[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 11, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10207-H10215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WHITE HOUSE TASK LIST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Roth). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to talk 
about a document that was recently provided, very belatedly, by the 
White House to the Congress, a document now referred to as the task 
list. It is dated December 13, 1994, but it was just provided to the 
Congress in recent days. The task list shows 39 scandals that the White 
House staff in the West Wing, taxpayer supported staff, decided that 
they needed to work on because there was now going to be a Republican 
Congress. This memo was prepared just after the November 1994 
elections.
  I would like to read just briefly the scandals that the White House 
decided that it needed to task its own staff to work on. Some of these 
scandals are, of course, well known to the American people, but other 
scandals have only recently become known, even though this memo was 
written on December 13, 1994.
  No. 1, Foster document handling. We will return shortly to the 
specifics contained in this memo on each of these. There are several 
admissions of illegality in this very memo.
  Travel Office. We know all about Travelgate, of course. That has 
become a major scandal just as they predicted in here.
  White House-Treasury contacts. Of course, we know about the illegal 
contacts between senior political appointees at the Department of the 
Treasury and the White House, tipping off the President, giving a heads 
up to the President and Mrs. Clinton about the criminal referral of the 
Whitewater matter.
  Obstruction of justice, I am reading this from the White House 
internal memo, obstruction of justice re DOJ handling of criminal 
referrals. Use of White House resources for response efforts. Of 
course, that is what this memo is all about, but that is one of the 
scandals that is listed here. This entire memo is devoted to how to 
spin the press about the various scandals.
  Foster suicide. Espy. Of course we know that Mr. Smaltz was assigned 
as an independent counsel to investigate the Mike Espy ethics question. 
We know about the criminal problems with Tysons there. Henry Cisneros, 
Ron Brown, Hubbell. Of course, we all know about the next top ranking 
man at the White House right underneath the Attorney General, Webster 
Hubbell, who is now in jail.
  Ickes, union representation. And of course with Coia and all that ABC 
News has done on this scandal just in recent days, we now know why in 
1994 they were worried about that.
  Stephanopoulos, Nation's Bank. Again, this is a White House memo that 
they prepared secretly inside the White House using taxpayer resources 
and in the White House counsel's office, which they should not have 
been doing. That is not appropriate use of taxpayer funds. They have 
listed all of these scandals that they wanted to innoculate against and 
spin the press about.
  The Stephanopoulos-Nation's Bank story was of course what the press 
widely described as a sweetheart, below market mortgage for George 
Stephanopoulos, the kind of deal that ordinary Americans could not get.

                              {time}  1715

  State Department passport files; another Clinton administration 
scandal that we are so familiar with.
  Archives abuse of personal system. This is one scandal that they have 
not fully disclosed to us and that we will find out more about.
  The Legal Defense Fund, and of course we know all about the ethical 
problems that the President encountered there, soliciting funds for the 
Legal Defense Fund when such solicitation is, in fact, in violation of 
the law.
  The Health Care Task Force, and of course we know that that resulted 
in litigation against Hillary Rodham Clinton's task force. We know that 
a Federal judge ruled against the task force, and found that it was put 
together in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and that 
documents were withheld from the public and from Congress when they 
should not have been.
  Now there are 39 of these scandals that White House staff--there is a 
name of a White House staffer right after each one of these, after each 
one of these scandals, and they were all assigned and presumably are 
all still working at taxpayer expense on preventing the Congress from 
getting to know all of the facts in these things.
  White House operations, drugs, passes, helicopters, and does that not 
ring a bell for so many of us? Each of those scandals, drugs in the 
White House, the passes being given to people without personnel 
clearances, the misuse of helicopters which resulted in the termination 
of White House staff; this is next on the White House, the Clinton, 
list of scandals that they were working on secretly in the White House.
  Residence renovations. This is one that they believed was a potential 
scandal, but the American people do not yet know about it. We have just 
received this document.
  Presidential immunity. Well, of course, we know that that is all 
having to do with the Paula Jones litigation, Paula Jones having sued 
the Governor of Arkansas for acts in his capacity, not as Governor but 
as a private individual apparently abusing the office, at least 
according to the allegations in the complaint, and the President has 
used not outside lawyers but taxpayer supported lawyers to make sure 
that his private civil litigation could be put off until afterward. 
This is, by the way, something that the courts have now reversed on and 
they have decided that President Clinton cannot put this off, but he 
has successfully put it off beyond the election.
  White House Arkansans, Thomasson, Nash, Rasco; need we say more?
  PIC surplus.
  Improper electioneering at the SBA.
  Now these are all admissions by the Clinton White House to themselves 
within the White House internally of what they were doing wrong.
  GSA.
  Value Partners. Now Value Partners was, of course, the partnership 
that Hillary Rodham Clinton invested in. Rather than putting their 
funds in a blind trust, they did not do so like President Bush did, 
like President Reagan did, like President Carter did; rather, ran their 
own investments, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner in Value 
Partners, a hedge fund which sold short pharmaceutical stocks at a time 
that the pharmaceutical stock market was falling through the floor 
because of the Hillary Rodham Clinton

[[Page H10208]]

Task Force, and that was, of course, scandal number 7 or so up here on 
the list.
  Presidential campaign, FEC audit.
  Commodities.
  Now of course we know what the commodities is all about. That is the 
miraculous fortune that Hillary Rodham Clinton made on the investment 
of a mere thousand dollars in the cattle futures market.
  Gubernatorial campaigns; Lindsey, Wright, recordkeeping. There is 
more in this memo about that later on, but of course we know that in 
connection with the Whitewater criminal prosecution that Mr. Lindsey 
was named as an unindicted coconspirator.
  Gubernatorial campaigns dash MGSL, and that means Morgan Guaranty 
Savings and Loan. The S&L at the heart of the Whitewater scandal was 
apparently involved in gubernatorial campaigns, gubernatorial campaigns 
back in Arkansas that the White House counsel were working on in this 
administration in the White House, 1994, December, with taxpayer funds.
  And then the next scandal is Whitewater slash Morgan Guaranty Savings 
and Loan.
  Other: MGSL slash McDougal, right below that.
  Rose law firm, the next scandal. HRC, and that is Hillary Rodham 
Clinton, worked for Morgan Guarantee S&L.
  David Hale slash Susan McDougal slash SBA, and there are different 
White House staffers assigned to it.
  Tucker, and of course Tucker is now in jail, the Governor, or headed 
for jail.
  Next: Lasater, bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton.
  Now this is not a Member of Congress reading things to impugn the 
White House. This is a White House memo that says ``privileged'' on it 
because it is being handled by lawyers in the White House counsel's 
office at taxpayer expense for Bill Clinton, that was requested by the 
Congress and was not turned over to us until just now.
  Lasater, bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton was the next scandal that 
they have tasked White House staff to work on.
  Use of loans to achieve legislative initiatives. This is a new one 
that we were not aware of, but apparently they were working to cover 
that up.
  Mena Airport. Well, we all know about the drugs and deaths 
surrounding Mena airport while Bill Clinton was Governor.
  Troopers, another scandal, the so-called Troopergate scandal, and 
then there is a whole category here of scandal, women. That was during 
the Clinton campaign when President Clinton was running in 1992, his 
own campaign, not Republicans but his own campaign, referred to as 
bimbo eruptions.
  Now this memo goes on in the case of each scandal to describe tasks 
to be performed and strategy for dealing with that particular scandal.
  Let me give you one example.
  Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman would yield before the gentleman moves 
on, could I just clarify in my own mind what the gentleman is telling 
us about the memo itself? Do I understand the gentleman to say that 
this is not a memo prepared by any congressional committee or any 
organization here on Capitol Hill, or for that matter, any outside 
organization? Do I understand the gentleman correctly? This is a memo 
that was prepared inside the White House?
  Mr. COX of California. That is correct. This document called the 
White House task list is dated December 13, 1994. It was compiled by an 
associate counsel to the President, Jane Sherburne. Her initials are on 
it, and it lists all of the scandals that she anticipated would plague 
the Clinton administration and that Congress was now likely to look 
into because in 1994 we had just been elected, a Republican Congress, 
not yet sworn into office, and this memo explains how they were going 
to make sure that Congress did not----

