[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1427-S1429]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               WHITEWATER

  Mr. LOTT. First, Mr. President, I want to make note of what is being 
done here. The distinguished chairman of the Banking Committee has 
asked for a very fair unanimous consent that the Senate bring up the 
resolution extending the Special Committee To Investigate Whitewater 
Development Corp., and that it would be presented in a most fair 
manner, 2 hours of debate, equally divided, with an amendment in order 
by the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, or his 
designee, and an hour of debate on that, and we would then proceed to 
vote.
  That unanimous-consent request has been objected to. It seemed like a 
fair way to proceed to me. It is normal business. You bring up a 
resolution, you have a very fair procedure where the other side can 
offer an alternative and we can have a vote on that and then proceed to 
vote on the resolution as it is presented. That has been objected to 
now about four times. We are just trying to find a way to move this to 
a conclusion.
  This Whitewater committee has a job to do. The American people 
understand that. They want the job to be done. But that job is not 
complete. It would have been nice if it could have been wrapped up a 
month ago, or today. But the work is not completed. It is not completed 
partially because there has been this slow process. They talk about a 
perception of politics; how about a perception of coverup?
  I can understand how there are documents can be misplaced at one time 
and then turn up, like the billing records did in the private residence 
at the White House. That is one example. And then there are these 
documents that Mr. Gearan found. Then there are the documents which Mr. 
Ickes found. I think that came out just in the last week or so.
  Every time it looks like all the documents that can be found have 
been found--and I am not on the committee; I am just observing it as a 
normal Member of the Senate would--and when the Senate seems like it is 
getting to the point where we could begin to move to some conclusions, 
another raft of papers just appears out of thin air.
  I want to commend the chairman of the Banking Committee. He has been 
diligent. He has been very calm in the way he has handled this 
committee. He has been very fair. Yet he is, on the one hand, 
criticized because they have not had hearings every day and on the 
other criticized because of all that has been done and all the 
documentation that has been accumulated. I just think he is entitled to 
some credit for the very calm and methodical job that has been done.
  Those who want to say, well, it is politics, those who are opposed to 
extending this hearing in the way that it should be extended, certainly 
you would think that they would have had the Washington Post or New 
York Times and other media in their corner. But that is not so.
  The New York Times, in fact, on the 28th of February, said that 
Senator D'Amato has in a non-partisan way made a very strong point 
about the need to continue the Whitewater committee. I want to read an 
excerpt from the New York Times. The editorial supports an indefinite 
extension of the committee and the duty of the Senate to pursue this 
matter in a fair way.
  The New York Times editorial reads thusly:

       The Senate's duty cannot be canceled or truncated because 
     of the campaign calendar. Any certain date for terminating 
     the hearings would encourage even more delay in producing 
     subpoenaed documents than the committee has endured since it 
     started last July. The committee has been forced to await 
     such events as the criminal trial next week of James 
     McDougal, a Clinton business partner in the failed Whitewater 
     land venture.
       No arguments about politics on either side can outweigh the 
     fact that the White House has yet to reveal the full facts 
     about the land venture, the Clintons' relationship to Mr. 
     McDougal's banking activities, Hillary Rodham Clinton's work 
     as a lawyer on Whitewater matters and the mysterious 
     movements of documents between the Rose Law Firm, various 
     basements and closets and the Executive Mansion. The 
     committee, politics notwithstanding, has earned an indefinite 
     extension. A Democratic filibuster against it would be silly 
     stonewalling.

  The New York Times is not exactly a Republican National Committee 
publication. The New York Times is not the only newspaper which has 
expressed similar views. There have been similar articles in the 
Washington Post.
  So, I am a little surprised at what I have heard here today: that 
we're dragging the investigation out; that Whitewater is only about 
empty allegations and politics. There are also these complaints that 
there is nothing really to Whitewater. There is no ``there, there,'' so 
to speak.
  I do not know all the details. But I do know this, that in connection 
with this matter, there have been numerous guilty pleas and 
indictments. David Hale pleaded guilty on March 22 to two felony 
violations. Charles Matthews pleaded guilty on June 23, 1994, to two 
misdemeanor violations. Eugene Fitzhugh pleaded guilty on June 24, 
1994. Robert Palmer pleaded guilty on December 5, 1994. Webster Hubbell 
pleaded guilty on December 6, 1994. Christopher Wade pleaded guilty on 
March 21, 1995. Neal Ainley pleaded guilty on May 2. Stephen Smith 
pleaded guilty on June 8. Larry Kuca pleaded guilty on July 13, 1995.
