[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 148 (Wednesday, November 30, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: November 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
WHITEWATER QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED
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HON. DAN BURTON
of indiana
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, November 29, 1994
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, during this past year I have
given numerous speeches on the House floor this year regarding
Whitewater and a number of related topics. We are ending this session
of Congress with many troubling questions about Whitewater still left
unanswered. I think that this is one of the biggest failures of the
103rd Congress.
When the 104th Congress convenes in January, Whitewater hearings will
certainly be high on the agenda. For the benefit of my colleagues who
will be participating in these hearings, I thought it would be helpful
to summarize the concerns that I have expressed throughout this year. I
believe that a majority of the American people want to put Whitewater
behind us, but only after all questions are answered and all persons
involved are held accountable for their actions.
death of white house deputy counsel vincent foster, jr.
Vincent Foster left his White House office at 1:00 p.m. on July 20,
1993. He was found dead late that afternoon by the confidential witness
(CW) at Fort Marcy Park in Fairfax County, Virginia. The Fiske report,
released on June 30, 1994, concluded that Mr. Foster committed suicide,
and did so at Fort Marcy Park. However, CW has contradicted many key
statements in the report. This summer I obtained a sworn statement from
CW regarding Vince Foster's death.
CW said that when he discovered Mr. Foster's body, Mr. Foster's hands
were at his side, palms up, with no gun in either hand. The Fiske
report quoted CW as saying that there may have been a gun in Mr.
Foster's hand which he did not see due to dense foliage at the site.
They suggested to him that if the trigger guard had been around one
finger, and the gun underneath his hand, that CW might not have noticed
it. After being pressed, CW said that if that were the case, he might
not have seen the gun, but the palms were definitely up. The FBI agents
refused to show CW the photo of Foster's hand. When I showed CW the
photo of Foster's hand. When I showed CW the ABC News photo of Mr.
Foster's hand with the thumb trapped in the trigger guard, CW reacted
very strongly, saying this is definitely not what he saw. If CW is
correct, then someone move Mr. Foster's head between the time CW left
the scene and the police and the paramedics arrived.
The Fiske report said that Mr. Foster's head was upright, but it had
been moved earlier as evidenced by bloodstains on Mr. Foster's right
cheek and shoulder that are inconsistent with the upright position of
the head. CW, who was first on the scene, made it very clear to me that
Mr. Foster's head was in an upright position when he saw it, and that
there was no blood stain on the cheek. Clearly, someone moved Mr.
Foster's head after CW left. The Fiske report failed to identify who
moved the head.
CW also said that he saw a wine cooler bottle adjacent to Mr.
Foster's body. He said that this bottle matched the half-empty wine
cooler four-pack that was in the white Honda automobile in the parking
lot of the park. The Fiske report is silent on the wine cooler bottle.
I am further troubled by several other unanswered questions. The FBI
never found the bullet that killed Vince Foster at the park, nor were
any skull fragments ever found at the scene. The Fiske report said that
no fingerprints were found on Foster's .38 caliber Colt revolver. No
dirt or grass was found on Foster's shoes. Carpet and hair fibers found
on Foster's clothing were not analyzed as to their origin. The security
guards stationed outside of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador's residence
directly across Chain Bridge Road from the park never heard a shot.
The Fiske report contained a great deal of material (over 70 pages in
all) on the credentials of the four pathologists who reviewed the
physical evidence surrounding Vince Foster's death. Yet they never
actually examined his body. Their findings were wholly reliant on the
autopsy conducted by Dr. James Beyer, the Fairfax County Coroner. He
said that Foster's death was ``consistent with a self-inflicted
wound.''
Dr. Beyer has been challenged in the past for conducting flawed and
erroneous autopsies. According to the Washington Times, Dr. Beyer
overlooked critical evidence in the 1989 Timothy Easley stabbing and
supported a police finding that the death was a suicide. The death was
later ruled a homicide after an outside expert noted glaring errors in
Dr. Beyer's report. These errors included missing a self-defense wound
on the victim's hand and getting the color of his hair wrong. Mr.
Easley's girlfriend later confessed to the murder.
In December 1991 Dr. Beyer ruled that the death of Thomas Burkett,
Jr. was a suicide. The body was later exhumed and a second autopsy
detailed numerous serious omissions in Dr. Beyer's report. These
omissions included a fractured lower jaw and, according to the New York
Post, a bloody and disfigured ear, indicating a struggle.
