[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3833-S3836]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AT WHAT COST?
Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, the Senate special Whitewater committee
resumes its hearings tomorrow. The committee's tentative schedule is,
as I understand--I am not on the committee--to have a hearing on every
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each week until the authorization
of the committee expires on June 17, 1996. As I have said before, the
time and money being spent by this special committee could be better
spent on other issues of greater importance and magnitude to this
country of ours.
Mr. President, I will take just a moment to discuss, if I might, the
amount of money and the time and the resources being spent on the
Whitewater investigation, both here and in my home State of Arkansas.
The Senate has called 121 witnesses during its 47 days of its special
committee review. In an earlier statement, Mr. President, I mentioned
the fact that in 1995 alone the Senate held 34 hearings on Whitewater,
while we held only six hearings on Medicaid funding and only one
hearing--only one hearing--on Medicare reform. After all the time we
have already spent on Whitewater, these types of issues are far more
deserving of our attention in the remainder of this session of the
Congress.
However, Mr. President, it is not just the amount of time and money
that the Senate has spent on the Whitewater review that concerns me.
There is another side of this discussion, and it is the amount of
money, the amount of resources, that our Government has spent on the
issue of Whitewater.
The Senate has spent roughly $1.35 million on its Whitewater
investigation in the 104th Congress. That is just the amount that the
Senate has specifically appropriated to the Whitewater review panel.
This does not include, Mr. President, the money spent by the Senate
Banking Committee on its Whitewater efforts. It does not include the
amount of money spent by the House of Representatives in its Whitewater
review.
Of course, it does not even begin to take into consideration the
amount of money spent by our special counsels. In addition to the
congressional efforts in this issue, I would also like to discuss the
independent counsel review. According to the General Accounting Office,
Robert Fiske, the special counsel originally named to investigate the
Whitewater issue, spent $2,498,744 from January 22, 1994, through
September 30, 1995, which was the latest date which the GAO had this
information. I am sure more tallies will be coming in soon. On his
investigation alone, almost $2.5 million was spent. Then he was fired
from the case. The GAO also points out that Kenneth Starr, the
independent counsel appointed to replace Mr. Fiske, has spent
$4,512,065 from August 5, 1994, through September 30, of 1995. We have
no more recent figures, Mr. President, since September 30 of last year.
But today's Washington Post had an article, I must say, Mr.
President, that caught my attention. It is an article which illustrates
where some of this money is going. Sam Dash, the Watergate chief
counsel, famed, well known, well respected, is now being paid $3,200 a
week for his service as ethics adviser to Mr. Starr. I am going to
repeat that, Mr. President. Sam Dash, the Watergate chief counsel, is
now being paid $3,200 each week for his service as ethics adviser to
Mr. Kenneth Starr.
Mr. Starr is the first independent counsel in the history of our
Republic to see the need to hire an independent counsel that advises
him on ethics.
I think I echo, Mr. President, the statement made by Stephen Gillers,
a
[[Page S3834]]
legal ethics professor and scholar at New York University, who recently
said in a Baltimore Sun article:
When the public hears that the independent counsel--who is
there supposedly because of his distance from the traditional
prosecutorial office--needs an independent counsel for ethics
advice [at a substantial cost] it's almost impossible to
explain how that can be so. The perception is that
something's amiss.
Mr. President, that was Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics scholar from
New York University, who made that particular statement.
Mr. President, I have other concerns as well. I have recently asked
the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share with me the five top cases
currently being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Mr. President, here are the top five cases. One is the Oklahoma City
bombing. That makes sense. Second, the Unabomber. That makes sense.
Thriftcon--a national bank fraud and embezzlement case. Fourth, Mr.
President, is Whitewater. Fifth is the World Trade Center bombing.
Now, this is based upon the number of personnel, the amount of
resources, the number of dollars, and the establishment of priorities
of our own Federal Bureau of Investigation. Whitewater, today, comes
right after Thriftcon, Unabomber, Oklahoma City bombing, and before
resources and dollars that the Federal Bureau of Investigation have
used to investigate the World Trade Center bombing in the city of New
York. Mr. President, I do not know how in the world we could go home
and explain such a poor allocation of priorities as the one
demonstrated by this particular chart.
