rodham Boesky,'' Boesky the great speculator from 
Wall Street that brought such great disgrace temporarily upon our 
financial institutions up on the island of my birth in Manhattan where 
down at the tip there in Wall Street.
  Here is Hillary Rodham Clinton, May 1, 1993, barely their third month 
into office or just into the fourth month. She indicates at the 
University of Michigan graduation ceremonies the following: 
``Throughout the 1980's we heard too much individual gain, about the 
ethos of selfishness and greed. We did not hear enough about what it 
meant to be a member of a community, to define the common good, to 
repair the social contract.'' That is when she was having a lot of 
meetings with this fellow from Tecun, the radical Marxist, leftist 
intellectual magazine, and she was working out with this gentleman, I 
think his name is Levin, the politics of meaning. Actually, it was a 
very spooky period.

  Here is the opening and closing paragraph of this editorial: ``It's 
not every day that a rookie investor makes a quick $100,000 trading in 
the volatile commodities markets. Indeed, an estimated 75 percent of 
commodities traders, experienced and inexperienced alike, lose money on 
such deals.'' So you can imagine how interesting it was to learn from 
the New York Times last week that before the decade of greed was even a 
blip on somebody's word processor, Mrs. Clinton had already cleaned up 
and gone home.
  Actually in those days she did not even take her husband's name, 
although they were married. She was Ms. Rodham.
  By the way, if you want a picture of Ms. Rodham in those days, and 
you have seen it many times, look at the pictures of his swearing in as 
Governor in 1978 and you see a Ms. Rodham looking for all the world 
like a young hippie college girl, looking much younger than her years, 
huge glasses, none of the chic clothing that we see now. This is the 
young person, that picture of Hillary Rodham who did not take her 
husband's name until after he had served 2 years, and he was defeated 
in Reagan's glory year, 1980, and they were in the process of making a 
comeback, and that is when she did become Mrs. Clinton. Picture that 
young collegiate looking young woman making $100,000 in the violatile 
commodities market.
  It says, ``According to the Times, back in 1978 Mrs. Clinton 
invested''--surprise. She won't say how much--``in so-called cattle 
futures, with which a buyer agrees to purchase so much of a commodity 
at such-and-such a price in the future. The idea is not necessarily to 
own the commodity but to sell those futures if its market price goes up 
and make a profit.''
  Mrs. Clinton was, in short, a speculator or a quick buck artist, as 
the media would come to refer to such traders during the 1980's.
  To cut to the chase, ``To justify it all by saying that, well, 
Arkansas's ethical standards can't be expected to satisfy those of 
Washington--home of assorted House post office, bank and other 
scandals--only suggests how desperate the situation must really be 
there. Nor can the whole thing be dismissed as friends helping friends. 
Try substituting, say, Nancy Reagan for Hillary Rodham Clinton and 
imagine the reception such explanations would get in Congress and the 
media. That's the standard the Clintons must meet too.''
  Now in this article, and please do not write to me, write to your 
local Congressman, or get a subscription to the New Republic, this 
article by L.J. Davis that was quoted in yesterday's Wall Street 
Journal is entitled, ``The Name of Rose,'' and the subtitle is, ``An 
Arkansas Thriller.'' There is mentioned in this story something that my 
wife, Sally, has been on my case for about 3 months on. As I said last 
week, I have a tendency to underline in red. It comes from my Loyola 
University in Los Angeles where I was taught that underlining slows you 
down, makes you observe something. However, if an article is really 
powerful I end up redlining everything. So I am going through this 
story early on Whitewater about 3 months ago, and I underlined a 
significant line, and it struck me, but it did not sink in the way it 
did when my wife read it. She stopped me as I was reading and said, 
``Why do you underline this line and not tell me about it?'' And the 
line said that Dan Lasater, and that was one of my key candidates to 
play John Dean in this unfolding schedule to tell all, she said, ``Why 
do you read to me Dan Lasater paid off Roger Clinton's drug debts?'' I 
said, ``What do you mean?'' And she said, ``Well, whom do you pay off 
drug debts to? Was this a court case, was this an FBI case?'' And I 
said, no. You have to pay drug debts to mobsters, to thugs.
  We all hope that the Costra Nostra from Sicily, where they are 
murdering Catholic priests this week, does not have its tentacles in 
Little Rock.