So many questions remain unanswered that it is very clear that the
investigation into Mr. Foster's death needs to be reopened.
THE SEARCHES OF VINCENT FOSTER'S OFFICE
White House Chief of Staff Thomas ``Mack'' McLarty ordered Vince
Foster's office sealed after learning of his death. However, the office
remained unlocked overnight and was not sealed until 11:00 a.m. the
next day, when a guard was posted at the door. Despite the order to
seal the office, within the first few hours after Vince Foster's body
was found, White House officials removed records of business deals
between the President, Mrs. Clinton, and the Whitewater Development
Corporation, without telling the Federal authorities who were
investigating his death. The officials removing files from the office
were White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, Special Assistant to the
President Patsy Thomasson, and Mrs. Clinton's Chief of Staff, Margaret
Williams.
On July 22, 1993, Mr. Nussbaum and White House officials searched Mr.
Foster's office a second time. Citing executive privilege, they kept
the Park Police and FBI agents from entering the office. The Park
Police later discovered that Whitewater records had been removed from
the office.
On July 27, 1993, White House officials revealed that on July 26,
they found a note, supposedly written by Vince Foster, in the bottom of
the briefcase which was in the office. The note was torn into 27
pieces, and there were no fingerprints on the note. The Fiske report
said that reason for the lack of fingerprints on Foster's gun was
because of the heat and humidity that day. This begs the question as to
the reason for the lack of fingerprints on the note. In addition, two
previous searches of the briefcase failed to turn up any note.
CLINTON TIES TO CONVICTED COCAINE DISTRIBUTOR
Both Patsy Thomasson, who is responsible for the administration of
the White House, and President Clinton have been linked to Dan Lasater,
who was convicted in 1986 of cocaine distribution. Lasater's Little
Rock, AR brokerage (Lasater and Company) was awarded lucrative
contracts to underwrite bond sales for the State. These contracts may
or may not have been related to the fact that Lasater was a friend of
the Clintons and a large political donor. He lent money to Roger
Clinton, Bill Clinton's half-brother, to help him pay off his drug
debt, and also gave him a job, according to Newsweek.
In the early 1980s Ms. Thomasson joined Lasater's company and quickly
rose to become a key assistant. When Dan Lasater served his sentence
for cocaine distribution, she ran the company and received Mr.
Lasater's power of attorney. Prior to Dan Lasater's conviction, Mr.
Dennis Patrick from eastern Kentucky was persuaded by a long-time
friend to open an account at Lasater and Company. Over $107 million was
traded in his name without his knowledge. When Mr. Patrick raised
questions about the huge amount of money flowing through his account,
there were three attempts made on his life. We need to find out if Ms.
Thomasson knew that these illegal trades were taking place.
The Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) steered a great
deal of state bond underwriting business to Lasater and Company. Then-
Governor Bill Clinton created ADFA to provide economic development
loans to small businesses in Arkansas. In December 1988 ADFA deposited
$50 million in a bank in the Cayman Islands. I do not see how
depositing this money in the Cayman Islands would have benefited small
businesses in Arkansas, since Arkansas banks offered competitive
interest rates. Given Dan Lasater's drug involvement, I believe that
some very serious questions need to be raised about why the State of
Arkansas was sending its money to an offshore bank in a country
identified by the State Department as a drug money laundering haven.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, a joint Federal/State
investigation of Dan Lasater's drug activities was called off for
political reasons. Eventually Lasater was convicted of possession and
distribution of cocaine. He served 10 months of a 30 month prison
sentence, but did not spend one day in prison. He was later pardoned by
then-Governor Clinton. Congress and the American people need to know
whether or not Ms. Thomasson was aware of Lasater's drug use and
whether or not then-Governor Clinton was aware of this when the State
bond contracts were awarded to Lasater and Company, and the American
people deserve to know why Bill Clinton would pardon a convicted drug
distributor who made substantial contributions to his campaign.
There was also another case similar to that of Mr. Dennis Patrick.
Lasater and Company traded Treasury futures for First American Savings
and Loan of Oak Brook, Ill. First American lost $361,000 of depositors'
money through these trades, which First American's head claimed were
traded without their permission.
