[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 20, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2408-S2411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE VOID IN MORAL LEADERSHIP--PART II
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, yesterday, I spoke about the void in
moral leadership in the White House.
I felt obliged, as Teddy Roosevelt said, to speak the truth about the
President.
Let me quote him once more.
Some of my colleagues may not have heard me yesterday.
He said it is absolutely necessary that we have full liberty to tell
the truth about the President and his acts.
Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and
servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the
President . . . is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is
morally treasonable to the American public . . .
It is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or
unpleasant, about him than about anyone else.
I quoted yesterday from another great President, also named
Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He said,
The Presidency is not merely an administrative office . . .
It is more than an engineering job . . .
It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.
That is why it is important to reflect on this issue.
I speak about the moral leadership issue because I believe it is
critical.
Because it is lacking.
I make a distinction between leadership and moral leadership.
Leadership means the capacity for exercising responsible authority.
There are many in this body who are outstanding leaders.
This is reflected in the many important laws we write for the Nation.
Moral leadership is different.
Moral leadership means we do not just pass laws for the rest of the
Nation, and exempt ourselves.
It means we pass laws and we apply them to ourselves, as well.
We set the example.
We say one thing, and we do it, too.
That is what I mean by moral leadership.
This Congress, for example, in one of its very first deeds, passed
the Congressional Accountability Act.
[[Page S2409]]
In doing so, for the very first time we applied the laws to ourselves
that we passed for the rest of the country.
That is moral leadership, Madam President.
That is setting an example.
It says, ``Watch what we do, not just what we say.''
It is not often that Congress is able to exhibit moral leadership.
We do things more by consensus and compromise.
The reality of Congress is, we usually do things ugly.
Foreigners always have the best observations about our form of
government. de Tocqueville, of course, is the most famous example.
But a Russian visitor, Boris Marshalov, once observed, ``Congress is
so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens--
and then everybody disagrees.
Madam President, that's precisely why leadership from the White House
is so important.
The individuality of the President is required to provide the moral
leadership for the Nation that Congress, as a body, cannot.
The country desperately needs it.
That is what Franklin Roosevelt was talking about.
Yesterday, I talked about why the White House has covered up all its
non-legal activities, on both Whitewater and Travelgate.
It is because the activity of those in the White House conflicts with
their projected image.
In the words of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, it is
``political duplicity * * * The offense is hypocrisy of a high order.
Having posed as our moral betters, they had to cover up. At stake is
their image.''
Yesterday, I referred to and quoted from the new book by James B.
Stewart, ``Blood Sport.''
The book reveals much about the Clintons to which Mr. Krauthammer
alluded. Mr. Stewart raises several questions about the Clintons.
One is about their willingness to abide by the same standards that
everyone else has to meet. A second is about whether they abide by
financial requirements in obtaining mortgage loans. A third is whether
they should have accepted favors from people who were regulated by the
State of Arkansas.
Last week, Mr. Stewart was interviewed by Ted Koppel on
``Nightline.'' In that interview, Mr. Stewart calls this a story about:
``the Arrogance of Power, what people think they can do/and get away
with/as an elected official, then how candid and honest they are when
questioned about it.''
He offers an illustration. It is a quote from the First Lady. She was
advised by White House staff to disclose everything rather than
stonewall. Let the Sun shine in, they said. But the First Lady rejected
that advice. She said, according to Mr. Stewart, ``Well, you know, I'm
not going to have people poring over our documents. After all, we're
the President.''
Madam President, I will put the entire interview of Mr. Stewart by
Mr. Koppel into the Record.
That way, the Record will reflect the full context of Mr. Stewart's
words, so that I am not accused of misleading the American people.
But Mr. Stewart's observations, as well as those of Mr. Krauthammer,
heighten the public's awareness of a moral leadership void in the White
House.
So I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the
interview of Mr. Stewart by Mr. Koppel.
There being no objection, the interview was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From ``Nightline'' Mar. 11, 1996]
Ted Koppel [voice-over]. The Whitewater controversy,
accusations made and denied.
James Stewart [Author, ``Blood Sport'']. Mrs. Clinton,
essentially, took singlehandedly the control of this
investment.
Hillary Clinton. We saw no records, we saw no documents.
Ted Koppel [voice-over]. New questions about the Clintons'
credibility.
James Stewart. I think the death of Vincent Foster is the
pivotal event in this story.
Hillary Clinton. There were no documents taken out of Vince
Foster's office on the night he died.