                              {time}  2120

  But certainly all drug-running is organized in this country. There is 
an airport I am trying to find out about on the western border of 
Arkansas called Mena, which was infamous for gun-running and drug-
running all during the last two decades, but here in Davis' article 
called ``The Name of Rose'' in the April 4 issue of the New Republic it 
finally says it more succinctly, ``Dan Lassiter was not the largest 
cocaine user in the State of Arkansas.'' This is another personal 
friend of the Clintons who got at the racetrack a box for the late 
Virginia Kelley, the mother of Bill Clinton. That is how Clinton got to 
meet Dan Lassiter was through Virginia Kelley. They became friends at 
the racetrack. He raised racehorses in Florida.
  Roger Clinton went on to work for him. Lassiter was not the largest 
cocaine user in the State of Arkansas, but he was certainly the most 
conspicuous one. A prosperous Little Rock bond dealer, he was an 
acquaintance of the Clinton family, he was a contributor, a big one, as 
a matter of fact, to the Governor's political fortunes.
  Lassiter distinguished himself in other ways also. He served ashtrays 
full of cocaine at parties in his Arkansas mansion, stocked cocaine on 
his corporate jet, a plane used by the Clintons on more than one 
occasion. You have got to assume that the ashtrays of cocaine were 
gone, of course, because you have to give them some benefits of the 
doubt here.
  Later he told the FBI that he distributed cocaine on more than, not 
50 occasions, not 100, not 150, but 180 occasions. ``I shared my 
success in that manner,'' he explained.
  He was also a patron, and I bet I read this in one of the Nation's 
great papers in my county of Orange, the second or third alternately 
with San Diego, largest county in California, the paper that dominates 
my area the Pulitzer Prize-winning Orange County Register; I expect to 
see this in that paper. He, Lassiter, was also a patron of Governor 
Clinton's cocaine-using half-brother Roger. The other half-brother out 
in California has yet to make it to the White House, folks, by the way. 
He is not considered the right social class for the Clintons.
  But the half-brother Roger, was employed at his thoroughbred racing 
stables in Florida and he claims he gave Roger Clinton $8,000 to pay 
off Roger's debts to drug suppliers. Finally, there it is in print. So 
you do not have to assume that it went to court costs.
  By 1985, it was also known that Lassiter was the subject of a police 
investigation that even the most uneducated guess would suggest could 
end in only one year, but that year Governor Clinton deemed Lassiter 
worthy of handling a $30.2 million bond issue, and that is what we 
spent on that cockamamie October Surprise investigation, $30 million, 
to modernize the State police radio system. They must have the greatest 
police radios. This is a State with only four Congressmen, folks, and 
in California we have 52. Thirty million for radios for the police.
  Despite the fact that the expenditure would normally be made by an 
appropriation from the treasury, it went through Lassiter with a huge 
fee. Lassiter was also about to be busted. Nonetheless, Clinton 
vigorously lobbied the legislature.
  He used to do that sitting with a desk and a chair right outside the 
door. He used to come on the floor, and the legislators there passed a 
law banning their own Governor. This is a 12-year Governor over a 14-
year span, and he would sit outside the door and grab these guys and 
then he would hold the door open and watch them through a crack in the 
door as they would vote. It is all on film. Look at these documentaries 
that James Carville put together. He thought it was a compliment.
  Clinton vigorously lobbied the legislature, ignored the wishes of the 
Stevens family, and won the day giving Lassiter and company a handsome, 
brace yourself, folks, $750,000 underwriting fee for those police 
radios, and all of this is according to the Los Angeles Times.
  You see, all of these great outlets, TV, the Times, the Post, New 
York Times, Wall Street Journal, they are all feeding one another now.
  In 1986, Lassiter was sentenced to 2\1/2\ years in prison, with Roger 
Clinton testifying against him at the Lassiter trial, and that is why 
Roger, although he had already been to jail for cocaine, was named an 
unindicted cocon- spirator. There is a little Watergate expression for 
you.
  In 1986, I told you, he goes to prison for 2\1/2\ years. In 1990, he 
received a State pardon from Governor Clinton. The arithmetic there 
does not work out to him spending 4 years in jail, because there was an 
appeal period. I think I read, yes, I just read it, 2\1/2\ years in 
prison, so after the appeal he goes into prison sometime in early 1987, 
and Clinton pardons him after 2\1/2\ years in 1990 when Clinton was 
running for Governor promising to serve out all 4 years and swearing he 
will not run for President.
  Now, listen to this next paragraph, because it is going to mention 
Patsy Thomason, one of those who stripped Vince Foster's office, who 
was in the building today downstairs in one of the Appropriations rooms 
saying she just wished so badly that she could comment on what took 
place in Vince Foster's office, but she will have to accede to the 
wishes of the special counsel, Bob Fiske, which could take 2 years 
before it reaches the public.
  For whatever it is worth, one of the few people to have access to the 
office of Vince Foster during the 3 days it was unsealed following his 
suicide was White House official Patsy Thomason, who managed Dan 
Lassiter's business affairs while he spent that 2\1/2\ years in jail.
  But in the Clinton system, perfected in Little Rock and now being 
practiced in Washington, none of these things should be considered a 
mistake or an aberration.

