[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6428-H6429]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SENATE WHITEWATER COMMITTEE MINORITY FILES REPORT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I hope what I am going to do today is 
going to be within the rules of the House, because I rise today to urge 
the American people to please read the minority report coming out of 
the Senate today. It is terribly important. It is the minority report 
being filed by the ranking member, Senator Sarbanes, the summary of 
conclusions from the Whitewater Committee.
  I think this is a very, very critical report. It was not leaked to 
the press, as the majority report was. As a consequence, many people 
are dealing without this factual base. We are into spin, if you can 
imagine such a thing in this town. Everybody is into spin control.
  Let us talk a little bit about what is going on. First of all, this 
has been the longest running congressional investigation of any sitting 
President. If we look at the facts on Watergate, if we look at the 
facts on Iran Contra, this one has gone much longer than that.
  I am very proud that the minority report was not leaked because in 
this highly charged political atmosphere I was hoping this could be an 
objective attempt, since it has gone on so long. If we do not count the 
meetings done by the Senate Banking Committee that were held in 1994, 
let us just push those entirely out to the side, this Senate Whitewater 
Committee in 1995 and 1996 met for more than 300 hours in open 
sessions, took 10,729 pages of hearing testimony in 51 hearings and 8 
public meetings. It also had 159 witnesses and took more than 35,000 
pages of deposed testimony from 245 persons. Hundreds of thousands of 
pages of documents have been provided to the committee by different 
agencies, departments, and individuals.
  If we look at all of this and then we look at the over $32 million 
that has been spent on this, I think it is terribly important to say, 
what did we get out of this? What did we get out of this? We ought to 
be looking at the facts.
  This was a very broad spread committee. It went on longer than 
anything. The facts ought to be what we are looking at. The bottom line 
should be, did President Clinton misuse the powers of his presidency? 
The other question was, did he use his official position in Arkansas to 
financially enrich himself?

  If we read this committee report by the minority, they clearly 
conclude after sifting through all of this paper and all of this oral 
testimony that the answer to those questions is ``no.'' And they are 
really rather surprised by the fact that, I guess the disappointment at 
finding the answer was ``no,'' they had to go out and look for someone 
else to drop a net over, and so it really appears that they went after 
Mrs. Clinton with all the venom they could possibly go after. It is 
like they have this incredible sinister spotlight that they want to 
shine on her and make her the most evil soul that ever walked the 
planet.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. Speaker, this is not the person I know, and I think it is very 
interesting to look at the perspective that they have put on it. If you 
cannot recall precisely what you did 10 years ago, then they want to 
spin it that you are lying, you are disingenuous, you are part of a 
conspiracy, and so forth and so on. But basically what we should be 
doing, I believe by our charter under the Constitution, is we should be 
looking at elected officials and what elected officials did or did not 
do in the role of their public trusteeship. That is the issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it has probably been very discouraging to many 
people who put a lot of time in, because I think, if anybody looks at 
the President we have, everybody knows he loves politics. And anyone 
who is in politics knows that politics keeps you busy 24 hours a day. 
There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things that you 
should do if you really want to be good at your profession. If 
anything, this President is probably guilty of ignoring his own 
personal financial background. He enjoys much too much being with 
people, talking to people, listening to people, doing

[[Page H6429]]

things with people, participating in events, thinking about policy 
issues to get involved with those details of how he pays his own bills.
  So I hope that everybody looks at this minority report and we get the 
facts out. We have paid a lot of money for this. Let us not do spin. 
Let us do facts. Let us try and look at this thing objectively and not 
politically.

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