  Mr. WALKER. That is what I wanted to clarify.
  Now the date the gentleman has given us is December 13, 1994, which 
is a matter of a few weeks after Republicans have taken over the 
Congress. Now they had had no problem up until then because literally 
all of the calls for investigation of White House potential problems 
had been buried on Capitol Hill.
  But now, if I understand the gentleman correctly, this memo is 
prepared because they now anticipated that they would have some 
problems with the new Congress that would obviously not be friendly on 
some of these issues and would actually likely investigate some of the 
scandals.
  Is that the gentleman's impression?
  Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and it is rather clear 
that Jane Sherburne, the associate White House counsel who personally 
drew up this list of all of these scandals, was prescient. While they 
were claiming no wrongdoing, behind the scenes they were putting 
together memorandums like this, and the result in the ensuring years 
has been that 5 of Bill Clinton's closest associates, including his 
Attorney General and including the Governor of Arkansas, have since 
been convicted of crimes.
  Mr. WALKER. So what they were doing here was they decided that, ``OK, 
we've got a problem. We've got a Congress that is likely to begin 
looking into things that have gone wrong in this administration.''
  And so is the gentleman telling us that what they did was they 
prepared a list of everything that they thought Congress might look 
into where they had themselves a big problem?
  Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and furthermore, what I 
have just covered is the list of the names of these scandals, but the 
memo, which is quite lengthy, goes on then to describe the strategy for 
dealing with each of these scandals so that anyone trying to 
investigate would not be able to get to the bottom of it, and I will 
give you one example.
  One page 4 of this memo there is a heading, ``Security,'' by which 
they mean White House security slash Livingstone issues.
  Now keep in mind that this was dated December 13, 1994. You may 
recall approximately when Craig Livingstone came upon the national 
scene, became a household name because of that Clinton scandal. It was 
not in 1994, but in 1996, 2 years later. But listen to what this memo 
says back in 1994.
  ``Review Livingstone file.''
  Now, presumably they did.
  ``Interview Livingstone.''
  They wanted, apparently, to deal with Livingstone problems back in 
1994, all of which were covered up so that the Congress and the 
American people did not find out about them and did not find out at all 
about Filegate, literally hundreds of files on Republicans who had 
worked in the White House in previous administrations, FBI files which 
had been collected by this White House under Craig Livingston.
  Mr. WALKER. Okay, but if I can just follow up on the gentleman for 
another moment.
  So what we have here is a memo that was prepared internally within 
the White House suggesting that they knew that they had a series of 
scandals that Congress was likely to investigate and that they had 
reason to be worring about.
  Is that what we believe we have in front of us?
  Mr. COX of California. That is precisely this memo. I will give you 
another example if you wish.
  Mr. WALKER. Now, if this was an internal document within the White 
House, how do we now have it?
  Mr. COX of California. Well, of course we had to subpoena it, we had 
to threaten to subpoena it, because we asked for all of the Travelgate 
memos to be turned over. Travelgate, which was another Clinton White 
House scandal, involved the firing and smearing, through the use of the 
EBI, of what we now know were honest and innocent White House civilian 
career employees.
  Mr. WALKER. So the only way that this memo came to light was the fact 
that Congress was subpoenaing documents. Now, was this particular memo 
withheld from Congress for a while?
  Mr. COX of California. For a very long while, The request for 3,000 
pages was originally described not all that long ago by the White House 
as a request for toilet paper, that this was a trivial request, that 
they should not be asked for such documents. When finally we got the 
first 1,000 pages of the 3,000 that we requested, we got the famous 
list of all of the FBI files, the background files, the very, very 
confidential law enforcement background files, on people who had worked 
in the White House. These had been collected

[[Page H10209]]

illegally by the White House for patently political purposes.
  Mr. WALKER. And so for a while the White House was claiming that this 
information was in fact information that no one had the right to know, 
not even the Congress, when originally the memo was prepared because 
they believed that Congress would want to know about these matters.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. COX of California. Precisely. In fact, while we learn about this 
same process in what turns out to be pulling teeth from the White 
House, trying to get them to cooperate, because they are claiming 
executive privilege about all of these things so they do not have to do 
anything cooperative with the Congress, they first gave us 1,000 of the 
3,000 pages. And in that first batch of documents which we got under a 
threat of subpoena, we found out about Filegate and all of the FBI 
files that had been collected on senior officials, including James 
Baker and others well known.
  But we did not get this memo. It was only 2 weeks ago, on August 15, 
that we got this memo. This is brand new, and almost no one, even many 
of our colleagues here in Congress, has yet had the opportunity to read 
this, but it is clearly shocking.
  Mr. WALKER. So while White House spokesmen like the press secretary, 
Mr. McCurry, and even officials within the White House, have gone to 
the American public and suggested to them that there is absolutely no 
substance to any of the scandals that have been discussed on Capitol 
Hill and that Congress should be embarrassed to look into these 
matters, they internally had prepared a document which suggested that 
all of those scandals were real, and in fact, that they were very 
worried about them?
  Mr. COX of California. Correct. Not only were they very worried about 
them, but what is outlined in this memo is a specific step-by-step plan 
to keep the Congress and the American people from finding out the 
truth.
  Mr. WALKER. So this is not just a listing of the scandals they are 
worried about, this is a listing on how they are going to cover it up?
  Mr. COX of California. Let me read it. Here the issue is ``chain of 
custody re transfer of Clinton personal files.'' Of course, we are 
talking about the Whitewater files here, because these have not been 
turned over. They have not been made public. The President has not come 
clean and cooperated on this.
  Here is an item on the to do list: ``Determine strategy re release of 
Whitewater file.'' They wanted to determine their strategy for 
releasing this. This was not a decision to share with the public, they 
want to find out how they can selectively make this available. I do not 
know what else a strategy re release of files is. If you were going to 
share the information and cooperate and show there was nothing to be 
concerned about, you would simply make the information public. But here 
they say they want to determine a strategy re release of Whitewater 
file.