  Folks, when Clinton banged on the podium and said, ``no'' nine times, 
I thought to myself, ``Why did we say no to him, and what were some of 
the things we said no to?'' Several popped in to my mind right away. I 
called my staff and said, ``Let us come up with nine.'' Everybody had a 
different list of nine.
  I just picked out my favorites to match his ``no'' to the ninth 
power. Here is why we said ``no'' to the ninth power, and I have got a 
list of about 30.
  One. The Clinton $19 billion stimulus plan that was just more phony 
spending around here and would have been another kick in the face to 
that slow recovery out of the recession that really started in March of 
1991 when Bush was spending Marines into the hills of the Kurdish 
country in north Iraq and his ratings were going through 70 percent, 
that is when we were officially out of the recession, but you would 
never have known that to watch the three networks and CNN; hence, 
President Bush was fired.
  The Clinton $17 billion stimulus plan, no, Mr. Clinton.
  The Btu tax, no, Mr. Clinton.
  Putting U.S. Troops under United Nations command, and that is worth 
about nine noes in a row right there.
  No pay raise for military servicemen and women. It was my bill that 
was turned into law to respond with part of restoring that pay raise, 
2.1 percent, pretty humble, and it still keeps the military behind 
their job equivalency in the civilian sector. No to you stopping that 
pay raise. We also won that one.
  Obviously, thinking about the military, homosexuals in the military 
comes right to mind. If you were going to force homosexuals into the 
military, and we had hearings both here and in the Senate and said it 
was a morale buster, then that was a no to you that was supported 
overwhelmingly by the mothers and fathers across this country, 
overwhelmingly by the enlisted men, even by a slight percentage more so 
by the NCO's, and equally with the officer corps across this country in 
all services, universal, No to the 100th power.
  No. 6. Federally funded abortion: a big surprise on this House floor, 
retaining the Hyde amendment for Health and Human Services. Everybody 
thought it was a given, given the Year of the Woman and so many women 
coming to this House with abortion as the No. 1, 2, and 3 items on 
their agenda. No to you trying to dump the Hyde amendment, Mr. Clinton.
  No. 7. No to Mort Halperin, but you brought him back and put him into 
the National Security Council against the will of the U.S. Senate.
  No to Lani Guinier, although my heart goes out to her. This is a hell 
of a way, a heck of a way, to treat a friend.
  8. Allowing Janet Reno to investigate Whitewater. No; no; no, Mr. 
President.
  And ninth, but last, and certainly most important to this series of 9 
yesses to why we said no, and it is most important to the 
entrepreneurial class in this country that creates jobs: No to your 
largest tax increase ever which did not pass the Senate until President 
of the Senate, Vice President Al Gore, came in and broke a 50-50 tie, 
and in this House a lot of news organizations said it was a 2-point 
margin here. No, it was not.

                              {time}  2130

  It was 216 to 214, I believe. Just 1 vote from the other side of the 
aisle--the lady from Pennsylvania--who the President has been trying to 
raise funds for to make it up to her, would have made the difference. 
If she loses, I am sure she will end up an ambassador. She will easily 
qualify. She is a nice lady. She definitely wanted to vote against this 
largest tax increase in history. She was really hammered. She came in 
late from dinner through the doors, they were holding that late vote up 
in May, people were returning from dinners. This Pennsylvania 
congresswoman got hammered, and she was brought in to change her vote. 
If she had not, it would have been 215-215, a tie. It would have been a 
tie, and the tie fails. So it was 1 vote from Pennsylvania and 1 vote 
in the Senate; you cannot get any tighter than that. I have never seen 
it in the 17 years I have been around here. I tried to get the Library 
of Congress to research it. They said, ``Congressman, we will have to 
go back before the Civil War to see if there was ever a vote so close 
it was broken by a tie in each house.'' So that is why out there 
working the stumps, Mr. Clinton has run into a lot of trouble banging 
on the lectern, yelling ``no.''
  Now what I would like to do because there is no way I can read the 
whole Rose affair--the name of the Rose article from the New Republic--
I would like to start in what time I have left and read as much as I 
can of this phenomenal Robert Bartley article. If he did not write it, 
he is the supervisor of the editorial page. But I think he wrote this 
personally, as he has done most of them. It is titled ``O Tempora. O 
Mores.'' Wouldn't the Jesuits be proud of me after 4 years of high 
school Latin that I figured this out, ``Oh, the times, the mores.''
  Now here is Bill Clinton in his acceptance speech at the Democratic 
National Convention quoting only one person, Carol Quigley, the guru 
from Georgetown University, in his speech, stealing words out of the 
mouth of Jesus Christ at Holy Thursday's last supper when he said, ``I 
want a new covenant with the American people.'' Whoa, did that offend 
this former altar boy.
  Clinton says, ``I was raised to believe the American dream was built 
on rewarding hard work, but we have seen the folks in Washington turn 
the American ethic on its head. For too long those who play by the 
rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft and those who cut 
corners and cut deals have been rewarded.'' I have got to repeat that 
last line, ``Those who cut corners, cut deals, have been rewarded.'' It 
sounds like Ms. Hillary on May 1 at a college graduation.
  Then the Wall Street Journal quotes Cicero, and it says, ``The latest 
round of Whitewater news reports shows two things that anyone trying to 
comprehend this story has to understand. First, it wasn't only 
Whitewater. The Clintons were involved in at least one other fast-buck 
deal with other corporate interests heavily dependent upon regulation. 
Secondly, it wasn't only Arkansas; the confusing long-ago arcana from 
Arkansas's political backwaters are relevant because there are now 
signs that the same practices, the same interests, the same mores are 
spreading throughout the Washington bureaucracy.''
  One point here, going back to my special orders of September: I took 
the time to do what nobody in the whole Bush campaign did, and that is 
to study what happened in Arkansas. I know Arkansas is a good state. I 
have gone through there in Air Force aircraft across counties, I have 
driven through the State on highway 40 and talked to the people and 
dined in many of their restaurants that are no different than any other 
part of the country. It has its beautiful parts up in the northwest; it 
has its rough places with all the beat-up cars strewn around. But 
Arkansas people are hard-working, good people. It is a good State.
  I cringed a little bit when Saturday Night Live was having fun with 
it, ``Look out, Mississippi, here we come.'' That was the same Phil 
Hartman who is just devastatingly funny on this whole Whitewater thing.
  I tried to figure out what Clinton's experience was with the 
opposition party. So I asked, ``What was the highwater mark of the 
Republicans in the Senate of the State of Arkansas and the House of 
Representatives there?'' I was shocked with what I found.
  By the way, right now, 1994, it is a highwater mark; four congressmen 
come to this Chamber from Arkansas, and for the first time, we have an 
even split, two excellent congressmen on that side and two excellent 
congressmen on this side. One of them on that side, Ray Thornton, was a 
former president of one of the great universities down there after he 
was a classmate of mine in '76, the class of '76; Gore, Quayle, Walker, 
Gephardt, Dornan and Thornton. That is one of the two Democrats.
  On this side, two dynamic freshmen, Jay Dickey and Tim Hutchinson. 
Tim's brother is head of the Republican Party in Arkansas.
  So we have two for two. That has never happened since the Civil War. 
I mean two--yes, two by two out of four. Now, keep in mind that 
California has 80 assemblymen and 40 senators. So I called down there 
to the Republican Clerk of the house and said, ``How many State 
senators do you have in Arkansas?'' 35. Four congressmen to our 52, but 
just 5 shy of 40 senators. I said how many are Republicans?'' I think 
she said three or four. Three was the highest that Clinton ever had 
down there. Now there are five. That is a historical record since the 
Civil War.

