[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 65 (Friday, May 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WHITE HOUSE CLAIM OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with no sense of pride, with 
actually a sense of trepidation to a certain degree, because I want to 
talk about something that has been happening and developing over the 
last year, actually, which culminated yesterday in a vote in the 
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on some of the actions 
taken by this administration by the committee.
  I think the American people need to understand what has happened and 
why. Yesterday the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight voted 
out a resolution to hold several high ranking members of this White 
House in contempt of Congress. This is an action which has happened 
only a handful of times in this century. I do not think anyone who 
serves on that committee wanted to see events lead to that.
  But I think that the people need to understand and I think the 
Members need to understand how patient Chairman Clinger and the 
committee have been with the administration in terms of getting to the 
bottom of this matter, and I am referring to the White House Travel 
Office and the scandal that has surrounded that issue since 6 innocent 
Federal employees were terminated and ultimately humiliated in public 
for actions which they were later found to be not guilty of.
  The story is a seamy story that involves abuse of power. It probably 
involves the abuse of the FBI, the IRS, and perhaps even the Justice 
Department. All we really want to do is get the facts and all of the 
documents out on the table and try to bring this matter to a final 
conclusion.
  Chairman Clinger has been after this for over 3 years. In fact, after 
finally saying that, after hearing again and again that the White House 
would cooperate, the committee issued a subpoena back in January, and 
let me just read for you what some of the President's words were and 
what some of the actions have been. And not only in our words, because 
I think now that folks on the other side of the aisle are framing this 
only as a partisan political witchhunt. Frankly, I think most of us 
would have preferred to have this whole matter put behind us many 
months ago.
  But early on in this investigation the President said, and I quote, 
``the Attorney General is in the process of reviewing any matters 
related to the travel office and you can be assured that the Attorney 
General will have the administration's full cooperation in 
investigating those matters which the department wishes to review.''
  That is a letter that the President sent to the former chairman of 
the Government Operations Committee. Here is what he said just this 
year in January, January 12, 1996, he said, and I quote, ``We have told 
everybody, we are in the cooperation business. That is what we want to 
do. We want to get this over with.''
  That is what the President said in January. But I think people need 
to compare that with what has actually happened. Not what I am saying, 
not what Republican staffers are saying, but, for example, here is what 
Nancy Kingsbury of the General Accounting Office said, July 2, 1993, 
when she testified before our committee. She said, and I quote ``As a 
practical matter, we depend on and usually receive the candor and 
cooperation of agency officials and other important parties and have 
access to all their records. In candor, I can't say that there was 
quite the generous outpouring of cooperation in this case as might have 
been desirable.''
  Let me just read a quote from Michael Shaheen, who heads the Office 
of Professional Responsibility for the President's own Justice 
Department, when he learned that there was a notebook that had been 
concealed for over 2 years that Vince Foster had put together that had 
extensive notes on the whole White House travel office affair. This is 
what Mr. Shaheen said, and I quote, ``We were stunned to learn of the 
existence of this document since it so obviously bears directly upon 
the inquiry we were directed to undertake in late July and August of 
1993. We believe that our repeated requests to the White House 
personnel and counsel for any information that could shed light on Mr. 
Foster's statement regarding the FBI clearly covered the notebook and 
that even a minimum level of cooperation by the White House should have 
resulted in its disclosure to us at the outset of our investigation.''
  Again, that is not a Republican staffer saying that. That is somebody 
from Clinton's own Justice Department.
  Later on one of the other officials that testified before us, Jack 
Keeney, who is reporting to the Acting Criminal Division Director, he 
said, and I quote, ``At this point we are not confident that the White 
House has produced to us all the documents in its possession relating 
to the Thomason allegations. The White House's incomplete production 
greatly concerns us because the integrity of our review is entirely 
dependent upon our securing all relevant documents.''
  Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying this: Seldom in the course of 
American history have so many in the White House done so much to 
provide so little. Sunshine is the best antiseptic. Let us get all the 
documents on the table and let us get this matter behind us.

                          ____________________