  ``Under search of Foster office'', another heading, they have this 
item to do: legal research on the basis for resisting identification 
and production of all documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's 
safe. So they wanted to go and do legal research so they could come up 
with a legal pretext for resisting identifying and producing all 
documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's safe. That is the kind 
of memo.
  Mr. WALKER. So what we have here is a memo designed to look into all 
of the ways in which they could resist any kind of investigation on 
Capitol Hill; and is it possible that some of this was also designed to 
resist any investigation by a special counsel?
  Mr. COX of California. I do not think there is much question about 
that. Under the heading ``Obstruction of justice,'' and I have to 
repeat, because otherwise this sounds----
  Mr. WALKER. They believed they had a problem with obstruction of 
justice?
  Mr. COX of California. It is the very heading in their own memo, 
``Obstruction of justice.'' This is prepared by the White House 
counsel's office, analyzing the legal problems of the Clinton 
administration.
  Mr. WALKER. So in 1994 the legal counsel's office believes that the 
White House could have a problem with obstruction of justice?
  Mr. COX of California. It does not say ``could,'' it says 
``Obstruction of justice,'' and underneath that it says ``Delay in 
addressing criminal referrals, Department of Justice role.'' Under that 
it says, ``Determine usual process.'' Think of what it is that we are 
talking about here. The delay in addressing the criminal referrals, 
that was, of course, the delay in referring for criminal prosecution 
the whole Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan default and collapse at 
taxpayer expense.
  The job for the White House counsel, and remember, this is now 
Whitewater, this is the real Whitewater business, with Madison 
Guarantee and the Whitewater loan transactions and so on. We have the 
White House counsel, the lawyers for the President of the United Stats 
in his official capacity, working at taxpayer expense to do this task: 
Determine usual process, so we can find out how they should have done 
it, because obviously they know they did not do it the usual way, so 
they had to look up, after the fact, what would have been the usual way 
to handle the Whitewater transaction.
  Mr. WALKER. Is the White House counsel's office even supposed to be 
engaged in this kind of thing?
  Mr. COX of California. This is one of the reasons why I am here on 
the floor this evening, because as senior associate counsel to the 
President myself in the White House counsel's office, I could not be 
more familiar with the distinguished history of the White House 
counsel's office and its authentic purpose.
  The reason that the White House counsel has a five-decade history of 
serving Presidents from both parties is that its mission is to protect 
the President and the Presidency from illegal acts or from any kind of 
trouble arising during his course or her course, should we have a woman 
President one of these days, of administration during the course of 
office.
  It is for the President's official activities, not for his tax 
returns, his personal tax returns, and certainly not for his private 
investments, and certainly not for the criminal investigation or 
prosecution of his friends and cronies from Arkansas or even elsewhere 
in the administration. But that is exactly what this White House 
counsel's office has been doing.

  I will tell you, when I worked in the White House counsel's office in 
a previous administration, we did not look at the President's tax 
returns. That was done at the President's personal expense by the 
President's own private law firm. But in this White House counsel's 
office, Vince Foster at the time of his death was actually working on 
the Whitewater partnership tax return. That is what he was doing in the 
West Wing of the White House at Government expense.
  It is a perversion and abuse of that function, and it is obviously 
all the more poignant when one reads this very long memo called the 
task list of some 39 separate scandals identified by the Clinton 
administration, all being handled in that White House counsel's office.
  Mr. WALKER. If I understand what the gentleman has told us, you have 
the White House counsel's office preparing a memo on how to evade 
examination by the Congress of matters that they believed were of 
serious concern, and also how to evade potential legal prosecution for 
some of the things that may in fact be illegal?
  Mr. COX of California. That is correct; and also how to conjure, 
after the fact, legal justifications and pretext for sins of omission 
and commission already occurred.
  Mr. WALKER. Is there any precedent for the White House legal 
counsel's office, for the White House counsel's office, to be the 
perpetrator of a memo designed to bring about a cover-up?
  Mr. COX of California. To the contrary. In past administrations, the 
role of the White House counsel's office has been to facilitate the 
flow of information, to make sure that when a question arises in 
connection with a potential scandal or an accusation of law-breaking, 
that all of the relevant information is shared not only with law 
enforcement authorities or an independent counsel, but also with the 
Congress.

[[Page H10210]]