  We have indictments on numerous felony counts of Mr. McDougal. Eleven 
felony indictments were handed down against Governor Tucker. You know, 
I do not think we can lightly dismiss all of these things.
  I acknowledge that these are separate proceedings that are being 
carried forth by the independent counsel's office. But as a matter of 
fact, the Senate has an even higher responsibility. 

[[Page S1428]]
 We are not just looking at legal matters; we are looking at broader 
questions of misconduct, how Federal agencies or departments may have 
been used, how certain Federal funds may or may not have wound up in 
campaigns.
  So even aside from all this, if you can just dismiss all this, you 
have to ask yourself, should not the committee be looking at that and a 
lot of other matters that are surrounding this Whitewater affair? So, 
clearly, the committee should have an extension of its time well beyond 
February 29.
  Mr. SARBANES. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I will yield, but I want to take note that I listened a 
long time to the Senator's statements without any interruption. If the 
Senator would like to ask a question or make a point.
  Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator would prefer that I wait, I will be 
happy to.
  Mr. LOTT. Beg pardon?
  Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator would prefer that I wait, I will be 
happy to do that.
  Mr. LOTT. Would the Senator? Then I would be glad to respond to 
questions. And I would like to address some to the distinguished 
chairman of the committee because most Senators do not know the answers 
to some of these questions that are being asked out here today. I would 
like to ask those of you who have been involved to respond to those.
  Certainly, the Whitewater committee should be extended beyond 
February 29. Even my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
acknowledge this. But you want to put this arbitrary cutoff on it. 
Regardless of what happens in the trial that is beginning next week, 
you want to say by a date certain we are going to stop it no matter 
what happens in that trial.
  I know some of the defendants maybe will be found innocent, or maybe 
they will be found guilty. Maybe there will be appeals. But we will 
find out. There are witnesses, I presume, associated with that trial 
that this committee has not been able to have testify.
  How can we say to the committee, ``Complete your work,'' when they 
may not have questioned some of the most critical witnesses? Again, I 
do not know what the end result will be. I do not know how long it will 
take. But I am uncomfortable, in view of the dribbling out of 
information, with saying you have to just stop it at some date certain, 
like May 3. The minute you say this is the cutoff date, the way things 
have transpired, what your guarantee is that there will be more 
withholding of information until that date arrives.
  I have some sympathy for the White House, in a way, because I am 
amazed at how they handled this thing. They certainly have not helped 
this committee finish its work, even though the Whitewater affair is a 
blight on the administration. Surely, it would be better if we could 
get it all out in the open and reach a conclusion. I am sure that the 
administration, in many respects, is horrified at how some of this is 
being handled.
  Let me say this, too. I served in the House for 16 years. I have been 
in the Senate 7 years. I was on the Judiciary Committee during the 
Watergate hearings. Oh, yes, is it not amazing how the worm sort of 
turns over the years, depending on which side of the aisle you are on. 
I remember Watergate, and I watched the Iran-Contra hearings. I watched 
the October surprise. I never figured out what the surprise was. I got 
the answer. There was not any. And now some of those who were saying we 
must get to the bottom of this, that we cannot have a coverup, that we 
have to go forward with this no matter what the cost, now they are 
saying, ``Geez, we need to cut this thing off; it costs too much, it 
looks political because of an election year.'' If we had gotten all the 
evidence, if the special independent counsel had completed its work, 
maybe we could have completed it.
  I want to talk about the dollars, too. Not only has the chairman done 
a very calm, reasonable, fair job, he has also been frugal. This 
committee has only spent $950,000 in the 104th Congress, as I 
understand it, through February 29. I understand there might have been 
an amount that was actually done in the previous Congress, bringing the 
total to like $1.3 million, I believe, and that is what the Democratic 
leader had said earlier.
  Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield?
  Mr. LOTT. I will yield on that point.
  Mr. SARBANES. This committee spent what was available to them. That 
was the $950,000.
  Mr. LOTT. That is going to relate to what I am fixing to say. You 
talk about the cost. That is a very small amount of money in doing its 
job, especially when you compare it to what these other committees 
spent. For instance, the select committees on Iran-Contra spent well 
over $3 million, and in 1996 dollars, it would probably be $4.5 million 
on that investigation, according to the Congressional Research Service.
