[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1808-S1810]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  WHITEWATER DEVELOPMENT CORP. AND RELATED MATTERS--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under rule XXII, the clerk will now report the 
motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Senate Resolution 
227.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Senate Resolution 227, regarding the Whitewater 
     extension:
         Alfonse D'Amato, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, Phil Gramm, 
           Judd Gregg, Dirk Kempthorne, Strom Thurmond, Jim 
           Jeffords, Olympia Snowe, Bob Smith, Dan Coats, Larry E. 
           Craig, John Ashcroft, Thad Cochran, Jon Kyl, R. F. 
           Bennett.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate 
that debate be brought to a close? The yeas and nays were ordered under 
rule XXII.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 47, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 26 Leg.]

                                YEAS--53

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--47

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Wellstone
     Wyden
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 53 and the nays are 
47. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might be 
permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, today we have seen what is the first of 
probably a number of votes to attempt to curtail the filibuster against 
moving forward with the Whitewater investigation.
  Let us be clear and set the record straight. I have offered publicly, 
and I offer again on the Senate floor, an opportunity to answer the 
question of whether or not the committee is looking to continue the 
investigation into the political season and to do so by incorporating 
an indefinite time agreement. I can state, we are willing to limit--not 
that I am happy about it--since the setting of arbitrary time limits, 
as stated by the former Democratic majority leader, Senator Mitchell, 
is a mistake. Senator Mitchell came to this conclusion to prevent the 
possibility of lawyers from stalling and keeping matters from coming 
forth. However, recognizing that we are in a unique situation, this 
Senator has indicated before and I indicate publicly now that we would 
be willing to terminate the committee's work, even if it is not 
finished, within 4 months. It will take us, I believe, at least that 
period of time since there is a trial which is taking place right now 
in Little Rock, AR. There are witnesses who are unavailable to us who 
are testifying there. I believe that their presence, at least the 
opportunity to attempt to bring them forward, is important.
  Mr. President, let me quote something. Let me read it to you.


[[Page S1809]]


       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 with 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.

  That is what we have seen today. Every single Democrat came in here 
and voted to stonewall at the direction of the White House.
  Let us not make any mistakes about who is calling the shots here. It 
is the White House. Now, that is not a statement in terms of the 
stonewalling or being silly. That is a quote from the New York Times--
the New York Times. They are certainly not an organ or a mouthpiece of 
the Republican Party.
  Let me quote today's Washington Post--today's Washington Post:

       Lawmakers and the public have a legitimate interest in 
     getting answers to the many questions that prompted the 
     investigation in the first place and those that have been 
     raised in the course of it by the conduct of many 
     administration witnesses . . . If Democrats think that 
     stalling or stonewalling will make Whitewater go away, they 
     are badly mistaken. The probe is not over, whether they try 
     to call it off or not.

  Now, that is the Washington Post today, certainly not a mouthpiece of 
the Republican Party.
  Let me read to you from the current issue of Time magazine, just a 
small part.

       The question of whether specific laws were broken should 
     not obscure the broader issue that makes Whitewater an 
     important story. How Bill and Hillary Clinton handled what 
     was their single largest investment says much about their 
     character and integrity. It shows how they reacted to power, 
     both in their quest for it and their wielding of it. It shows 
     their willingness to hold themselves to the same standards 
     everyone else must--whether in meeting a bank's conditions 
     for a loan, taking responsibility for their savings, 
     investments and taxes, or cooperating with Federal 
     regulators. Perhaps most important, it shows whether they 
     have spoken the truth on a subject of legitimate concern to 
     the American people.