President Bill Clinton. An allegation comes up, and we
answer it, and then people say, ``Well, here's another
allegation. Answer this.''
James Stewart. The President practically screamed over the
phone. He said, ``I can't take this anymore. I'm here in
Europe and they're asking me about Whitewater.''
Ted Koppel [voice-over]. Now, the picture may become a
little clearer. Tonight, new details about Whitewater, Vince
Foster and damage control.
Announcer. This is ABC News Nightline. Reporting from
Washington, Ted Koppel.
Ted Koppel. This program may be the first you've heard
about ``Blood Sport,'' a new book which becomes available
later this week, but it will not be the last. To begin with,
you need to know how and why the book came about. The idea
appears to have originated with Hillary Clinton. In any
event, it was her close friend, Susan Thomases, herself a
lawyer, who approached the author, Jim Stewart, and suggested
that those closest to the First Family and, indeed, the
President and the First Lady themselves, would be willing to
cooperate with an objective, outside-the-Beltway writer on a
detailed, no-holds-barred Whitewater book.
Stewart, a lawyer and former page one editor of the Wall
Street Journal, had impeccable credentials. He had shared in
a 1988 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on insider trading.
In 1991, he published the book ``Den of Thieves,'' about
financial fraud in the 1980's. Stewart took up the offer and
even had one lengthy meeting with Mrs. Clinton at the White
House, but the promised cooperation never materialized,
although a number of people close to the Clintons did
ultimately talk. Stewart went ahead and wrote the book
anyway. Jim Stewart is a meticulous writer, which is another
way of saying that there are few blaring headlines, but
dozens of troubling revelations.
To understand what Jim Stewart has done, you need to
refresh your memory on what the Clintons have variously
claimed and insisted. The Clintons have insisted, for
example, that they were only passive investors in Whitewater,
and had virtually nothing to do with it themselves.
Hillary Clinton. We gave whatever money we were requested
to give by Jim McDougal. I mean, he was the one who would
say, ``Here's what you owe on interest, here's what your
contributions should be.'' We did whatever he asked us. We
saw no records, we saw no documents.
Ted Koppel. The Clintons insist that they have fully
cooperated with the investigation of Whitewater, but that
they have been dogged by one unproved allegation after
another.
President Bill Clinton. That's really the story of this for
the last four years. An allegation comes up and we answer it,
and the people say, ``Well, here's another allegation. Answer
this.'' And then, ``Here's another allegation. Answer this.''
That is the way we are--we're living here in Washington
today.
Ted Koppel. And only a couple of weeks ago, after the FDIC
released a report prepared by Jay Stevens, a former
Republican U.S. attorney not known to be friendly toward the
Clintons, there was this.
Mark Fabiani [Associate White House Counsel]. This report
blows out of the water the allegations that have been made
about the First Lady and the Rose Law Firm, and it undermines
the contention of those who would extend these Whitewater
hearings endlessly on into the future.
Ted Koppel. That may be as good a place as any to introduce
Jim Stewart, the author of ``Blood Sport,'' in his first
television interview on the book, and let me have you respond
right away, because the White House is obviously very proud
of the fact that Jay Stevens, Republican, no friend of the
Clintons, supervised a report by the FDIC which, in effect,
according to the White House, found the Clintons blameless in
the--in the Whitewater affair. Is that an overstatement?
James Stewart [Author, ``Blood Sport'']. Well, I think the
White House reaction is misplaced optimism. The report is
good news, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far. It
explicitly says that it's not the definitive report on many
of the questions that have arisen here, and there is still an
independent counsel investigating all of these and even more
allegations. As long as the independent counsel investigation
continues, a real threat hovers over this President.
Ted Koppel. Why or how do you explain the fact that Jay
Stevens, who, as I say, has no particular love for the
Clintons, why would he end an investigation if, as you say,
it's incomplete?
James Stewart. He was retained to investigate the narrow
question of whether the government should sue the Clintons or
others to regain losses from Madison Guaranty, and he
concluded there was no evidence to warrant a suit against the
Clintons or the Rose Law Firm to do that, and I think that's
the right conclusion. I do not conclude that Madison Guaranty
losses flowed to the Clintons.
Ted Koppel. What then, do you conclude, that--I mean, try
and give it to me in a broad sense. What is it that you would
say if you were obliged, in 15 or 30 seconds, to summarize
what is troublesome about Whitewater and what will still come
back to haunt the Clintons?
James Stewart. Well, I think the Whitewater investment and
the story of that is important because it shows many things
about the Clintons. It shows their willingness to hold
themselves to the standards that everyone else has to meet.