  The October surprise investigation cost up to $2.5 million, according 
to the Congressional Budget Office. Chairman Hyde in the House, who 
served on the investigating committee, said the total cost, including 
salaries and expenses, amounted to probably as much as $4.56 million. 
It may have been for a shorter period of time, but the actual costs 
were greater.
  According to the Congressional Research Service, the total cost of 
Whitewater, including the independent counsel, at this point has been 
$12,525,000.
  Compare this $12.5 million to the $40 million in direct costs spent 
on Iran-Contra. Some estimates place the total cost of Iran-Contra as 
high as $100 million. Even the Watergate investigation, in which I 
participated, is estimated to have cost $26 million.
  I understand you have the cost of the independent counsels and the 
entire cost of some of these other investigations, and in this case you 
have the independent counsel going forward, but the committee itself 
has been very reasonable in what it has spent.
  What they have asked in additional funds is only $600,000. You are 
talking about, based on that money, 3 months, 4 months maybe, and if 
the work is completed before then, it certainly would have to be 
completed within 4 months, but it could be done before then.
  I want to know, when did this committee establish 96 to 3, by a vote 
of the Senate last year, to become a political circus? What we are 
trying to do here is find out the facts, not facts as determined by 
Republicans or Democrats, but what happened in this matter. There are a 
lot of questions that remain unanswered, as far as I can see.
  More and more this Whitewater affair looks to me like a scheme to 
fund dubious ventures illegally, perhaps with some of the tab 
ultimately being picked up by the taxpayer. These are important issues, 
not flights of fancy. To treat this investigation as anything less, as 
partisanship or vindictiveness, is wrong.
  So, Mr. President, let me just say the Whitewater investigation is 
not and should not be about politics. The committee has found a 
tremendous amount of information and facts that raise a lot of 
questions. Some of those questions have not been answered yet, and the 
committee has done its job inexpensively and prudently. The truth needs 
to get out. The Congress has a job to do, no matter what happens with 
the independent counsel. We need to get through the public hearings.
  If there is wrongdoing, then the judiciary will get involved. The 
Senate's role is limited. The job of Congress constitutionally is not 
to prosecute but to reveal. It is a place not only where the people 
rule, but where the people hear. Through hearings and other means, the 
Senate has and can continue to reveal what really happened in 
Whitewater. For the good of the Presidency and for the good of the 
country, we must find out.
  Surely we can find a way to come to an agreement on the necessary 
funds to get this hearing done and completed in a reasonable way, but 
without artificial cutoffs. We will regret that if we do it.
  Mr. President, I would like to address a couple of questions to the 
distinguished chairman of the committee to clear up some of these 
things that some of the Members are wondering about and that I wonder 
about.
  Obviously, documents have been coming in fits and stops and not all 
the documents that the committee subpoenaed, but I just wonder and ask 
the chairman of the committee, what kind of cooperation have you 
received from the White House? The White House keeps talking about the 
number of 

[[Page S1429]]
pages of documents. The Senator from Maryland talked about this 
tremendous, voluminous amount of material that has been furnished to 
the committee, but have we received full cooperation from the White 
House? Have you received everything you have asked for?
  I yield to the Senator.
  Mr. D'AMATO. The Senator raised a very good point, because we have 
heard ``50,000 pages of documents being produced in response to 
requests,'' but the fact of the matter is, as Senator Mack pointed out 
yesterday that it is not the sheer quantity of documents that matter, 
it is the quality and relevance; for example, documents that were under 
the jurisdiction of key people with the so-called Whitewater defense 
team, the group that was attempting to deal with press inquiries and 
other inquiries, headed by Mr. Ickes. We just received about 200 pages, 
literally, last week. Incredible.
  Now, we have requested that--
  Mr. LOTT. You received 200 pages just last week?
  Mr. D'AMATO. That is right.
  Mr. LOTT. Where did those documents come from?
  Mr. D'AMATO. It was indicated they were in a box, a file. He thought 
he maybe turned them over to his lawyer.
  Mr. LOTT. Who is he?
  Mr. D'AMATO. He is Mr. Ickes, deputy chief at the White House, and in 
charge of this task force dealing with this Whitewater and Whitewater-
related matters.