Mr. President, the money spent by the independent counsel does not
tell the whole story. Those numbers do not even include the moneys
spent by the FBI and other agencies to support the independent
counsels.
Under the statute authorizing the independent counsel, each
independent counsel is able to request and receive assistance from
Federal agencies. Mr. President, most of the independent counsels are
using the talents of the Federal employees and the resources of the
Federal Government available to them. According to the figures supplied
by GAO, the IRS has spent over $1 million to support the Fiske-Starr
Whitewater investigation. The Justice Department, apart from the FBI,
has spent $86,000 on the investigation. However, Mr. President, the FBI
has spent far and away the most money of any agency working for Mr.
Fiske, the former independent counsel, and Mr. Starr, the present
independent counsel.
According to the numbers reported by the GAO, the FBI spent
$3,473,000 in support of Mr. Fiske's investigation, and already has
surpassed $8,064,000 supplying staff for Mr. Starr's investigation. To
get a sense of what these figures mean, Mr. President, I asked the FBI
how many people that number represents. They told me that the $11.5
million represents 41 special agents and 81 support staff.
Thus far, I know I have thrown around a lot of numbers and my time
has expired. When we add everything together, the Whitewater
independent counsels have spent $19,673,809, Mr. President, almost $20
million, in less than a year and a half, has been spent on the
Whitewater investigation. That, Mr. President, is why I continue to
have grave concerns about appropriating any more money to start up the
second phase of the Whitewater investigation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a story in this morning's Washington Post, dated April 23, 1996, and I
ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article of April
15, 1996, as published in the Baltimore Sun.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 23, 1996]
Say It Again, Sam
(By Lloyd Grove)
He's the brilliant chief counsel of Senate Watergate
Committee fame and a drafter of the independent counsel
statute. He's an arbiter of professional conduct for the
American Bar Association and an oracle of criminal law, an
internationally acclaimed advocate for human rights and a
widely revered guru of legal ethics.
But it seems to have come to this for the distinguished
Samuel Dash:
``I don't want to be in a situation where you're asking me
a lot of questions and I'm not commenting, and the story
makes me look like a Mafia figure who's pleading the Fifth
Amendment,'' says Dash, 71. He is beginning an interview
about his role as the highly paid ethics adviser to Kenneth
Starr, the Whitewater special prosecutor whose own legal
ethics come under searing attack.
``Mafia figure''?
Surely Sam Dash not has not worked so hard, for so long, to
take a swift tumble from wise man to wiseguy. He has spent
much of his time in recent weeks mounting pained public
defenses of Starr's simultaneous work as a government
prosecutor--investigating President Clinton & Co.--and as a
private lawyer for an array of corporate clients opposed to
the president's policies. But Dash certainly hasn't
cultivated his envirable reputation to sell his birthright
for a mess of pottage--in this case, a consulting fee of
$3,200 a week.
In his memo-strewn office at the Georgetown University Law
Center, where he has been a full professor for the last three
decades, Dash expresses himself in bursts of nervous energy,
interrupting his questioner--and frequently himself--to spray
fusillades of self-protective verbiage and twist his winding
sentences into word-pretzels.
``Once again, I do not want to do an interview,'' he
protests. ``It isn't that I haven't been available for
interviews. I have. I've helped set a policy now--not because
there's anything to hide. I think [Starr's] office has become
very visible as a result of these issues, and they have so
much important work to do, it's all distracting the work to
always--even when they to read about what I may be saying--it
distracts the work and calls for [phone] calls and things
like that, but I don't want, I really don't want to be
distracting anymore.''
Dash, whose regular public statements about the work of the
special prosecutor have made him something of a de facto
spokesman for the press-averse Starr, is providing more than
his share of distractions. In the past few weeks, he has been
forced to justify his recently revealed consulting fee-
astronomical by government standards. And he has been caught
defending Starr's behavior while, at the same time, appearing
to criticize it in publications ranging from the New York
Observer (with which he has tangled over the accuracy of
damaging quotes) to the New Yorker.