  I said, ``How many in you other house, the House of Representatives 
down there?'' She said, ``We have 100.'' That is 20 more than 
California.
  How many of the 100 are Republicans? Seven, 7 Republicans out of 100, 
and 3 out of a senate of 35. That is all Bill, Governor Clinton, had to 
deal with in Arkansas. Hence my term in those special orders that he 
had a toy that he played with. It was an oligarchy down there.
  By the way, the House of Representatives down there now has 10 
Republicans. I said five in the senate. So those 15 out of 135 is an 
all-time high since the Civil War.
  Now listen to this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, items, and then the deadly quote I 
have already read. Hillary Clinton, it turns out, pocketed $100,000 
playing commodity futures between October 1978 and October 1979. That 
second year, Bill Clinton was the attorney general in the State of 
Arkansas. Now, let us see: Born in '46, '56, '76, so he is not in his 
early 30's and he is attorney general--excuse me, he is already the 
Governor. He got elected in '78 and lost in '80. He was attorney 
general in '76, when he was only 30 years old. So he is a 32-year-old 
Governor, youngest in the country, and his young wife, Ms. Rodham, not 
Mrs. Clinton, knocks off a cool $100,000 playing the commodity futures 
with James B. Blair, the powerhouse attorney for the food giant Tyson's 
Foods, Inc., looking over her shoulder, guiding her. In the New York 
Times team report written by Jeff Gerth, Mr. Blair says Mrs. Clinton 
decided the size of the trade, and then ``we at Tyson's discussed 
whether she ought to be long or short.'' Mrs. Clinton's attorney said 
it was her own money at risk. And some of her Administration 
defenders--she would be 31 year old--said that in playing commodities 
she studied up on financial data--she is smart--including reading the 
Wall Street Journal. Thanks for the endorsement, the Journal says, but 
``we wouldn't advise it to other commodities amateurs.'' Financial 
cynics would like to know more about the trades and the market prices 
at the time, more about the accounts in 1978 and '79, both hers and Mr. 
Blair's of Tyson's. Their principal broker went bankrupt. But that 
bankrupt broker says Mr. Blair left happy. And I guess so did Hillary 
Clinton.
  By the way, when Bill Clinton was asked about this this week, by 
Knight-Ridder reporters in the White House a few days ago, do you know 
what he did? He turned red in the face, volcanically red--that is all 
right, he has a fair skin complexion, as I do, easy to turn red--but 
then he got up, walked past his guests in the Oval Office, the Knight-
Ridder group of reporters, and stood behind the desk, the presidential 
desk, with his back turned to them until they were escorted from the 
room because they dared to ask him to release his 1040 IRS forms for 
'78 and '79.

