[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            INDEPENDENT COUNSEL LAWS: THE UPS AND THE DOWNS

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans had a 
dilemma. For years they were trying to keep the independent counsel law 
from being authorized, but the political pressure became too strong. 
Now we know what their strategy is: It is to make it look ridiculous by 
their own actions. Look at what has happened with regard to the 
Whitewater issue:
  First, the Republicans insisted that Janet Reno's--well, first, the 
Republicans killed the independent counsel law in 1992. Then they 
insisted that Janet Reno appoint someone, even though the law was 
killed. Then they criticized her because she did the appointment and 
did not have it done by the mechanism that they had killed. Then they 
got a Republican judge to appoint as an independent counsel a high-
ranking official of the Bush and Reagan administrations, Mr. Starr, who 
is the most inappropriate independent counsel ever appointed, from the 
standpoint of bias.
  Now it turns out that while conservative Republicans were crusading 
against fellow Republican, Mr. Fiske, the judge who was making the 
appointment was having lunch with the U.S. Senators who were the major 
critics and were urging him to change the appointment.
  Now, Republican friends have said in the Whitewater case maybe the 
President did not do anything wrong, but the appearance standard was 
violated. Nobody has violated the appearance standard more than they 
have done in this instance.

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