He may have had enough of the hot seat. Dash says he'll
suspend his Starr consultancy as of May 23, to spend two
months on a long-planned teaching vacation in Europe. He
won't commit himself to returning to Starr's employ. ``If Ken
asks me, I'll consider it,'' is as far as he'll go.
Dash presents himself as a man who wants, in so many words,
to have and eat his cake.
He was cited by the New Yorker's Jane Mayer as giving his
seal of approval to Starr's pursuit of a million-dollar
private practice--even though he wished Starr wouldn't to it:
``If I had my own preferences, I'd hope he'd be a full-time
independent counsel. . . . What he's doing is proper. . . .
But it does have an odor to it.''
Dash explains that what he actually meant to say is that
others, but not he, might detect an ordor--as though recusing
his sense of smell. Trying to move away from another
published statement, he says, with an insistence on
precision: ``I didn't use the word `proper.' `Proper' is a
weasel word. I think what I tried to say--and maybe I
misstated--is everything he's doing is `legal' and `ethical'
and `lawful'--not `proper.' ''
On the issue of whether he wants Starr to be a full-time
prosecutor, Dash is equally microscopic. ``I didn't say, `I
wish he would be.' I say: `I prefer he would be.' No, no, no:
`My preference is . . .' ''
Why the hair-splitting? Isn't it all the same thing?
``It is essentially the same thing,'' he concedes with a
deep breath. ``I'm not trying to split hairs. All I'm saying
is, I am expressing myself as an independent person. I'm not
saying I would do the same thing he would do.'' Yet a moment
later Dash draws another fine distinction. ``I'm not passing
on his judgment. I don't think I have the right to. If I were
a private independent professor . . . I could speak freely my
mind. But--''
Wait a minute. So he's not independent?
``I may be constrained, but I'm only constrained because
when I speak I can't speak as Sam Dash, private [citizen]. I
am speaking as Sam Dash in the role of ethics counsel to Ken
Starr and the office. Therefore, I don't have a right . . to
express judgments which I could have as an independent
person. I don't even know why it's relevant.''
Does Dash at least know the identity of all Starr's private
clients?
``I'm not sure,'' he says. ``The relationship isn't one in
which, like coming to Mommy, he has to tell me. `Can I do
this? Can I do that? . . . He has to bring to my attention
any situation that he feels could possibly be considered a
problem. I would think as a lawyer, and he's been a federal
judge, he's been a solicitor general, with his reputation for
integrity--and he does have it--that he doesn't have to come
to me initially. His first screen is himself.''
In the New Yorker, Dash bemoaned the dismissal of Robert
Fiske, Starr's predecessor as Whitewater prosecutor. (Dash
went to work for Starr in the fall of 1994, initially for a
weekly fee of $1,600, long after Fiske was gone.) ``Should
Fiske have been reappointed? My answer is probably yes,''
Dash mused to the magazine. ``It may have been a mistake'' to
remove him. ``But that's not Ken's fault.''
A month after signing him up, Starr doubled Dash's
compensation (billed as eight
[[Page S3835]]
hours of work a week at $400 per hour). And he broadened his
role from simply ethics to advising on prosecutorial strategy
and a host of other issues. The money is clearly a sore spot
for Dash.
``I'm putting in not eight hours, I'm putting in 20 to 30
hours,'' he says. ``If one were to take what I'm being paid
and divided it into the hours I'm working, I'm being paid at
what a paralegal earns in most law firms''--a debatable
claim, to be sure.
Last Wednesday, Dash had the novel (for him) experience of
receiving a hard editorial slap from the New York Times. The
paper demanded that Starr give up the ``major national
responsibility'' of Whitewater prosecutor because of his
``conspicuously fastpaced and politically freighted private
practice,'' and added sharply: ``Mr. Dash is right about the
odor, but wrong about the propriety.''
``I'll just say this to that,'' Dash says dismissively. ``I
testify all over the country as an expert [on legal ethics],
and judges ask me about the law and I answer. I don't recall
a single time when any judge of a federal court or a state
court ever asked me: `What does the New York Times think?' ''
He displays less equanimity when it comes to other critics,
such as Democratic spinmeister James Carvell--the public
voice of the White House's energetic campaign to undermine
Starr's integrity as the Whitewater special prosecutor.