  I can tell the Members that in the Bush administration, in the Reagan 
administration where I served, and I am sure that this is true also of 
the Carter administration, the Ford administration, that if there was a 
question of the President breaking the law, if there was a suspicion 
that the White House staff might themselves to be complicit in law-
breaking, then no claim of executive privilege would be used to shield 
that person from proper inquiry by the law enforcement authorities or 
by Congress in fulfillment of its oversight responsibilities.
  To the contrary, this administration has asserted executive 
privilege, up until August 15; over this very document. Executive 
privilege is not meant to be a shield for White House staff who are 
accused of criminal misdeeds. Neither is it supposed to be a shield for 
the President's own personal investment problems. Rather, it is meant 
to protect the Nation and the national security.
  Mr. WALKER. Am I not correct that a number of people who are tasked 
on this memo, it is called a task list, as I understand it, a number of 
the people who are listed as having the task of doing these jobs that 
are designed, as the gentleman points out, for cover-up, are in fact 
employees of the White House counsel's office?
  Mr. COX of California. In fact, they are all of them employees of the 
White House, all of them staff of the President.
  Mr. WALKER. Let me check with the gentleman. For instance, I see down 
here the name Kendall. Now, Kendall----
  Mr. COX of California. David Kendall is an outside lawyer.
  Mr. WALKER. But a number of the people who are given these tasks 
involved with trying to withhold information from Congress and also to 
cover up these scandals are in fact people who are employed at the 
taxpayers' expense in the White House counsel's office, is that 
correct?
  Mr. COX of California. That is correct, in the White House counsel's 
office and in the White House staff, a total of 15 staff members, we 
have toted this up, earning an annual salary of $1.3 million. These 
people who are supposed to be doing the people's business, executing on 
legislation, policy, and the national responsibilities of the President 
of the United States, are instead on scandal detail, and what a long 
scandal list it is, 39 separate scandals identified in this memo, and 
strategy outlined not just for dealing with the Congress, not just for 
withholding documents, not just for coming up with legal pretexts for 
doing so, but also for dealing with the press. Because in almost each 
case, there is another item to do on the list: Prepare press strategy.
  We have, for example, a heading ``White House/Treasury Contacts.'' 
You remember Mr. Altman had had to resign because of illegal contacts 
between the highest levels of the Treasury Department and the White 
House, tipping them off as to pending investigations, when that was a 
complete violation of normal procedure. ``Prepare press strategy'' is 
what they have on their list here.
  So when you see a representative of the White House in the press room 
or a representative of the Treasury in the press room coming clean with 
the press, what they are really doing is executing on a strategy that 
was concocted all the way back in December 1994 to prevent the American 
people and the Congress from learning the truth.
  Mr. WALKER. I think this is one of the more incredible documents that 
we have had released. Of course, it was released under duress. The 
committee literally was told for months that these kinds of documents 
did not exist in the White House, and that the committee had no right 
to be asking for them, and then only under extreme circumstances did 
this particular memo come to light.
  Now we find out within this memo that, in fact, there was a plan 
being executed to try to see to it that such memos did get to Capitol 
Hill, and that responsible investigators were not able to understand 
anything about what was really happening inside the White House.
  I find all of this extremely disturbing. It is one thing to claim 
executive privilege as a way of protecting vial national secrets that 
affect the operation of the Government. It is another thing to claim 
executive privilege and try to use it to cover up the misdeeds of 
people within the White House and within the administration, misdeeds 
that are so obvious that the White House counsel's office was able to 
prepare a list of all the ones that they thought that they were 
potentially guilty of.
  It is a horrible manifestation of the use of executive privilege and 
is something which I would think in most cases should disturb anyone 
who looks at the willingness of public officials to come clean about 
potential problems within their jurisdiction.
  Mr. COX of California. There is no question that this memo gives the 
lie to two claims made by the White House. The first is that they would 
be relying on outside counsel, which, of course, they should, because 
these are all scandals, private criminal problems of the people 
involved. Clearly they were still using the White House counsel's 
office, even after they hired their outside counsel. They were using 
some 15 members of the White House staff at an expense, an annual 
salary, of $1.3 million.
  Second, when they said they were coming clean, when they said they 
were cooperating and trying to put all the information out for the 
public to see, what they were really doing was just the opposite, using 
legal devices to cover it up and stonewall. Unfortunately, now 
executive privilege in this administration is coming to be a synonym 
for coverup.
  Consider just a few items on page 10 of the task force memo. We have 
under the heading ``Whitewater investment'', ``Press strategy.'' It is 
all sort of the Dick Morris spin of how are we going to pretend to be 
talking truthfully to the American people on these issues when, in 
fact, it is all a strategem?
  Take a look here under the heading ``MGSL,'' Madison Guaranty Savings 
& Loan, where they say ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC,'' Hillary Rodham 
Clinton; A, conflicts; B, enabled Madison Guaranty to stay open longer 
than it should have. What an admission in a document we did not get 
until 2 weeks ago.
  Mr. WALKER. I would agree with the gentleman, that is a fairly big 
item. In other words, they knew that some of the work done by the Rose 
Law Firm enabled the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to stay open 
longer than it should have, and those were the kinds of institutions, 
as I recall, that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars when these 
savings and loans stayed open longer than they should have and 
continued to eat up the resources.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. COX of California. This is, of course, what this memo says, but 
we know what the public face has been, the public face of the White 
House, that Mrs. Clinton did no such work and in fact had nothing to do 
with Whitewater or Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan or the Rose Law 
Firm involvement in this, and in fact the collapse of Madison Guaranty 
had nothing to do with her.
  But in this memo, which is not prepared for you or for me or for law 
enforcement but for each of the people in the White House, the heading 
is, ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC, conflicts enabled MGSL to stay open 
longer than it should have.''
  This is the scandal that they are dealing with internally and this is 
their approach to each one of the 39 scandals listed in this memo: 
Develop a press or spin strategy.
  The White House counsel's office rather obviously is being misused on 
the taxpayer's tab. The American people should not be asked to shell 
out for what amounts to coverup and back-and-fill strategy in the White 
House, the protection of Presidential cronies and the protection of 
people who ultimately, since 1994, have found themselves in jail and 
behind bars, being convicted of felonies.
  Mr. WALKER. I found it kind of interesting, something on page 11, 
where it talks about Negative Associations, it calls it. Among the 
people listed are Jim Guy Tucker, David Hale, Jim McDougal, and Dan 
Lasater. Three of those names, we have become quite familiar with, as 
the trials have gone forward in the whole Whitewater mess, but 
obviously the White House had some very big concerns about the fact

[[Page H10211]]

that the President has, or the White House has some of those negative 
associations. But then behind Dan Lasater's name, there is a 
parentheses saying ``bond deals, cocaine, and Roger Clinton.'' I mean, 
we obviously have a range of people here that the White House counsel's 
office was very worried about, thus these negative associations.
  Mr. COX of California. This, remember, is a task list. So presumably 
after receiving these instructions from Jane Sherburne on December 13, 
1994, the people who were listed here followed through on those tasks. 
That means that the White House internally, at taxpayer expense, went 
out to put together information on Dan Lasater's bond deals, 
information on Dan Lasater's involvement with cocaine, and that is 
according to this memo, and Roger Clinton and his involvement with the 
foregoing, with Dan Lasater, bond deals and cocaine, all or some of the 
above. But those documents that were most assuredly prepared, if people 
followed through on this task list, have not been provided to this 
Congress nor apparently to law enforcement authorities. Each one of 
these 39 scandals with its subsidiary task listed on this memo is 
something that the White House, at public expense, using the White 
House lawyers and the counsel's office, has decided to build a wall 
around, to stonewall, so that the American people, law enforcement, and 
the Congress cannot find out about it. That of course is exactly why 
this memo was prepared just after the election of the Republican 
Congress, and that is why the press has so reported.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman would yield for a question, I have 
not read these documents. But of course both of us worked in the Reagan 
White House, so we are somewhat familiar with the internal workings of 
the White House and also the relationship between the White House and 
the Congress.
  Would the gentleman answer for me, does this memo in any way indicate 
that the higher levels of management in the White House, the White 
House staff, had prior knowledge of the FBI Filegate scandal?
  Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, there is a 
heading in this memo concerning security/Livingstone issues. It appears 
at page 4 of the memo. Two of the tasks under that heading are: Review 
Livingstone file, and interview Livingstone. Obviously the White House 
counsel's office had a problem with Livingstone and security in the 
White House at that time.
  Apparently his FBI and personnel files, and the result of any search 
of his background and the result of any search of the issues that have 
all exploded onto the national scene since then obviously must have 
been that they knew in 1994 what was going on. Yet, as we know, those 
FBI files on your colleagues and mine who worked in the Reagan and Bush 
White Houses, all of those files were kept there and not returned to 
the FBI. They had been improperly obtained by some political thugs to 
begin with, and they were kept apparently with the knowledge of at 
least the White House counsel's office.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, so this document seems to indicate that 
the senior staff of the White House knew there was something wrong and 
was looking into this situation that would have led them to investigate 
what was happening with what a year later became, actually more than a 
year later, became the FBI file scandal. Is that correct?
  Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, that is correct.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let us remember what happened when the information 
about the Filegate scandal came out originally. Correct me if my memory 
is faulty here. Did the President not act like he did not know anything 
about this? In fact, did the President not say: Well, we are only 
talking about 39 files, and it has something to do with a military 
fellow that was over here on some sort of a transfer over here to the 
White House? So, in other words, this was all an act on the part of the 
senior staff of the White House, perhaps the President.
  Mr. WALKER. If I recall correctly, they called it a kind of a 
bureaucratic snafu.
  Mr. COX of California. I believe my colleague would be correct if he 
had said that that was a precise quotation from the President. He 
described this as a bureaucratic snafu. This was a couple of years 
after the White House counsel's office began investigating the whole 
thing according to this very memo and identified it as a scandal in the 
making. Only, they identified it just to themselves, not to anyone 
else. Yet when it first burst upon the national scene, it was for the 
President to say, this is merely a bureaucratic snafu. Now we know that 
the administration was at least criminally incompetent if not 
malevolent in abusing the privacy of scores of honest public servants.