                              {time}  2140

  Those are blank years. The Clintons have never released them. That is 
how sensitive he is.
  By the way, before he passed them and refused to shake hands it is 
said he railed to the press again. This is becoming quite common for 
him to talk about the left-leaning press that has done nothing for him. 
Wow. Except elect him President, at least partially.
  The years for which the Clinton tax returns have never been 
released--here is the whole story.
  Correspondents from Knight-Ridder newspapers asked the President 
about this in his March 12 interview 10 days ago, provoking a tirade 
against the press. Mr. Clinton's face reddened in anger, and then he 
abruptly ended the interview, strode past his visitors without shaking 
hands, and stood behind his Oval Office desk until they were escorted 
out. I guess we can expect to see that on Saturday Night Live next 
Saturday unless they are in reruns.
  Item No. 2:

       Tyson also figures in a new SEC investigation, reported 
     Friday by the Journal's Bruce Ingersoll and Michael K. 
     Frisby. The agency is looking into suspicious 1992 trading in 
     the stock of Arctic Alaska Fisheries Crop. Just before the 
     announcement that it was being acquired by Tyson. Several 
     Arkansas investors are under study, including Phoenix Group 
     Inc.; the president of Phoenix was Patsy Thomasson,

right here in the this capital today, ``now director of the White House 
Office of Administration, former associate of drug convict Dan 
Lasater,'' and remember she took care of all of his books for 2\1/2\ 
years.
  More tomorrow night.

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 26, 1992]

   Review & Outlook--Oh the Times! Oh the Mores! O Tempora! O Mores!