``If Sam Dash was my doctor, I'd be happy,'' Carville says.
``If you wanna smoke, fine. High blood pressure? Fine. Eat a
lot of steaks and drink some whiskey! Go ahead, I'm not
worried. He's the Alfred E. Neuman of ethics counselors. he
doesn't worry about anything.''
``What does he know? '' Dash demands with a frown. ``He
doesn't know what I'm doing, he doesn't know who I am. Maybe
he does know who I am. But he actually should be very
grateful that I am in this position--that at least somebody
like me is doing this. . . . But by challenging my
independence and the professional role I play, he in effect
is harming his own partisan interests. And I'm not a partisan
and my role is not to protect anybody, but it certainly is to
see that this prosecution is conducted fairly and objectively
without any political overtones to it.''
But that is quite impossible. The Starr matter has become
intensely political--for Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.), a
harsh critic of Starr, the political overtones are all but
deafening. ``I thought it was a good political move by Starr
to pick Sam Dash, with his outstanding reputation. . . .
Clearly his role is to provide advice to Mr. Starr, and that
advice is interpreting technically the basis upon which Starr
can justify his representing a tobacco company and other
clients. And Mr. Dash makes statements giving technical,
legal interpretations on why it's okay.''
New York University Law School Professor Stephen Gillers
agrees.
``I think Starr was wise, even brilliant, to choose Sam
Dash, because of Sam's prestige and credibility with the
media. That has given Starr some cover, which actually worked
for a while to stave off criticism. But Sam Dash has no
cover. Sam is exposed in ways that I don't think he fully
could have anticipated.''
Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Tribe is also
concerned about Dash's exposure. ``I would not have agreed to
play that role,'' he says. ``I would feel ethically
compromised. Providing legal consultation and trying to make
legal arguments on behalf of the independent counsel is one
thing. But I wouldn't want in effect to be allowing my
reputation to be used as a shield for someone whose
circumstances, in the end, I don't have the ability to
influence. That would make me feel extremely uncomfortable.''
Dash insists that such worries are misplaced.
``I'm not giving Ken Starr my reputation,'' he says. ``I'm
giving him my expertise.''
He adds that Starr and others in the prosecutor's office
are following his advice. And Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell,
a longtime acquaintance, finds this claim persuasive.
``Sam Dash isn't a shrinking violet,'' Lowell says. ``He
wouldn't have gotten involved in this if he didn't think he
could have an important impact. To say he's a fig leaf for
Ken Starr does an injustice to Sam Dash.''
For his part, Dash sees his current preoccupation as a
fitting capstone to a career in which he has been, by turns,
the district attorney in Philadelphia, a hero of Watergate, a
legal theoretician and international human rights activist,
the first American citizen to visit Nelson Mandela in a South
African jail.
``I'm not a stranger to controversy,'' Dash says. ``And I
don't want to look like I run away from it. I think Harry
Truman's statement was correct: If you can't stand the heat,
get out of the kitchen. I like being in the kitchen.''
But the Cuisinart?
____
[From the Baltimore Sun, Apr. 15, 1996]
Ethics Insurance at $3,200 a week; Whitewater Counsel's Adviser Assumes
a Larger Role in Probe
(By Susan Baer)
Washington--Samuel Dash, the celebrated lawyer who was
hired by Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr in
1994 to advise him on ethics issues, is now playing a much
broader role in the investigation--and collecting a sizable
government-paid fee for his services.
Mr. Dash said that while Mr. Starr hired him to work on
ethics questions, he is now weighing in on everything from
prosecutorial strategy to dealing with witnesses.
``He's asked me to go beyond ethics issues,'' said Mr.
Dash, a 71-year-old full-time law professor at Georgetown
University who gained fame as chief counsel to the Senate
Watergate Committee.
For his part-time services--which include advising Mr.
Starr on how much of his $1 million-a-year private law
practice he may retain while leading the government's
Whitewater investigation--Mr. Dash is paid a flat fee of
$3,200 a week.
The professor, whose pay was raised by Mr. Starr from
$1,600 a week in July, said he works an average of 20 hours a
week, sometimes up to 30 hours, for the Whitewater
prosecutor, but is charging Mr. Starr for only eight hours a
week, at his regular consulting rate of $400 an hour.