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. The first figure we were given by the White House 
was, I think, 39 or something like that, FBI files were involved, they 
in fact knew that the number that they were giving out at that time was 
incorrect. This indicates that they had done a study, at least they had 
red-flagged this a long time before, and that was probably an 
intentional, I would say, error, or intentional misinformation, when 
eventually the figure came out of 900 FBI files. So this is indicating 
that they were looking into that matter. When the number 39 went up to 
900 FBI files, this is all part and parcel of something the White House 
had thought out a long time before.
  Mr. COX of California. What we know specifically from this memo is 
that the White House had reason to be concerned about Craig Livingstone 
himself in December 1994 because not only were they worried about 
security issues for which he was responsible but the task, the specific 
task on this list is to interview Livingstone and look at Livingstone's 
file. You would not look at Livingston's file unless you thought he was 
a problem.
  Any kind of competent search about Livingstone, since we have all 
read about him in the newspaper and his unsavory background, would 
obviously have yielded the result that such a person ought not to have 
been placed and maintained in a position requiring professionalism and 
trust. We know nonetheless the result. This political hack was 
maintained in this position, this very sensitive position in the White 
House with access to FBI files on so many Americans for 2 years.
  Mr. WALKER. In fact was given raises as I recall.
  Mr. COX. of California. And described by George Stephanopoulos as a 
very able, competent person, who they loved having in the job.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. And this man had been involved with opposition 
research during political campaigns prior to this time?
  Mr. COX of California. Well, of course. And he was a bouncer.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, having our background in the White 
House, let us examine this angle of the story. What has happened in 
other White Houses that we could actually compare it to? Did Chuck 
Colson not have something to do with an FBI file?
  Mr. COX of California. He possessed one FBI file, it was learned, and 
therefore he was convicted and sent to prison, for one file.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. So Chuck Colson, in the Nixon era, when we had a 
Republican in the White House, was found guilty of mishandling one FBI 
file and went to prison. And today we know that there were probably up 
to 900 FBI files in the possession of a person who had been involved 
with opposition research for the Democratic Party, yet this question 
does not seem to be asked of the President by the press anymore.
  Mr. COX of California. The comparison is not apt if we just leave it 
at that. The truth is that the White House counsel's office in its 
current incarnation is literally a response to Watergate. They decided 
that no longer would the lawyers for the President be kept in a small 
office in the Old Executive Office Building across the street. There 
were only two of them in the Nixon administration.
  We all remember John Dean's testimony about his inability to come 
across with the President and convince him of the gravity of these 
things. The White House counsel's office was then moved right into the 
West Wing of the White House. It became a significant law firm, with 
very, very professional people who have acquitted themselves with great 
distinction through the Carter administration, through the

[[Page H10212]]

Ford administration, through the Reagan administration and the Bush 
administration, to keep the administration out of trouble, to prevent 
things like this from happening. But what goes on in this White House 
counsel's office? They are the engines of these misdeeds. It is the 
White House counsel's office that was coming up with these FBI files, 
multiplying one hundredfold the crime for which Mr. Colson was 
convicted during Watergate.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I seem to recall some years ago a press 
secretary in a Republican administration who got fired for having made 
up a quote along the way. Now you look down through this memo, and this 
memo has a press strategy for purposely misleading the public. The 
level of question that arises from this kind of task list is pretty 
substantial.

  Mr. COX of California. It does trouble me that with respect to each 
one of these 39 scandals, one of the items to do, on the to-do list for 
the White House counsel's office, the legal counsel of the President of 
the United States, is to develop a press strategy. If we are coming 
clean, if we are trying to share with the American people all the 
relevant facts so that their minds can be put at ease that no 
illegality is occurring at the highest levels of our Government, one 
would wish that, rather than a press strategy, we simply had a 
procedure by which the documents were shared and made public.
  Mr. Speaker, they ought to be shared with law enforcement, shared 
with the American people and with the Congress. Instead, each time we 
have a scandal listed here, whether it is Ickes' union representation, 
Stephanopoulos, Nations Bank, improper electioneering at the SBA, 
Presidential campaign and FEC audit, commodities. There are 39 of 
these.
  Mr. WALKER. The use of time and White House resources for response 
efforts. In other words, what they are admitting to there is they have 
got this problem. They are using the taxpayer dollar. They are using 
the White House itself and taxpayer dollars for essentially political 
responses.
  Mr. COX of California. That is precisely it. The press strategy seems 
to be the preoccupation of the White House counsel's office, whereas 
they are supposed to be paid by the taxpayers and they are for the 
benefit of the President to keep everything on the level, to keep the 
President and the highest levels of our executive branch out of 
trouble.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we can assume through this memo, can we not, that 
basically the White House and the upper echelons of the White House 
were red-flagging every possible problem so that they could build 
contingency plans in case these things came to the public's attention. 
So when things like the FBI scandal or perhaps even the billing records 
scandal, the billing records that miraculously appeared in the living 
quarters of the first family in the White House, that were lost for so 
long, that perhaps that was not just an accident. Perhaps actually a 
strategy was developed on how to handle this crisis. Maybe there is 
another file someplace else that basically details how to handle all of 
these problems that are red-flagged.
  Mr. COX of California. The gentleman is being very circumspect and 
charitable, having now received this memo, to say ``perhaps.'' It is 
obvious that the purpose of this task list is to marshal all of the 
efforts of the White House staff, led by White House lawyers, to 
prevent Congress from investigating each and every one of these 39 
scandals.
  One of the headings in this memo is Research Re Limitation on 
Legislative Power to Investigate. What the White House counsel's office 
is doing here is coming up with legal arguments that will prevent the 
Congress from getting to the bottom of what they have already 
identified as scandals.