       I was raised to believe the American dream was built on 
     rewarding hard work. But we have seen the folks in Washington 
     turn the American ethic on its head. For too long, those who 
     play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft. 
     And those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded.--
     Bill Clinton, in his acceptance speech at the Democratic 
     National Convention, August 16, 1992.
       Oh the times! The mores!--Cicero, First Century B.C.
       The latest round of Whitewater news reports shows two 
     things that anyone trying to comprehend this story has to 
     understand. First, it wasn't only Whitewater; the Clintons 
     were involved in at least one other fast-buck deal with other 
     corporate interests heavily dependent on regulation. Second, 
     it wasn't only Arkansas. The confusing, long-ago arcana from 
     Arkansas's political backwaters are relevant because there 
     are now signs that the same practices and same interests--the 
     same mores--are spreading through the Washington bureaucracy.
       Hillary Clinton, it turns out, pocketed $100,000 playing 
     commodity futures between October 1978 and October 1979, with 
     James B. Blair, the powerhouse attorney for food giant Tyson 
     Foods Inc., looking over her shoulder. In a New York Times 
     team report written by Jeff Gerth, Mr. Blair said Mrs. 
     Clinton decided the size of the trade and ``We discussed 
     whether she ought to be long or short.''
       Mrs. Clinton's attorney says it was her own money at risk, 
     and some of her administration defenders said that in playing 
     commodities she studied up on financial data, including 
     reading The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for the endorsement, 
     but we wouldn't advise it to other commodities amateurs. 
     Financial cynics would like to know more about the trades, 
     and the market prices at the time, and about the accounts, 
     both hers and Mr. Blair's. Their principal broker went 
     bankrupt, but says that Mr. Blair ``left happy.''
       Mrs. Clinton's commodity streak started just before Bill 
     Clinton's election as Governor of Arkansas, and just as he 
     completed his term as attorney general. The N.Y. Times story 
     recounts a series of regulatory decisions that favored the 
     Tyson operations, as well as the appointment of Tyson 
     executives to state posts, plus some allegations of Tyson 
     benefits under the Clinton Presidency. A Tyson spokesman says 
     it only took advantage of normal state industrial development 
     programs, and ``There is absolutely no evidence that the Jim 
     Blair's relationship with Bill or Hillary Clinton had any 
     impact on our treatment.''
       Mr. Blair and his wife, our Mr. Ingersoll reported last 
     week, slept at the White House the night of the Clinton 
     inaugural. He also reported on a controversy about sanitary 
     requirements. The Department of Agriculture has imposed on 
     meatpackers a ``zero total.''
       We would also be curious about whatever other money Mrs. 
     Clinton made in 1978 and 1979, years for which the Clinton 
     tax returns have never been released. Correspondents for the 
     Knight-Ridder newspapers asked the president about this in a 
     March 12 interview, and provoked a tirade against the press. 
     ``Mr. Clinton's face reddened in anger,'' they reported, and 
     he ``abruptly ended the interview, strode past his visitors 
     without shaking hands and stood behind his Oval Office desk 
     until they were escorted out.''
       Tyson also figures in a new SEC investigation, reported 
     Friday by the Journal's Bruce Ingersoll and Michael K. 
     Frisby. The agency is looking into suspicious 1992 trading in 
     the stock of Arctic Alaska Fisheries Corp. just before the 
     announcement that it was being acquired by Tyson. Several 
     Arkansas investors are under study, including Phoenix Group 
     Inc.; the president of Phoenix was Patsy Thomasson, new 
     director of the White House Office of Administration, former 
     associate of drug convict Dan Laster in a company that 
     preceded Phoenix, visitor to Vincent Foster's office the 
     night of his death and point-person in the controversy over 
     White House passes and security clearances. She issued a 
     statement saying she had nothing to do with trades in Arctic. 
     A similar denial was issued by Associate White House Counsel 
     William Kennedy III, who has a relative under investigation 
     in the Arctic deal.
       Since we've been known to express doubts on the merits of 
     environmental and sanitary regulations, let us detail another 
     matter only briefly touched on in N.Y. Times stories. The 
     Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal commission, 
     issued an order last spring divvying up the $100-million-a-
     year whiting catch off Oregon, Washington and California. The 
     big argument is always over how much can be taken by large 
     factory-trawler operations and how much by mom-and-pop shore-
     based fishermen.
       The spring ruling gave 63% of the catch to the on-shore 
     operations. The council's decisions must be ratified by the 
     Commerce Department but normally that's just a formality. On 
     those rare occasions when Commerce has disagreed with a local 
     decision, it has sent the issue back for reconsideration by 
     the fishing council. Not this time. When the Federal Register 
     appeared on April 15, 1993, fishermen were shocked to 
     discover that factory trawlers had been allocated 70% of the 
     whiting catch.
       The largest operator of factory trawlers is Arctic Alaska 
     Fisheries Corp., owned by Tyson (see above).
       There have been the usual denials. Douglas Hall, head of 
     the National Marine Fisheries Service, says the trawler take 
     was in line with historical norms, and says that the decision 
     was made in his office, not by Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. 
     Rep. Elizabeth Furse, an Oregon Democrat, called for hearings 
     on the issue, but was rebuffed by the Congressional 
     leadership. * * *
       Tyson's legal work has long been handled, predictably, by 
     the Rose Law Firm, which brings us to the final citation in 
     the new crop, the current New Republic cover, ``The Poisoned 
     Rose.'' L.J. Davis's superlative account is must reading, 
     above all for those who are confused by all the excitement 
     about a two-bit land deal in the Ozarks. What Mr. Davis 
     understands is that the Rose Law Firm, for all of its color, 
     is fundamentally an appendage of the Stephens interests, 
     which use Arkansas as home base for a world-spanning 
     financial empire. It financed Tyson and other successful 
     Arkansas businesses, in addition to handing ``the brokerage'' 
     when front men for BCCI bought into First American Bank and 
     installed Clark Clifford to run it.
       Arkansas, Mr. Davis writes, ``bears a close resemblance to 
     a Third World country, with a ruling oligarchy, a small and 
     relatively powerless middle class and a disfranchised, 
     leaderless populace.'' This kind of civic culture, we see in 
     many actual Third World countries, is likely to produce a 
     spoils-to-the-victor, above-the-law approach to government. 
     That is to say, the kind of careless arrogance we have seen 
     in the handling of Whitewater, in the White House passes, in 
     Webb Hubbell's law firm billings, in travelgate, in 
     intervention into an ongoing corruption trial, in the 
     handling of Mr. Foster's death and in the handling of various 
     individuals including Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Lani Guinier, 
     Bobby Inman and Chris Emery, a White House usher dismissed 
     over phone conversations with Barbara Bush with no warning 
     and less than a week's notice.
       Whitewater is not merely about a land deal, it is about all 
     of these things, and about the place they are bidding to 
     assume in Washington, which God knows is guilty of enough 
     sins of its own. Above all it is about hypocrisy. Say that 
     one after another the explanations are innocent. Hillary was 
     lucky in commodities and unlucky in land speculation. Jim 
     Blair and Patsy Thomasson are just friends; James and Susan 
     McDougal and David Hale and Dan Lasater are just former 
     friends. Lay aside all suspicions and accept every cover 
     story. We are now supposed to believe Bill Clinton was 
     elected president to reform the sins of the high-flying 
     1980s?
                                  ____