``This is pro bono,'' Mr. Dash said with a laugh, referring
to the public-interest work lawyers do for no pay.
When it was suggested to him that only by superlawyer
standards would $3,200 a week be considered ``pro bono,'' he
said, with apologies for immodesty, ``People of my stature
charge way more than I do.''
Mr. Dash, whose Whitewater pay was disclosed recently by
the Arkansas Times, was hired by Mr. Starr in October 1994,
two months after Mr. Starr was chosen to head the inquiry,
which reaches up to the Clinton presidency.
A highly respected lawyer and a Democrat, Mr. Dash was
retained to calm concerns about Mr. Starr's impartiality,
given his background as an active and partisan Republican,
and his selection by judges with ties to conservative
Republicans.
In the 1970s, Mr. Dash assisted Chief Justice Warren E.
Burger in devising the American Bar Association's ethical
standards for prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers.
Mr. Dash, who also helped draft the law that established
the independent counsel's office, noted that he is the first
person to be an outside ethics adviser to an independent
counsel.
``This is somewhat unique,'' Mr. Dash said. ``Starr felt
when he was appointed, fairly or unfairly, there was quite a
bit of criticism because he was a partisan Republican. There
was some concern, at the White House and other places, that
he may not be objective.
``My personal belief is he didn't need me. But he was
thinking of perception problems. He thought it was proper, to
preserve public confidence, to bring someone like me in. He
felt he needed somebody to assure the public that his
decisions are being made on the basis of the right
judgments.''
Mr. Dash's weekly fee would amount to an annual rate of
about $160,000 a year. But officials with Mr. Starr's office
have said he won't receive that much because they are
applying to Mr. Dash, an independent contractor, the same
salary cap of $115,700 that applies to employees of the
independent counsel's office. So far, Mr. Dash has been paid
$147,200 for the 16 months he has worked for Mr. Starr.
Many lawyers believe the hiring of Mr. Dash was a masterful
strategic move by Mr. Starr, insulating him from political-
bias charges by having a prominent Democrat look over his
shoulder each step of the way.
But some have questioned the need for such a sizable
expense, given that an independent counsel is hired precisely
because of his or her ostensible impartiality.
Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran-
contra case, said he thought it was ``regrettable'' that such
an expense must be incurred to ensure the perception of
objectivity.
a defensive measure
``It's really a defensive measure,'' said Mr. Walsh, a
Republican former federal judge. ``But the question is, why
do you get in a position where you have to defend yourself?
The real thing [an independent counsel] brings that nobody
else can bring is his independence. That's the excuse for
this very expensive procedure.''
Mr. Walsh said that during the Iran-contra investigation,
he sought the help of Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law
professor, for ethics concerns about the publication of his
final report. But, he said, Mr. Tribe did not accept a fee.
Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York
University who was critical of Mr. Starr's appointment
because of his history as an outspoken Republican, said he
thought such a six-figure expense could be damaging.
``When the public hears that the independent counsel--who
is there supposedly because of his distance from the
traditional prosecutorial office--needs an independent
counsel for ethics advice [at a substantial cost], it's
almost impossible to explain how that can be so,'' Mr.
Gillers said. ``The perception is that something's amiss.''
Mr. Starr did not respond to questions, submitted to him in
writing, regarding Mr. Dash's role and pay.
Terry Eastland, author of a book on independent counsels,
said he did not consider the expense for an ethics consultant
unreasonable. ``Lawyers are expensive,'' he said.
And other ethics consultants say $400 an hour is reasonable
for top-level experts, although they also say they bill far
less--and occasionally, nothing--if the government is the
client.
Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., a University of Pennsylvania law
professor and ethics consultant, called Mr. Dash's fee as a
part-time adviser ``pretty high pay.'' But, he added,
[[Page S3836]]
``The value of having somebody just a little bit more
credible is very high.''
So far, the independent counsel's Whitewater inquiry has
cost about $26 million. Mr. Starr is spending about $1
million a month on the investigation.
Mr. Dash said he may suspend has involvement this summer,
when he plans to serve as a visiting professor at the
University of Heidelberg Law School in Germany.