It shows their willingness to abide by financial requirements
in obtaining mortgage loans. But I think, most of all, it
shows their willingness, while in Arkansas, to accept the
favors of people who were regulated by the state.
[[Page S2410]]
Their attitude to this, which bordered on the negligent in
the beginning, clearly indicated a mindset which said,
``Somebody else will take care of us because of our power as
highly elected officials in the state of Arkansas.''
Ted Koppel. In a sense, Jim, that's a negative way of
saying the same thing we heard Mrs. Clinton say at the
beginning of this broadcast. In other words, let somebody
else take care of this. She put, in a more positive sense,
i.e., ``We had nothing to do with this. If Jim McDougal came
and said, `You owe so-and-so-much in interest,' we paid it,
but we never saw documents, we never had an active role in
this Whitewater affair.'' To which you would say what?
James Stewart. Well, that simply isn't true. I think it may
have been true in the very beginning of the investment, when
there were still high hopes that this would make money and
the McDougals could handle everything, but by 1986, when the
McDougal empire was crumbling, it was not true. At that
point, Mrs. Clinton essentially took, singlehandedly, the
control of this investment. She was the one who negotiated
the loan renewals with the bank that held the mortgage. She
was the one who handled all the correspondence. She was the
one who went over all the numbers. She had possession of all
the records.
Ted Koppel. It is your contention that she vastly inflated
the value of the Clintons' interest in Whitewater.
James Stewart. That's correct.
Ted Koppel. Correct?
James Stewart. As I'm sure anybody who has ever applied for
a mortgage knows, you have to disclose your assets in such a
financial disclosure statement, and there are warnings on
these forms to be honest about this, to be accurate, to be
careful, not to use uncertain judgments, because to inflate
that can be a federal crime. And yet Mrs. Clinton valued
Whitewater at $100,000 on a 1987 financial disclosure
document, right after the bank itself had visited the
property and concluded the most generous estimate for their
half-interest would be $52,000.
Ted Koppel. So when you're talking about a $100,000
evaluation, you're not talking about the value of the whole
property, but the Clinton's half-interest?
James Stewart. They valued their half-interest at $100,000.
Ted Koppel. I ask you this question advisedly, reminding
our viewers that you have some experience as a lawyer. Is
that a crime?
James Stewart. It is a crime to submit a false financial
document. In fact, their partners, the McDougals, are on
trial in Little Rock this week for having submitted false
financial documents to financial institutions. But to prove a
case like that, a prosecutor would have to prove that it was
knowingly a false submission. We haven't heard an explanation
from either Mrs. Clinton or the President about that
document, and that ultimately would be a question for a
prosecutor and a jury to decide.
Ted Koppel. I bring you back, Jim, to what we heard the
President say just a few moments ago, again, at the top of
this broadcast, sort of this--this cry of ``What in heaven's
name are we supposed to do? Somebody makes an allegation, we
respond to the allegation. Somebody makes a new allegation,
we respond to that allegation.'' This sounds like another one
of those allegations. How do you respond to--to what the
President is saying?
James Stewart. Well, I don't think these allegations would
be coming out, or the revelations, in this kind of slow,
drip-by-drip process, if the White House and the Clintons had
been forthright from the beginning, when this first surfaced
in the campaign. Get the story out. They came to me, or they
sent someone to me, allegedly because they wanted to get the
whole story out, and they had been advised at the time--and I
told them the same thing--that to stop these inquiries, get
in front of the story. Tell us what happened, and don't leave
holes in the story. Be complete. Err on the side of
completeness, and if people are bored, they can ignore it.
But that has never been the strategy they have employed.
Ted Koppel. Let's take a short break, Jim. When--we come
back, we will talk about what Vince Foster knew about
Whitewater and a number of other subjects.
[Commercial break.]
Ted Koppel. And back once again with Jim Stewart.
You begin with the suicide of Vince Foster, and clearly
believe that his suicide is pivotal to understanding
everything that's happened to the Clintons in--in subsequent
months and years. Have you reached any conclusion as to why
he committed suicide?
James Stewart. Well, first of all, there was the things
[sic] he enumerated in--in the note that he wrote, and I
think foremost among those was probably his concern about the
handling of the firing of employees in the travel office, but
what I think I can contribute that's new is that there were
things bothering him that were so serious he didn't dare
write them in his note, he didn't confide them to his wife.