First American was seized by Federal regulators in 1986. The
regulators pursued a pending lawsuit that First American had filed
against Lasater. The Rose Law Firm handled this suit on behalf of the
Federal Government, and superlawyer Hillary Clinton and Vincent Foster
worked on this case. The suit, which was originally for 3.3 million,
was settled for $200,000. It was a serious conflict of interest for
Hillary Clinton to be handling this lawsuit. Dan Lasater, who was the
primary target of the lawsuit, was a personal friend and supporter of
her husband. One certainly has to wonder how hard Hillary worked to
obtain as much money as possible from Mr. Lasater.
questionable loans to Clinton while he was governor
According to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the
Associated Press (AP), then-Governor Clinton borrowed between $220,000
and $400,000 in the mid-1980s to promote his legislative agenda as
Governor of Arkansas. White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said
that the money was used for travel and legislation-related events. The
White House has said that most of the money to repay these loans came
from individual donors who were not connected with corporate interests.
However, AP has reported that Tyson Foods, Inc. and TCBY Enterprises,
Inc. were among the donors.
We need to know specifically what the loans were used for, who the
donors were, and whether or not any of the donors received special
favors from the Legislature or from then-Governor Clinton. I wrote to
the President on July 14, 1994, asking for answers to these and other
questions that have been raised in response to the press reports. To
date I have received no response.
criminal probes in whitewater pigeonholed
President Clinton appointed Paula Casey as United States Attorney for
the Eastern District of Arkansas (Little Rock). She had worked on the
Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992, and her husband was appointed to a state
job in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor.
A criminal referral from Jean Lewis, a Resolution Trust Corporation
(RTC) investigator who investigated the failed Madison Guaranty Savings
and Loan, was on Paula Casey's desk waiting for action when she became
U.S. Attorney. This referral, which was made in September of 1992,
stated that over $100,000 in Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan funds
were illegally funneled into the Whitewater Development Corporation to
pay the company's bills. President Clinton and his wife were two of the
four principal investors in Whitewater. Ms. Lewis identified at least a
dozen companies that siphoned Madison funds to Whitewater. The Clintons
were identified as ``potential beneficiaries'' of this scheme.
In September of 1993, Jean Lewis at the RTC filed a second criminal
referral charging that Madison had illegally diverted $60,500 to
Clinton's 1984 gubernatorial campaign. Her referral charged that the
campaign was an alleged participant in the illegal conspiracy. The
referral also contained additional information on the relationship
between Madison and Whitewater Development Corporation.
In October of 1993, Paula Casey formally declined to investigate the
first criminal referral. After the second criminal referral had been
reported in the press, reported in the press, Paula Casey recused
herself from the case. Because of Paula Casey's close relationship with
President Clinton, she should have immediately recused herself from
both referrals. The fact that she didn't raises questions about why she
let the first referral languish for so long.
On November 10, 1993, Jean Lewis was removed from the Madison/
Whitewater case because of an alleged personality conflict with an
attorney on the case. On February 2, 1994, after both of her criminal
referrals were made public. Ms. Lewis was visited by April Breslaw, an
RTC attorney from Washington, D.C. Ms. Lewis tape recorded this
meeting. During the meeting, Ms. Breslaw pressured her to change her
conclusions about Madison and Whitewater. Furthermore, Ms. Breslaw said
that people at the top (of RTC) would be happier if they had answers to
the Whitewater questions that would get them off the hook. Ms. Lewis
said that two of the head people Ms. Breslaw was talking about were RTC
Deputy Chief Executive Officer Jack Ryan, and RTC General Counsel Ellen
Kulka. Both Mr. Ryan and Ms. Kulka worked directly under then-Deputy
Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, the RTC's acting Director and a close
friend of the President. Ms. Lewis is now seeking redress under the
Federal Government's whistleblower law.
At the time the first criminal referral from Jean Lewis at the RTC
was gathering dust on Paula Casey's desk, Paula Casey was negotiating
with David Hale. Mr. Hale was the head of Capital Management Services,
Inc., a small business investment company. According to the Wall Street
Journal, among the bad loans he was under investigation for were
$300,000 to a company controlled by Susan McDougal, a Whitewater
partner with her husband and the Clintons. Some $110,000 of this loan
may have ended up in the Whitewater account. Mr. Hale told reporters
that he was pressured by then-Governor Clinton to make the loan to Mrs.