For now, Mr. Dash said, his work for the Whitewater office
includes such activities as advising Mr. Starr on whether
there is enough evidence to sustain a charge, reviewing all
cases referred to the grand jury, and consulting on issues of
fairness.
For example, when false reports surfaced that Gov. Jim Guy
Tucker of Arkansas had sought a plea bargain after being
indicted, Mr. Starr asked Mr. Dash for advice on whether the
usual policy of issuing a ``no comment'' to questions about
the case should be followed, according to Mr. Dash.
The ethics counselor advised Mr. Starr that the more proper
response, in fairness to Mr. Tucker, was to issue a statement
denying the accuracy of the reports.
Mr. Dash has also been advising Mr. Starr on the propriety
of the private work he has continued to do. Critics have
charged that Mr. Starr, who earned $1.1 million in private
practice in 1994, is spending too much time on lucrative
high-profile cases for his firm, some of which could
compromise--or appear to compromise--his independence as
special counsel.
For instance, Mr. Starr has argued a federal appeals case
on behalf of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., and has
represented Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, a potential
Republican vice presidential nominee, in school-voucher case
before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
conflict of interest alleged
Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to Mr.
Starr last week, imploring him to end his representation of
the tobacco company on the ground that it created a conflict
of interest because President Clinton has been an opponent of
big tobacco.
A potential problem area--cited by those who believe Mr.
Starr should have taken a leave from his law firm, the
Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis--is a lawsuit filed against
the firm by the Resolution Trust Corp., a federal agency that
figures prominently in the Whitewater affair.
Defending his private work, Mr. Starr, in an address last
week in San Antonio, said: ``My ethics counselor is Professor
Sam Dash of Georgetown University, legend of Watergate fame,
and he has affirmed that it's completely appropriate.''
Mr. Dash said that while he has advised Mr. Starr that
there is nothing wrong, legally or ethically, with his
outside work, his own ``preference''--``because of questions
reasonable people ask'' about conflicts--is that Mr. Starr
not take on as much.
``I have discussed with him that he should take heed, and I
think he will take heed,'' Mr. Dash said. ``He is concerned.
But he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. I tell him
he's not doing anything wrong.''
Richard Ben-Veniste, the Democratic counsel for the Senate
Whitewater Committee who was an assistant to the Watergate
special prosecutor, said Mr. Starr's full plate of outside
work illustrates the need for Mr. Dash's services.
``Given the list of things Mr. Starr is engaged in outside
of his job as independent counsel, he's kept Mr. Dash pretty
busy,'' Mr. Ben-Veniste said.
``I think Sam's earning his money.''
Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. PRYOR. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I heard the distinguished Senator from
Arkansas say something that struck me. All this money that is being
spent is taxpayers' money?
Mr. PRYOR. Every bit is taxpayers' money.
Mr. LEAHY. I have been reading a number of articles in the national
press raising some very serious questions about the appearance of
conflict of interest on the part of Mr. Starr, the special prosecutor.
As a former prosecutor myself, I feel strongly that there is at the
very least an appearance of a conflict of interest. But notwithstanding
what appears to be conflict of interest, are you telling me that he is
paying somebody out of tax money, on a part-time basis, the equivalent
of about $160,000 a year to give him ethical advice?
Mr. PRYOR. This is the first time, I answer my friend from Vermont,
in the history of all of the legal independent counsels that we have
had, that an independent counsel has felt the necessity of retaining an
ethics attorney or an ethics adviser. In this one, the taxpayers are
paying $3,200 each week. I imagine that is more than a member--I do not
know what a member of the Supreme Court gets.
Mr. LEAHY. A member of a Supreme Court who works full time is paid
less. The attorney retained as the ethics adviser is, I realize, a
wonderful man and a good friend of mine, but this is extraordinary--
this ethics adviser is paid on a part-time basis with taxpayer money?
Mr. PRYOR. That is correct. He is a fine law professor. Mr. Starr
gave him this job in order to advise Mr. Starr on ethics. I do not know
one time yet that Mr. Dash has not told Mr. Starr what he was doing was
OK, including making $1.3 million last year.
____________________