[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 77 (Thursday, May 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H5655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1100
                          TRAVELGATE DOCUMENTS

  (Mr. CLINGER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Speaker, I want to announce to the Members of the 
House that the White House has, within the last half hour, turned over 
a box of documents to my committee, the Committee on Government Reform 
and Oversight, regarding our investigation into the Travelgate firing 
matter, together with a comprehensive privileged log detailing those 
documents which are being withheld from examination by my committee 
under a claim of executive privilege.
  We are clearly making some progress, I think, in this matter. As a 
result of that, I have requested and asked the leadership of the 
majority to hold back, to pull back the contempt citation which was 
scheduled to be considered either today or tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, I would consider this the beginning of a victory for the 
House because we are reasserting the rights of the House to have access 
to documents. We had been told by the administration that they would 
never give us a privileged log; today they did. I think that is enough 
reason to hold back on any further proceedings on the contempt 
citation.
  We need to examine the documents which the White House has turned 
over to us. We need to consider the claims of executive privilege that 
have been exerted with regard to, I would point out, a very large 
number of documents. About 11 pages are being withheld, 11 pages 
listing the documents being withheld. We have to consider the validity, 
the viability of the claims of executive privilege. So we want to spend 
some time carefully reviewing the offered documents and understand 
clearly why they are withholding others and whether that has any 
validity. Only then I think, Mr. Speaker, can a new judgment be made as 
to whether we need to press ahead or complete our investigations with 
the missing documents that the White House is claiming must be withheld 
without looking at those for whatever reasons they are withholding it.
  So, Mr. Speaker, with that, as I indicated, I have requested our 
leadership to pull the contempt citation from consideration from the 
floor today.

                          ____________________