McDougal. Mr. Hale was a former municipal court judge appointed by Bill
Clinton.
Mr. Hale's attorney, Randy Coleman, entered into negotiations with
Paula Casey to obtain a plea bargain. Mr. Coleman asked Paula Casey to
recuse herself from this case because of the obvious conflict of
interest that would be present on her part. Since Mr. Hale was willing
to provide additional information on the case to assist in undercover
operations, I am concerned about the possibility that Paula Casey may
have refused to consider his request because of the obvious political
implications of the information he would provide. Paula Casey
eventually recused herself from the case in November of 1993, but by
that time Mr. Hale had been publicly indicted and thus would not have
been useful to any undercover operations.
We need to find out if President Clinton or other members of his
administration sought to influence the actions of Pauls Casey and the
RTC with respect to Jean Lewis' criminal referrals and David Hale's
plea bargain request. The above mentioned situations I think already
represent a clear conflict of interest on the part of Paula Casey, but
I am concerned that it may go deeper than that.
DOCUMENT SHREDDING AT THE ROSE LAW FIRM
Jeremy Hedges, a part-time courier at the Rose Law Firm, told a grand
jury that he was told to shred documents from the files of Vincent
Foster after Robert Fiske had announced that he would look into Mr.
Foster's death (Fiske was appointed as Independent Counsel on January
20, 1994). It is still illegal to destroy such evidence even before a
subpoena is issued. Hedges said that none of the documents that he saw
and shredded related to Whitewater. However, another Rose employee told
the Washington Times that documents showing the Clintons' involvement
in Whitewater had also been ordered destroyed. The shredding reportedly
occurred on February 3, 1994.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, three current or former Rose
employees said that couriers from the Rose Law Firm were summoned to
the Arkansas governor's mansion by Hillary Clinton, who personally
handed over records to be shredded at the firm's downtown office. The
shredding began after the New York Times reported on March 8, 1992, the
involvement of Governor Clinton and his wife in Whitewater Development
Corporation. The shredding continued through the November 3 general
election. During the presidential campaign, the Clintons said that the
Whitewater records had disappeared. We need to find out which documents
were shredded, why they were shredded, and who ordered this to be done.
governor jim guy tucker
Jim Guy Tucker succeeded Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas and was
elected Governor for a full 4-year term this year. Previously he served
as the Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas. Like President Clinton, he has
been involved in several questionable business deals with James
McDougal that contributed to the demise of Madison Guaranty Savings and
Loan.
According to press reports, the RTC has subpoenaed documents from
Governor Tucker's businesses going back over a decade, the RTC is
pursuing fraud claims against him, and has named him in a criminal
referral to the Justice Department. The press has also reported that
Governor Tucker is a possible target for indictment in the Independent
Counsel's of Madison's failure.
Mr. Tucker borrowed over $1.25 million from Madison, amazingly
without even filling out loan applications or making down payments. He
told the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette, ``I called Jim McDougal if I
wanted to borrow money.'' When Federal regulators seized Madison, Mr.
Tucker's $1 million loan for a sewer system was one of the largest
delinquent loans on Madison's books. We need to find out to what extent
Mr. Tucker's bad loans contributed to the failure of Madison.
Mr. Tucker also borrowed over $750,000 from David Hale's Capital
Management Services, Inc. However, Capital Management Services was
licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration only to lend to
socially or economically disadvantaged small business owners. The key
question is why Mr. Tucker, who became a millionaire through the cable
television business, was borrowing money from a company that was only
allowed to lend to disadvantaged persons. David Hale has also accused
Mr. Tucker of pressuring him to make bad loans.
conclusion
I am hopeful that the issues I have raised will be thoroughly
investigated by the Independent Counsel, Mr. Starr, and by the House
and Senate. Contrary to what supporters of the President have said,
those of us who advocate a compete and thorough investigation of
Whitewater are not on a political fishing expedition. We simply want to
know the facts. If the President and members of his administration had
answered all of the questions that have been raised so far, perhaps
Whitewater would be far behind us now. Let us hope that this will all
be dealt with by the Independent Counsel and Congress this coming year
so that the American people can regain confidence in their Government
and so that we in Congress may devote our attention to other crucial
issues facing our country.
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