       Steve Kroft, host:
       Are you prepared tonight to say that you've never had an 
     extramarital affair?
       Governor Bill Clinton: I'm not prepared tonight to say that 
     any married couple should ever discuss that with anyone but 
     themselves and lawyers like us during divorce court battles.
       Kroft: I'm Steve Kroft, and this is a special abbreviated 
     edition of 60 Minutes. Tonight Democratic presidential 
     hopeful Governor Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary talk about 
     their life, their marriage and the allegations that have all 
     but stalled his presidential campaign.
       Steve Kroft, host:
       It's been quite a week for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. 
     On Monday his picture was on the cover of Time magazine, 
     anointed by the press as the front-runner for the Democratic 
     presidential nomination. Six days later, he's trying to 
     salvage his campaign. His problem: Long rumored allegations 
     of marital infidelity finally surfaced in a supermarket 
     tabloid. And last week they were picked up and reprinted, 
     unsubstantiated, by the mainstream press. Since then, for 
     better or for worse, Governor Clinton's private life has 
     become the overriding issue in the Democratic presidential 
     campaign. Earlier today, Governor Clinton and his wife, 
     Hillary, sat down with me to try to put the issue to rest. 
     Keep in mind, as we said earlier, all of the allegations are 
     unsubstantiated, all have been denied by everyone involved, 
     except for the case of Jennifer Flowers. A former television 
     reporter and cabaret singer, Jennifer Flowers, in a tabloid 
     interview for which she was paid, says she carried on a long-
     term affair with Governor Clinton from the late 1970s to the 
     end of 1989.
       Who is Jennifer Flowers? You know her.
       Governor Bill Clinton: Oh, yes.
       Kroft: How do you know her? How would you describe your 
     relationship?
       B. Clinton: Very limited, but until this, you know, 
     friendly, but limited. I have--I met her in the late '70s 
     when I was attorney general. She was one of a number of young 
     people who were working for the television stations around 
     Little Rock. And people in politics and the people in the 
     media knew each other then, just as they do now. She left our 
     state, and for years I didn't really hear from her or know 
     what she was doing. Then she came back--I don't know--some 
     time a few years ago and went to work again in the state. So 
     that's how--that's who she is.
       Kroft: Was she a friend, an acquaintance? Did your wife 
     know her?
       B. Clinton: Yes.
       Hillary Clinton: Oh, sure.
       B. Clinton: She was an acquaintance. I would say ``a 
     friendly acquaintance.''
       H. Clinton: ``Mm-hmm.''
       B. Clinton: When this story--this rumor story got started 
     in the middle of 1980 and she was contacted and told about 
     it, she was so upset, and she called back, she said, `How 
     could I be listed on this. I haven't seen you for more than 
     10 minutes in 10 years.' She would call from time to time 
     when she was upset or thought she was really in--being hurt 
     by the rumors. And I would call her back--either she would 
     call the office or I would call her back there at the office 
     or I would call her back at the house, and Hillary knew when 
     I was calling her back. I think once I called her when we 
     were together. And so there's nothing out of the ordinary 
     there.
       Kroft: She's alleging and has described in some detail in 
     the supermarket tabloid what she calls 1 12-year affair with 
     you.
       B. Clinton: It--that allegation is false.
       H. Clinton: When this woman first got caught up in these 
     charges, I felt as I felt about all of these women, that, you 
     know, they've just been minding their own business, and they 
     got hit by a meteor. I mean, it was no fault of their own. We 
     reached out to them. I met with two of them to reassure them. 
     They were friends of ours. I felt terrible about what was 
     happening to them. You know, Bill talked to this woman every 
     time she called distraught, saying her life was going to be 
     ruined. And, you know, he'd get off the phone and tell me 
     that she said sort of whacky things which we thought were 
     attributable to the fact that she was terrified.
       B. Clinton: It was only when money came out, wh--when the 
     tabloid went down there offering people money to say that 
     they had been involved with me that she changed her story. 
     There is a recession on. Times are tough, and--and I think 
     you can expect more and more of these stories as long as 
     they're down there handing out money.
       Kroft: I'm assuming from your answer that you're 
     categorically denying that you ever had an affair with 
     Jennifer Flowers.
       B. Clinton: I've said that before and so has she.
       Kroft: You've said that your marriage has had problems, 
     that you've had difficulties. What do you mean by that? What 
     does that mean? Is that some kind of--help us break the code. 
     I mean, does that mean . . .
       B. Clinton: I don't me . . .
       Kroft: . . . you were separated? Does that mean that you 
     had communication problems? Does that mean you contemplated 
     divorce? Does it mean adultery?
       B. Clinton: I think the American people, at least people 
     that have been married for a long time, know what it means 
     and know the whole range of things that it can mean.
       Kroft: You've been saying all week that you've got to put 
     this issue behind you. Are you prepared tonight to say that 
     you've never had an extramarital affair?
       B. Clinton: I'm not prepared tonight to say that any 
     married couple should ever discuss that with anyone but 
     themselves. I'm not prepared to say that about anybody. I 
     think that the issue . . .
       Kroft: Governor, that's what--excuse me. That's what you've 
     been saying, essentially, for the last . . .
       B. Clinton: But that's what I believe.
       Kroft: . . .couple of months.
       B. Clinton: Look Steve, you go back and listen to what I've 
     said. You know, I have acknowledged wrongdoing, I have 
     acknowledge causing pain in my marriage. I have said things 
     to you tonight and to the American people from the beginning 
     that no American politician ever has. I think most Americans 