  That was written by James Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize winning 
journalist. Mr. Stewart has just written a major book, ``Blood Sport,'' 
about the Clintons' investment in Whitewater.
  I come right back to the final question: What are my friends afraid 
of? What is the White House afraid of? Why are they reluctant to allow 
the committee to conclude its work? What are they hiding from the 
American people?
  I believe that the American people have a right to these answers. No 
amount of criticism as it relates to what the committee has done to 
date will obfuscate the fact that they are continuing to stonewall. It 
is not silly. It is incorrigible. It is wrong. And it does not bring 
credit to this institution or to either political party or to the 
process.
  Once again, I lay forth the opportunity to settle this so that we do 
not have to have speeches and debates and say that we can conclude the 
committee's work in 4 months.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority manager of the bill is 
recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have sought 
recognition to outline a second-degree amendment which will be 
offered----
  Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield at this point? Can we get 5 minutes 
to respond, on this matter that has been raised for the purpose of 
debate, for the ranking minority member, appropriate to give him a 
chance to respond to Senator D'Amato?
  Mr. SPECTER. I would yield for that purpose on a unanimous-consent 
request that when the response is concluded I be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Maryland is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SARBANES. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am going to be very brief.
  It would be expected that the assertions would be made that have just 
been made. The fact is that Senator Daschle offered a perfectly 
reasonable proposal with respect to this inquiry dealing with 
Whitewater, and that was to provide an extension into early April. The 
inquiry was supposed to end at the end of February. That was provided 
for in the resolution which the Senate passed. The reason that was done 
was in order to keep this inquiry out of the election year so it would 
not be subject to a public perception that it was being carried on for 
political reasons.
  Now, that concern paralleled a concern that was expressed by the 
Republican leader, Senator Dole, in 1987, when the Iran-Contra inquiry 
was undertaken. That was in a Congress controlled by Democrats. It was 
an inquiry into the activities of a Republican administration. There 
were Democrats who wanted to carry it on indefinitely through the 
election year. Senator Dole, at that time the minority leader, was very 
insistent that it would have a fixed timeframe that would keep it out 
of the election period. The Democratic Senate responded to that and, in 
effect, agreed that the inquiry would be brought to an end in the 
latter part--in fact, in the fall--of 1987, and later we moved that 
date up in order to keep it even more out of the election year.
  Now, Senate Resolution 120 provides that the two leaders should get 
together and discuss any proposal for extending the committee, and I 
think that ought to be done.
  The proposal before us is for an indefinite time period. The proposal 
which my colleague from New York has just put forward, the 4-month 
proposal, is virtually the equivalent of an indefinite time period. I 
think there needs to be some reasonableness here, and I think the 
reasonableness was reflected in the proposal put forward by Senator 
Daschle, the minority leader, which would have provided that the 
committee could continue its work into early April and have a month 
after that in order to do its report.
  Now newspapers across the country are beginning to editorialize about 
this matter. These are newspapers ``outside of the beltway'' raising 
questions. For instance, the Tulsa paper says:

       How far must taxpayers go? How much must they pay to keep 
     this charade going? The vote in the Senate to extend the 
     investigation probably will be along party lines. If it does, 
     the extra $650,000 should come from the coffers of the 
     Republican party, not from the taxpayers. It is the 
     Republicans, not the taxpayers, who stand to benefit. The 
     Whitewater probe is shaping up to be the longest, most costly 
     fishing trip in American history.

  These are not my words. I am now quoting what is being said out 
across the country. Of course, what that does, it substantiates the 
observation I made that if this thing is prolonged through the election 
year, it will be increasingly perceived as a political endeavor and it 
will lose its credibility as a consequence, or even further lose its 
credibility.
  The Milwaukee paper said:

       Last week, Senator Moseley-Braun asked a good question of 
     Senator D'Amato, chairman of the Senate committee that is 
     investigating the Whitewater affair. Could these hearings, 
     she asked wearily, go on into perpetuity? Although D'Amato 
     was really at a loss for words, he could not provide a 
     satisfactory answer to that question, but somebody should.

  They then go on to make the point that this thing has been dragged on 
long enough.
  The Sacramento Bee headline said, ``Enough of Whitewater.''