He was worried about his marriage. He was very much enmeshed
in what we now know as Whitewater, and he knew of things that
hadn't come to light that could prove embarrassing. He was
concerned about the deterioration of his relationship with
the First Lady, and I think there's a good chance he knew of
the problems that Webster Hubbell was about to face, given
his handling of clients in the Rose firm.
Ted Koppel. When you talk about Web Hubbell, I should point
out, first of all, Vince Foster, Hillary Clinton, Web Hubbell
had all been partners at the--at the Rose Law Firm together.
Web Hubbell then came with the Clintons to Washington, was
briefly the assistant attorney general of the United States,
and you write that in the months before Vince Foster
committed suicide, that he went over to Web Hubbell's house
and went down in the basement to look at what?
James Steward. Well, there were files in Web Hubbell's
basement that had been removed from the Rose Law Firm during
the campaign by Web Hubbell and Vince Foster. Web and Vince,
during the campaign, went through the Rose Firm and removed
anything that they thought might be controversial or create
problems for the campaign, and this including many of the
billing records relating to Hillary Clinton's work for
Madison Guaranty and other matters. And one day Vince Foster
went over and he and Web Hubbell got into the basement, they
went to the boxes, and they went through those materials
looking for these particular files, which they did get and
turn over to the First Lady. But also in those files were
all of this other material, including a lot of the
Whitewater material, bank records from Whitewater, and the
billing records, as I mentioned before.
Ted Koppel. Is it--is it your impression that Vince Foster
then took those billing records to the White House, to his
office?
James Stewart. It's certainly a possibility. I don't know
for sure, and nobody's said they recalled him taking
documents out of the basement. But those documents in the
basement were later all turned over to the Williams and
Connolly firm after they learned that Web Hubbell had all
these documents, and they supposedly turned all those
documents over to Congress. So these records did not surface
there. So that suggests to me that somehow, between their
first being removed from the Rose firm to their being
discovered, they were in Vince Foster's office.
Ted Koppel. Talk to me for a moment about--about
Travelgate, but first of all, let's take a look at something
the First Lady said, I believe in her interview with Barbara
Walters, about the whole Travelgate affair.
Hillary Clinton [``20/20'']. I think that everyone who knew
about it was quite concerned, and wanted it to be taken care
of, but I did not make the decisions, I did not direct anyone
to make the decisions, but I have absolutely no doubt that I
did express concern, because I was concerned about any kind
of financial mismanagement.
Ted Koppel. Mrs. Clinton presents herself in that interview
as exercising a sort of passive role. ``Yes, I may have
expressed some concern about but I certainly didn't initiate
it.'' There is a memorandum by David Watkins, I believe. Tell
the story of that memorandum, because it, of course, suggests
something totally different, but the White House itself
ultimately produced that memorandum and made it available.
Why is that significant?
James Stewart. Well, the facts, as I discovered, on the
travel office affair, are as follows. I learned, before the
production of this memo, that in fact, whatever her own
personal belief about this is, Mrs. Clinton was the first
person to suggest to David Watkins that these people be
replaced.
Ted Koppel. David Watkins being?
James Stewart. He was the head of management in the White
House and was the person in charge of personnel in the White
House, including the travel office.
Ted Koppel. Right.
James Stewart. She was the first one to say to him, ``We
need our people in this office.'' Did she literally say
``Fire them''? No. But the implication seemed very clear to
him and to everyone else who spoke with her, and that's what
set in motion the chain of events that led to their being
fired.
Ted Koppel. But the--the memorandum that David Watkins
wrote to his own file about all of this, and about falling on
his sword for the First Lady, is a memorandum that the White
House itself, after all, made available. Now, that certainly
puts them in a good light, doesn't it?
James Stewart. Well, I don't think so. First of all, that
memorandum had been under subpoena for a considerable period
of time. The independent counsel, the predecessor to Kenneth
Starr, had subpoenaed that particular document. Meanwhile, I
think the White House was aware that all this information was
soon going to be made public. I have no idea how they found
it, when they did, or why they decided to--to make it public
when they did, but I do know that the week before that, I and
my fact checker were checking the details about the First
Lady's involvement in the travel office affair with the White
House press office, with people in the White House, and had
even faxed them material that dealt with this very subject,
and almost immediately after that the memo itself appeared.
Ted Koppel. What you're suggesting, Jim, is that because
you indicated that something about this was going to be in
your book that they then decided to--to make it public before
it became public in your book?