  Let me say that the production of those documents alone have raised 
very interesting questions, and I have to think that there are many 
more documents--because the produced records contain information 
relating to Mr. Ickes tasking assignments out to different people. You 
know something, we have not gotten any of those documents or any of the 
task reports from the other members of that so-called White House 
defense team. But that is only one individual.
  With Mark Gearan several weeks ago, former White House communications 
director, the same kind of event. He claims that the documents were not 
found because he put them in a box while he was packing. He was going 
to head the Peace Corps, and he thought mistakenly that they had been 
turned over. An inadvertence. Interesting. Because he is another member 
of the defense team.
  Guess what? Again, just several weeks ago, the same thing. This time 
Mr. Waldman, another member of the defense team, finds documents. 
Again, it relates to specifically Whitewater-related matters. No 
question. I have to tell you, it does lead one to believe--even if one 
were to accept that these were just accidental--these are delays that 
are no fault of the committee.
  What about the manner in which the White House conducted an 
investigation to get the documents? Let me give you an example of what 
the Treasury Department did. They sent a team of IRS agents in to comb 
the files for relevant material. It is not what the White House did. 
They had a haphazard handling of this, almost with the back-of-the-hand 
attitude, designed--or certainly if not designed, they should have 
recognized that it certainly did not comply with the spirit and intent 
of what the President meant by promising full cooperation.
  Last but not least is the miraculous production of the billing 
records--billing records that are very essential to analyze what Mrs. 
Clinton did or did not do for Madison. Where are they found? In the 
personal residence of the White House. I do not know how it got there. 
But I have to tell you, as our friend from North Carolina, Senator 
Lauch Faircloth, points out, that is one of the most secure places in 
the world. He asked, tongue in cheek, ``Did the butler bring it 
there?'' Who do you think had control of the billing records of the 
Rose Law Firm? Who? It was not this Senator. I do not know. Where do 
you think they found them? They were found in the personal library of 
the First Family. Who brought them there? How did they get there?
  Our colleagues complain that we are bringing in witnesses 
unnecessarily. An attorney, Austin Jennings, was brought in. Let me 
tell you why we asked for that poor attorney to come in. It was because 
he came up to Washington to meet with the Clintons' personal defense 
lawyer. Are we supposed to talk to him by telephone? Why did the 
Clinton's attorney not do that? He was writing a book--this is a great 
story--and he wanted to ascertain, was Mrs. Clinton a competent lawyer.
  Could you believe he flew from Little Rock up here to the White House 
itself to meet with the Clintons' personal lawyer and Mrs. Clinton to 
spend 20 minutes simply to say that, yes, if asked any questions, he 
would say she was a competent lawyer? He did not even know who paid for 
his trip. You want to talk about disingenuous. I think it is 
disingenuous to ask why we asked this poor gentlemen to come here. 
Incredible. Sympathy and sop? Come on. Let us level somewhat.
  I have to tell you something. The fact of the matter is that Mr. 
Jennings was Seth Ward's attorney. Who is Seth Ward? If my friends want 
to debate this, we will bring out what the committee has been doing on 
this floor. If you want to do it for 10 hours, we will do it for 10 
hours. If you want to do it for 20 hours, we will do it for 20 hours, 
and we will spell it out.
  Seth Ward is Webb Hubbell's father-in-law, and he participated in 
Castle Grande, the biggest of Madison Guaranty's sham deals--a $3.8 
million loss. By the way, Mrs. Clinton, when asked by various 
investigative agencies of the Government, gave indications that she did 
not know about Castle Grande. She heard it referred to by a different 
name. She had 15 conversations with Seth Ward. Jennings was Seth Ward's 
attorney. That is why we brought him in. When an attorney says tongue 
in cheek, like Mr. Jennings did--a smart fellow--says, ``I do not know 
what I am doing here,'' come on, it is disingenuous to come to the 
American people and to the Senate and to say some witnesses did not 
even know why. Here is a smart lawyer, and he does not even know who 
paid for him to come up here. I have to tell you, it raises many more 
questions than it answers.
  It is this kind of delay and holding back that puts us here in this 
position. You can pull out the letter and all of the conversations you 
want. I thought we would have this matter finished by February 29. If 
we had the cooperation of witnesses, the White House, and others, we 
could have wound this up. But we did not have the kind of cooperation 
that the American people are entitled to.

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