                              {time}  1800

  ``Research re: limitations on legislative power to investigate.'' 
Under that heading, we have DNC, DCCC, DSCC.
  For those of us who are uninitiated, the DNC is the Democratic 
National Committee, the DCCC is the Democratic Congressional Campaign 
Committee, and the DSCC is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign 
Committee.
  Under that they have ``surrogates.'' So they are going to be using 
all of their political machinery. This is a taxpayer paid memo, and 
taxpayer paid lawyers inside the White House wrote this memo about 
DCCC, DNC and DSCC, to use them as surrogates to announce to the 
American people that there are legal reasons, that the White House 
counsel then went out and researched and came up with, that Congress 
cannot and should not be investigating these 39 scandals, which are 
neatly itemized in this secret memo.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Could this be characterized again, and you looked at 
these things legally, Mr. Cox, and you are a trained lawyer and I am 
not, I have a journalistic background, but would it be inaccurate to 
suggest that this was a game plan for a coverup?
  Mr. COX of California. As I said earlier, it appears chiefly from 
this brand new memo, which we have had only for a few weeks, and also 
from all of the context of the administration's nonresponse to our 
request for those 3,000 documents, which they referred to as a request 
for toilet paper and which eventually yielded the information about 
Filegate and all the FBI files on earlier administrative personnel that 
they obtained for political purposes, that executive privilege, which 
has been their basis for refusing to turn over these documents, is 
increasingly becoming a synonym for coverup.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think it is important that those people who are 
reading this in the Congressional Record or hearing this over C-SPAN 
should understand that none of the information we are talking about in 
this memo, or, I might add, many of the other revelations we have 
discovered, whether it is the FBI files or the billing records we were 
trying to find for the Rose Law Firm in dealing with this S&L scandal 
which the First Lady was in some way attached to, these things would 
not have been ever disclosed to the public, nothing about this would 
ever be known by the public, except for the fact that the U.S. Congress 
changed hands.
  This memo, it appears that this memo is a recognition that the 
administration recognized very early on that the game was up in terms 
of hiding everything from the public. That they could have kept all of 
this information, if the Democrats would have maintained control of the 
House and the Senate, and there was no way the public would ever have 
known about this.
  Which also suggests one other thing, and this is a point I would like 
to make and the public should understand: The liberal Democrats, who 
controlled both Houses of Congress and control the executive branch 
today, have a total disdain for the press. They do not believe that the 
press can uncover anything. They in fact trusted that the press would 
not even try to uncover any of these things.
  It was only when the House of Representatives changed hands and we 
had the power then to subpoena and ask people under oath questions 
about these types of misdeeds, that the administration became cautious 
enough and became frightened enough to try to look at what their 
potential vulnerabilities were. If we would not have had control of the 
House, they would not fear a thing from us.
  Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman would yield, I think the gentleman from 
California makes an excellent point, because actually Chairman Clinger, 
at that time a ranking minority member of the committee, attempted to 
pursue the Travelgate scandal while a minority member of the committee, 
attempted to get the committee to look into the problem at that time. 
He was told by the Democrats that it would not be done. In fact, I 
think, I do not remember exactly, but I think they actually voted him 
down and suggested to him that he was not going to be able to pursue 
the matter. It was not until he became chairman of the committee that 
he was able to pursue the matter, because specifically that committee 
decided to permit the White House to cover this matter up and not take 
it up before the proper congressional committees.
  Mr. COX of California. It is at least true that prior to the 
revelations, so many of which have occurred since the election of an 
opposition party to get to the bottom of this in the White House, that 
there was an attitude by the Democrats in power in Congress at

[[Page H10213]]

the time that they simply did not want to know the answer to these 
questions, because, after all, we had not seen this document until just 
a few weeks ago. But now that we have it, I think any fair-minded 
person, any Democrat or any Republican, would have to say, this is a 
virtual roadmap to scandal.
  If the majority party in Congress were to put together a list of 
scandals of the administration that ran to more than a dozen, it would 
be called a partisan exercise. Yet here we have, prepared by the White 
House staff itself, by President Clinton's own staff, a secret memo for 
their own privileged consumption, stamped ``privileged'' on the cover, 
a list of 39 scandals, with detail of each, and some rather damaging 
admissions about each.
  Let me point our just one such that we have not referred to in this 
brief colloquy, and that is the scandal labeled Hubbell, and that is, 
of course, Webster Hubbell, the acting Attorney General. ``Webster 
Hubbell's cooperation is to be monitored.''
  Now, why would we be concerned with this? This is right before 
``determine press strategy.'' Why would we be concerned with monitoring 
Webster Hubbell's cooperation, if we were willing to let the special 
prosecutor do his job?
  The answer is, of course, the administration was very concerned about 
just how far Webster Hubbell might go in cooperating with that special 
prosecutor. As we all know, Webster Hubbell was subsequently convicted 
and sent to jail.
  Mr. WALKER. And right below that is ``Ickes's union representation.'' 
We know that one of the unions and one of the individuals that Mr. 
Ickes had a relationship with now now somebody who has been under 
congressional investigation, and where we have FBI data calling him a 
criminal associate of the mob, this person who Mr. Ickes was associated 
with. I see they were assembling a binder with summary and key 
documents with regard to that union representation.
  Well, since the White House has had this direct relationship with 
this person, Mr. Coia, who has been called by the FBI a criminal 
associate of the mob, that could be a very damaging kind of question 
that is raised as a part of the scandal memo prepared at the White 
House.
  In fact, ``ABC News'' has done quite an expose on this. It turns out 
the scandal itself was under active investigation by the White House 
Counsel's Office on December 13, 1994, and it is highlighted in this 
White House task list.
  Mr. WALKER. But since that time, the President has continued to have 
direct association with the person involved, the gentleman described as 
a criminal associate of the mob.
  Mr. COX of California. I think at this point it would be appropriate, 
because each of our colleagues should have the benefit of this memo in 
full, that I ask unanimous consent to include the memorandum in its 
entirety in the Record at this point.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, subject to the rules of 
the House.
  There was no objection.