       Senator Alfonse D'Amato, the chairman of the Senate 
     Whitewater Committee and chairman of Senator Bob Dole's 
     Presidential campaign in New York, wants to extend his 
     hearings indefinitely, at least one presumes until after the 
     November elections. In this case, the Democrats have the best 
     of the argument by a country mile. With every passing day, 
     the hearings have looked more like a fishing expedition in 
     the Dead Sea.

  Now, Senator Daschle, I thought, made a very accommodating proposal. 
There has been nothing back from the other side to which one can attach 
the rubric of reasonableness. It seems clear to me that as long as they 
continue to press for an indefinite period or something that is 
virtually equivalent to it, we ought to resist it because it simply 
makes it more transparent that this is a political exercise.
  Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield?
  Mr. SARBANES. Certainly.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time----
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, might I ask unanimous consent for 2 
additional minutes?

[[Page S1810]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will seek the floor in my own right. I 
wish to just make a comment here in responding to the suggestion of our 
colleague from New York that the Democrats here voted against an open-
ended $600,000 appropriation hearing process because of the White House 
pulling strings. No one suggested that our Republican friends who voted 
unanimously to continue this were somehow having strings pulled at all, 
nor would I make that suggestion.
  But certainly the fact that at this juncture we find ourselves in a 
stalemate ought to suggest, particularly when you consider it was only 
a few short months ago that this body voted almost unanimously for 
these hearings to be conducted--this was not a partisan issue. As in 
most cases, it was bipartisan to get this underway. It was almost 
unanimous, I believe.
  Mr. SARBANES. Ninety-six to three.
  Mr. DODD. Ninety-six to three, in fact, for the resolution to 
terminate the hearings, to call for the termination on February 29. It 
is unfortunate we have come to this where you have a request 
unprecedented in the annals of Congress--unprecedented, Mr. President--
for an open-ended hearing with an additional $600,000. That brings the 
pricetag of this investigation to in excess of $30 million in this 
country.
  That is the reason people are upset, frankly, that kind of open-ended 
appropriation, no end in sight and, of course, no substantiation of any 
unethical or illegal behavior. When you add that to the fact that we 
have had virtually no hearings occurring on major issues affecting 
people's lives in this country, like Medicare, Medicaid--we are going 
to have an extensive debate on education today; we are going to be 
cutting $3 billion in education programs--there were hardly three or 
four hearings on all of education, as the Presiding Officer knows.
  Yet, we had 50 hearings on White water and 10 or 12 hearings on Waco 
and Ruby Ridge and almost none on education, none on Medicare, none on 
health, and you want to know why people are angry? That is why they are 
angry in this country.
  We spoke up and said, ``Look, 5 weeks, $185,000.'' That is plenty of 
time to complete this process. We are not saying stop it today. We are 
saying take another 5 weeks and wrap up the business of this committee. 
That is a reasonable, reasonable proposal, and I think it is 
regrettable we have a position taken of 4 months now which takes us 
virtually into September--when we eliminate the August recess--
September, October, a handful of days before the election.
  It is patently political. It is so transparently political that an 
infant can see through it, and most of the American people have. That 
is why we object to this request of an open-ended proposal with 
$600,000. I hope that the majority Members, at least some of them, will 
step forward and offer to sit down and resolve this matter so we can 
get the work done and not allow it to spill over into the campaign.
  I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for providing us some time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority manager of the bill is 
recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, as I had started to 
say earlier before yielding to my distinguished friend from 
Connecticut, I did not know he was going to mention Ruby Ridge, or I 
might not have yielded to him. What is wrong with Ruby Ridge?
  Mr. DODD. I just say to my colleague, I think there is a value in 
having those hearings. My colleague did a good job. My point is, if you 
do it to the exclusion of other hearings, then it seems to me we are 
off on the wrong track. My colleague did a good job.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleague for that comment.

                          ____________________