[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 108 (Monday, August 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           KENNETH STARR'S APPOINTMENT AS INDEPENDENT COUNSEL

  (Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned with Kenneth Starr's 
appointment. I am concerned that he is much too partisan a Republican 
to do an impartial job. I am most concerned, however, with the way in 
which he was selected. I was amazed to learn that the independent 
three-judge court which removed Republican independent counsel Robert 
Fiske on Friday after he had completed the Washington phase of his 
investigation and replaced him with a Reagan/Bush partisan had itself 
been contacted ex parte by a group of Senate and House Republican 
Members. This highly unusual and potentially inappropriate lobbying of 
Federal appeals court judges for partisan purposes casts a cloud over 
the judicial process by which Mr. Starr was selected. Mr. Speaker, we 
need to know who else wrote or called these judges and whether other 
nonpublic contacts have tainted the objectivity and judicial 
impartiality that these judges are supposed to maintain.
  The independent counsel law was designed to instill public confidence 
in the investigative process, but that cannot happen if Federal judges 
are playing politics with appointments under this statute. If, like the 
famous Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance double play combination--Judge 
Sentelle received the toss from his Senate and House Republican 
sponsors to put Starr in play, then we need to reexamine this choice.

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