James Stewart. Well, as I said, I don't know why they did
it. All I can say is, I had all this information in the book,
we were fact-checking this information with the White House,
so the White House knew this information was going to be in
the book and shortly after that the memo appeared. But I'm
sure the White House will say that no, that had nothing to do
with it.
[[Page S2411]]
Ted Koppel. Let's take another short break. An inside peek
at the White House damage control operation when we come
back.
[Commercial break.]
Ted Koppel. There was, Jim Stewart, considerable debate
going on within the White House, you discovered, about how
much to reveal, when to reveal it, how cooperative to be, and
at one point there is a--a line that I suspect is going to be
a rather devastating line that the First Lady uttered in
reference to all of this.
James Stewart. Well, you're--you're right. The--there was
internal advice, especially from David Gergen, to turn
everything over, and this was seriously considered until the
First Lady interrupted at one point and said, ``Well, you
know, I'm not going to have people poring over our documents.
After all, we're the President,'' suggesting that, by virtue
of grandeur and power of the office, that they somehow should
not have to endure such an experience.
Ted Koppel. The key questions, I think, ultimately may
become not so much what happened during Whitewater, but what
happened in more recent months, in terms of either covering
things up or not being as forthcoming with information. There
is one story that--that you uncover having to do with the
Paula Jones story, this is the young lady who charged sexual
harassment against then-Governor Clinton, and the--and the
Arkansas state troopers who were then guarding Mr. Clinton.
What is that all about?
James Stewart. Well, I think it's well-known at this point
that the troopers surfaced with some accounts of their
experiences while in the security detail of the governor.
What I think hasn't gotten much attention is that before
these reports were published, and before the troopers
actually made the final decision to reveal what they claim to
know, there was pressure applied to them to try to get them
not to speak out, and I think the most significant example of
this came when the President of the United States himself
called one of these troopers and offered him a federal job.
That trooper subsequently decided not to participate. He was
not one of the troopers who subsequently did tell stories to
anyone, so if the goal of that job offer was to get this
trooper to remain silent, it worked.
Ted Koppel. Is there not one trooper who, in fact, ended up
with a federal job?
James Stewart. The head of the governor's security detail
did end up with a federal job, but the trooper who heard
directly from the president and decided not to participate
did not accept it. He said he didn't--didn't want one of
these jobs, he wanted to stay in Little Rock.
Ted Koppel. Now, again, let me draw on some of your
experience as a lawyer. If, indeed, that could be--that could
be proved true, the charge that you--that you make in your
book, that would be a federal crime, would it not?
James Stewart. Well, that, again, could be a federal crime.
I think the--the issue here is was a job offered explicitly
in exchange for something else?
Ted Koppel. Let me ask you--and I realize this--this may be
the most difficult question I ask you of all--after having
written a book that is 400 pages-plus, how do you--how do you
reduce it to a conclusion as to culpability, lack of
culpability, whether this is a story that has just been
blown way out of proportion, whether it is simply being
kept alive for partisan reasons now and is--is doomed to
do so for the rest of this year because there is a
presidential election and because, you know, for the
Clintons, the unfortunate timing that your book is coming
out right now--how do you summarize everything you've
learned?
James Stewart. Well, my interest is not partisan, and my
interest is not narrowly was a law broken. I think to sum up
the whole book is a study in the acquisition and wielding of
power, and in the end, it's a study of the arrogance of
power, what people think they can do and get away with as an
elected official, and then how candid and honest they are
when questioned about it. I think that is what it reveals, I
think, most significantly about the Clintons.
Ted Koppel. And--and to those who say, has all of this
investigation, the congressional investigations, the
independent prosecutors, the time that you have spent in
putting this book together, you know, was the--was it all
worth all the money and the time and the effort and the pain?
James Stewart. I think, in the end, we'll find that it was,
that the truth is important in our society, that justice is
important in our society. I don't think you can put a price
tag on those things. Yes, it's terribly expensive, and at
times it seems very wasteful, and at times it's nasty and
it's partisan. It often is a blood sport, as Vince Foster
said. But why is that? It's 'cause the truth was never
honored in the first place, and I hope if there's any lesson
that comes out of that, that people in the future will
recognize that.
Ted Koppel. Jim Stewart, thank you.
I'll be back in a moment.
[Commercial break.]
Ted Koppel. The controversy over ``Blood Sport'', this
book, will be the subject of a segment on ``Good Morning
America'' tomorrow.
That's our report for tonight. I'm Ted Koppel in
Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.
Mr. SIMPSON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The Senator from Wyoming.
____________________