     who are watching this tonight, they'll know what we're 
     saying, they'll get it, and they'll feel that we have been 
     more candid. And I think what the press has to decide is: Are 
     we going to engage in a game of gotcha? You know, I can 
     remember a time--and it was sad--when a divorced person 
     couldn't run for president. And that time, thank goodness, 
     has passed. Nobody's prejudiced against anybody because 
     they're divorced. Are we going to take the reverse position 
     now--that if people have problems in their marriage or things 
     in their past which they don't want to discuss, which are 
     painful to them, that they can't run?
       Kroft: You're trying to put this issue behind you. And the 
     problem with the answer is it's not a denial. And people are 
     sitting out there--voters--and they're saying, ``Look, it's 
     really pretty simple. If he has never had an extramarital 
     affair, why doesn't he say so?''
       B. Clinton: That may be what they're saying. Your know what 
     I think they're saying? I think they're saying, ``Here's a 
     guy who's leveling with us.'' You--you may think that--that 
     we should say more, and you can keep asking the questions. 
     but I'm telling you I think that we've to--I'll come back to 
     what I said. I have told the American people more than any 
     other candidate for president. The re--the result of that has 
     been everybody going to my state and spending more time 
     trying to play gotcha.
       H. Clinton: There isn't a person watching this who would 
     feel comfortable sitting on this couch detailing everything 
     that ever went on in their life or their marriage. And I 
     think it's real dangerous in this country if we don't have 
     some zone of privacy for everybody. I mean, I think that is 
     absolutely critical.
       Kroft: I--I--I couldn't agree with you more, and I think--
     and I agree with you that everyone wants to put this behind 
     you. And the reason it hasn't gone away is that your answer 
     is not a denial, is it?
       B. Clinton: But interesting--let's assume. . .
       Kroft: It's not a denial.
       B. Clinton: Of course, it's not. And let's take it from 
     your point of view. If--that won't make it go away. You know, 
     you can cut this round or cut this flat. I mean, if you deny, 
     then you have a whole other hoard of people going down there 
     offering more money trying to prove that you lied. And if you 
     say yes, you have just what I've already said by being open 
     and telling you that we've had problems. You have, oh, good, 
     now we can play gotcha and find out who it is. Now no matter 
     what I say to pretend that the press will then let this die, 
     we're kidding ourselves. I mean, you know, this has become a 
     virtual cottage industry. The only way to put it behind us, I 
     think, is for all of us to agree that this guy has told us 
     about all we need to know. Anybody's who's listening gets the 
     drift of it. And let's go on and get back to the real 
     problems of this country. ``The problems are about what's 
     going to happen to families in New Hampshire and the rest of 
     this country in the future, not what happened to mine in the 
     past.''
       Kroft: I don't like some of these questions any better than 
     you do, but the question of marital infidelity is an issue 
     with a sizable portion of the electorate. According to the 
     latest CBS News poll, which was just taken over the weekend, 
     14 percent of the registered voters in America say they 
     wouldn't vote for a candidate who's had an affair.
       B. Clinton: I know it's an issue. And--and--but what does 
     that mean? That means 86% percent of the American people 
     either don't think it's relevant to presidential performance 
     or look at whether a person looking at all the facts is the 
     best person to serve.
       H. Clinton: We've gone further than anybody we know of, and 
     that's all we're going to say. And people can ask us 100 
     different ways in--from 100 different directions, and we're 
     just going to leave the ultimate decision up to the American 
     people.
       Kroft: I think most Americans would agree that it's 
     admirable that you had--have stayed together, that you've 
     worked your problems out, that you seem to have reached some 
     sort of an understanding and an arrangement.
       B. Clinton: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
       Kroft: But . . .
       B. Clinton: Wait a minute. You're looking at two people who 
     love each other. this is not an arrangement or an 
     understanding. This is a marriage. That's a very different 
     thing.
       H. Clinton: You know I'm not sitting here some little woman 
     standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here 
     because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he's 
     been through and what we've been through together. And, you 
     know, if that's not enough for people, then, heck, don't vote 
     for him.
       Kroft: A good friend of yours, one of your campaign 
     advisers, told us the other day, ``Bill Clinton has got to 
     level with the American people tonight, otherwise, his 
     candidacy is dead.'' You feel like you've leveled with the 
     American people?
       B. Clinton: I have absolutely leveled with the American 
     people.
       H. Clinton: We are going to do the best we can to level 
     with people and then we're going to let them make up their 
     minds, because I think if the American people get a chance 
     and if they're trusted to exercise their vote right because 
     people talk to them about real issues, this country will be 
     OK. That's what we're betting on, and we're just going to 
     roll the dice and see what happens.
       Kroft: Your called it a gamble. You came here tonight to 
     try and put it behind you. You're going to get on the plane 
     when you walk out of this room and go back to New Hampshire. 
     Do you think you've succeeded?
       B. Clinton: That's up to the American people and, to some 
     extent, up to the press. This will test the character of the 
     press. It is not only my character that has been tested.
       Kroft: I'm Steve Kroft. We'll be back next Sunday at our 
     regular time with a complete edition of ``60 Minutes'', 
     including Ed Bradley with Anita Hill, her first interview 
     since the Clarence Thomas hearings. Now ``48 Hours.''

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