                      Task List--December 13, 1994


                               1. Issues

     a. Foster document handling (Nemetz)
     b. Travel Office (Cerf)
     c. White House/Treasury contacts (revisited; report) (JCS)
     d. Obstruction of justice (DOJ handling of criminal 
         referrals; Jay Stephens; RTC whistleblower reprisals)
     e. Use of White House resources for response efforts (Nolan)
     f. Foster suicide (Nemetz)
     g. Espy (ethics; expanded Smaltz inquiry re Tyson's, Hatch 
         Act) (Mills/Nolan)
     h. Cisneros
     i. Brown
     j. Hubbell
     k. Ickes/union representation
     l. Stephanopoulos/NationsBank
     m. State Department--passport files
     n. Archives--abuse of personnel system
     o. Legal Defense Fund (Mills)
     p. Health Care Task Force (Neuwirth)
     q. White House operations (drugs, passes, helicopters) 
         (Mills/Nolan)
     r. Residence renovations (Neuwirth)
     s. Presidential immunity (Sloan)
     t. White House Arkansans (Thomasson, Nash, Rasco)
     u. PIC surplus
     v. Improper electioneering (SBA)
     w. GSA (Roger Johnson)
     x. Value Partners (Neuwirth)
     y. Presidential campaign (FEC audit)
     z. Commodities (Kendall)
     aa. Gubernatorial campaigns (Lindsey, Wright)--record keeping 
         (Kendall)
     ab. Gubernatorial campaigns)--MGSL (Kendall)
     ac. Whitewater/MGSL (Kendall)
     ad. Other MGSL/McDougal (Kendall)
     ae. Rose Law Firm (HRC work for MGSL; Frost Case, FSLIC 
         representation) (Kendall)
     af. David Hale/Susan McDougal/SBA (Kendall)
     ag. Tucker
     ah. Lasater (bond deals; cocaine; Roger Clinton)
     ai. Use of loans to achieve legislative initiatives
     aj. ADFA (political favors; Larry Nichols)
     ak. Mena Airport
     al. troopers
     am. women (Kendall/Bennett)


                            2. preliminaries

     a. Identify key republican objectives and routes for 
         achieving them--e.g.
       i. sustain shadow on WJC character
       ii. hype HRC threat to white men, traditional women
     b. Identify guiding principles for responses--e.g.
       i. nothing to hide
       ii. stick to the facts
       iii. get it right the first time
       iv. keep it simple
       v. resist harassment
       vi. govern America
     c. Executive privilege research
       i. OLC state of the play
       ii. comments by republicans re assertion
       iii. protocol
       iv. strategy/principles for asserting
     d. Research re entitlement of Congress to HRC/WJC transcripts 
         of depositions given to Fiske
     e. Research re congressional subpoena power
       i. reach (HRC/WJC)
       ii. precedents
       iii. committee rules
       iv. procedures
     f. Research re limitations on legislative power to 
         investigate
       i. legislative purpose
       ii. overreaching precedents
     g. Learn new Hill committee jurisdiction, membership
     h. Courtesy visits to Hill--member and staff level (e.g., 
         Frank, Sarbanes, leadership; Harris, Meek, etc.)
     i. Consultations
     j. Offensive structure
       i. FEC legal research
       ii. W&C
       iii. DNC/DCCC/DSCC
       iv. surrogates
     k. Representation of Administration officials by private 
         counsel
       i. compensation
     l. Research re proper role of OWHC with respect to pre-
         inaugural issues with an aim toward articulating 
         principles for determining who should be principal 
         spokesperson on a particular issue and the extent to 
         which each (private counsel/OHWC) should participate.


                      3. foster documents handling

     a. Independent counsel inquiry
       (1) identify options with respect to issuance of report--
         (a) precedents
       (2) inquire about status and timing
       (3) HRC/WJC depositions
       ii. status check with counsel for individuals
     b. Congressional hearings
       i. identify likely committees (Senate Banking; House 
         Banking, Gov Ops, Judiciary)
       (1) identify friends--key Members and staff
       (2) identify leadership
       (3) identify key republicans
       ii. congressional visits
       (1) Daschle
       (2) Sarbanes & other Banking
       (3) house
       iii. prepare background materials
       (1) assemble public record
       (2) talking points and fact memoranda
       iv. determine how to handle representation of individual 
         White House staff
       (1) outside counsel
       (2) attorney fees
       (3) assertion of privileges
     c. Press strategy
     d. Surrogate role
       i. Hamilton
       ii. identify others
     e. Offensive research
     f. Issue specific tasks
       i. security/Livingstone issues
       (1) debrief Joel
       (2) review Livingstone file
       (3) consult with Randy Turk
       (4) interview Livingstone
       (5) fact memo
       ii. inconclusiveness re Williams removal of documents
       (1) confer with Ed Dennis
       (2) debrief Joel re security officer
       (3) assemble public reports of document removal on 7/20 and 
         statements attributed to White House officials
       iii. chain of custody re transfer of Clinton personal files
       (1) complete interviews
       (a) Carolyn Huber
       (b) Linda Tripp
       (c) Deborah Gorhan
       (d) Bob Barnett
       (e) Syvia Mathews
       (2) fact memo
       (3) assemble public record
       (4) determine strategy re release of White H2O Devel 
         Corp. file
       iv. search of Foster office

[[Page H10214]]

       (1) assemble public record
       (a) including any relevant testimony at Senate hearing on 
         Foster suicide in July 1994
       (2) fact memo
       (a) obligation to seal the office immediately
       (b) obligation to cooperate with law enforcement 
         authorities vs. protection of privileged material
       (c) basis for protecting disclosure to Congress of 
         privileged material in VF office
       (3) legal research
       (i) basis for resisting identification/production of all 
         documents in VF office and Bernie's safe
       v. Delay in surfacing suicide note
       (1) complete interviews
       (a) Gergen
       (b) Burton
       (2) assemble material in public record
       (3) fact memo
       (4) legal research
       (a) obligations to disclose a note to law enforcement 
         authorities
       (i) if not obviously a suicide note
       (ii) timeliness requirements


                           4. foster suicide

     a. Chris Ruddy/Center for Western Journalism
     b. Causes for suicide
     c. Monitor Senate report; coordinate with Hamilton
     d. Develop press response


                       5. obstruction of justice

     a. Delay in addressing criminal referrals; DOJ role (D.C. and 
         Paula Casey)
       i. determine usual process
       ii. develop chronology/fact memo with key
       (1) Charles Banks
       (2) Paula Casey
       (3) (track Lewis correspondence released by Leach)
       iii. identify Committee interest (D'Amato; House)
       iv. assemble public record
     b. RTC/Kansas City investigation (suspension of Jean Lewis, 
         Richard Iorio etc.; April Breslaw; pre-1993 activity)
       i. develop chronology of known facts and key documents
       ii. interview Breslaw
       iii. identify Committee interest (Leach; Senate)
       iv. examine last day of House hearings for offensive help
     c. Jay Stephens retention
       i. track public record
       ii. identify efforts to give IC civil jurisdiction
       iii. identify Committee interest (D'Amato; House)


                    6. white house/treasury contacts

     a. Senate Report
       i. review/comment on Report
       ii. keep in touch with Minority Report developments
       iii. prepare press strategy
       iv. identify surrogates
     b. White House investigation of White House/Treasury contacts 
         (receipt of information about RTC investigation; work 
         product; redactions)
       i. prepare file memorandum describing use of unredacted 
         transcripts
       ii. determine continuing Bond interest
     c. Truthfulness of White House and other Administration 
         witnesses (referral of testimony to Starr--Ickes, 
         Stephanopoulos)
       i. consult with lawyers
       ii. identify areas of vulnerability
       iii. research on perjury
       iv. press response
     d. Heads-up policy
       i. surrogates
       ii. uniform application
       iii. Treasury status
       iv. press strategy for release of Committee report
       v. work up background paper on precedents
     e. Recusal policies/OGE/Executive Orders
       i. press strategy for release of Committee report
       ii. background paper
       iii. consult with OGE
       iv. consider Executive Order or other response to Committee
     f. Contacts policy (Executive Order)
       i. press strategy for release of Committee report
       ii. background paper
       iii. consult with OGE
       iv. consider Executive order or other response to Committee
     g. Rikki Tigert
       i. determine her first likely congressional appearance in 
         the new congress
       ii. assemble public record
       iii. interview Gergen, Tigert and Klein re communications 
         on the subject of recusal
       (1) determine response to allegations of ``pressure''
       (2) determine response to allegation that Klein misled the 
         committee
       iv. determine press strategy/talking points


                        7. smaltz investigation

     a. Espy--ethics (Mills)
     b. Beyond Espy ethics (Hatch Act, Tyson's)
       i. determine charter, scope of inquiry
       ii. determine press strategy
       iii. identify congressional interest
       iv. assemble public record
       v. fact gathering


               8. white house whitewater response effort

     a. Legal research
       i. the appropriate role of White House staff with respect 
         to issues arising pre-inauguration (see above)
     b. Fact development (scope of effort, etc.)
     c. Determine press strategy/develop talking points
     d. Assemble public record
       i. Lindsey involvement pre-1994
       ii. Ickes' Ward Room undertaking (1/94)
       iii. Polesta damage control effort


                              9. cisneros

     a. Gather facts
     b. Establish contact with counsel
     c. Determine press strategy/develop talking points
     d. Identify source of congressional interest
     e. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                               10. brown

     a. Establish contact with counsel
     b. Determine press strategy/develop talking points
     c. Identify source of congressional interest
     d. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                              11. hubbell

     a. Monitor cooperation
     b. Determine press strategy/develop talking points


                    12. Ickes (union representation)

     a. Monitor
     b. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                    13. Stephanopoulos (nationsbank)

     a. Monitor
     b. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                 14. State department (passport files)

     a. Identify issue
     b. Determine congressional interest
     c. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                15. archives (abuse of personnel system)

     a. Identify issue
     b. Determine congressional interest
     c. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                   16. sba (improper electioneering)

     a. Identify issue
     b. Determine congressional interest
     c. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                        17. GSA (Roger Johnson)

     a. Identify issue
     b. Determine congressional interest
     c. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                             18. FEC Audit

     a. Determine congressional interest
     b. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                            19. FIC surplus

     a. Identify issue
     b. Determine congressional interest
     c. Assemble binder with summary and key documents


                            20. MGSL-related

     a. Whitewater Investment
       i. assemble public record
       ii. review documents, including work of accountants and tax 
         returns; Lyons reports
       iii. develop fact memo and chronology
       iv. press strategy
     b. MGSL
       i. assemble public record
       ii. review W&C documents
       iii. develop fact memo and chronology
       iv. fact memo
       (1) why MGSL failed; relationship of campaign contributions 
         to failure
       (2) Rose Law Firm work (HRC 1985)
       (a) conflicts
       (b) enabled MGSL to stay open longer than it should have
       v. surrogate strategy
     c. Rose Law Firm
       i. fact memo
       (1) status of conflicts inquiry
       (2) Frost case
       (3) Rose services to FSLIC related to Lasater brokerage 
         firm (HRC 2 hours in 1987, signed pleadings for VF)
       (4) billing practices
       ii. assemble public record
       iii. determine press strategy
     d. David Hale


                        21. Other Pre-Inaugural

     a. Gubernatorial Campaigns
       i. identify issues
       (1) whether expenditures and loans were properly reported 
         under state law
       (a) Lindsey role
       (b) Betsey Wright
       (2) role of the Bank of Cherry Valley
       (3) Starr looking at 1984, 1986, 1990
       ii. interview Kendall; review Kendall documents
       iii. interview Snyder/Lindsey
       iv. fact memo
       v. press strategy
     b. Negative Associations
       i. Jim Guy Tucker
       ii. David Hale (SBA)
       iii. Jim McDougal
       iv. Dan Lasater (bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton)
     c. Mena Airport
       i. identify issue
       ii. determine congressional interest
       iii. assemble binder with summary and key documents
     d. ADFA
       i. identify issue (political favors)
       ii. determine congressional interest
       iii. assemble binder with summary and key documents
     e. Use by Governor Clinton of loans to further legislative 
         initiatives
       i. identify issue

[[Page H10215]]

       ii. determine congressional interests
       iii. assemble binder with summary and key documents
     f. Commodities
       i. determine congressional interest
       ii. assemble binder with summary and key documents
     g. Paula Jones
       i. assemble binder with summary and key documents
     h. Troopers
       i. identify issue (job for silence, other)
       ii. determine congressional interest
       iii. assemble binder with summary and key documents

  Mr. COX of California. I thank the Speaker.
  The memo is quite extraordinary. It is single-spaced, goes on for 12 
pages, and, as I said, lists 39 scandals, most of which, now, 2 years 
later, are known to the American people, but a few of which are 
actually brand new. It actually details how each of these scandals was 
assigned to White House staff, 15 such staffers, and according to the 
press, these staffers earned a total salary of $1.3 million. This is 
taxpayer money, all of which is being misspent because that is not the 
appropriate function of the White House Counsel's office. That is not 
the appropriate function of the White House staff. Working on these 
matters inside the West Wing of the White House is itself a scandal of 
the first order.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I have not read this memo, obviously. I appreciate 
the gentleman making this available to me and available to the other 
Members. But just a quick glance shows you that one of the issues red-
flagged in this memo is how to deal with questions about the Vincent 
Foster suicide. One wonders why, if this was just a straight up and 
down suicide, which we have always, the news media and everyone else 
wants to just steamroller anyone who has any questions, serious 
questions about basically some of the facts behind the suicide and the 
time immediately thereafter. It just notes here that they are taking, 
red-flagging Vincent Foster, and red-flagging ``obligation to seal the 
office immediately.'' And, B, ``to cooperate with law enforcement 
authorities versus protection of privileged material.''
  What we have here is basically an outline for something concerning 
the death of Vincent Foster and the prevention of certain information 
from getting to the public. It appears to me, and again I would have to 
study this further to relate this to other facts of the case and see 
how it really plays together, but it appears to me what they are doing 
here is trying to set down a legal strategy for justifying things they 
did to prevent information about Vincent Foster, coming from Vincent 
Foster's office or about the suicide, from coming to public attention.
  Mr. COX of California. In fact, on page 3, under the heading ``Foster 
Document Handling,'' there is a subheading, identifying friends for the 
congressional hearings, key members and staff, and the list of names of 
our colleagues, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Sarbanes, develop a press strategy, 
and then there is a heading ``Offensive Research.''
  This is not a memo prepared by a White House willing to cooperate. 
This is a memorandum prepared by a White House that has carefully 
outlined 39 separate scandals and the strategy for covering them up.

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