[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2512-S2514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE BUCK MUST REST SOMEWHERE ELSE

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, yesterday, I took the floor to detail what 
I thought was an extremely disturbing and very potentially abuse of 
Executive power of the White House to improperly influence the outcome 
of the American Presidential election. As part of that chronology of 
events of information that we now know that has been printed and that 
we are aware of, I detailed the situation relative to the latest 
scandal that has been reported in the press, and that involves Mr. 
Lake, former National Security Adviser to the President, an individual 
nominated for the job as Director of the CIA.
  Mr. Lake, as we all now know, withdrew his name from consideration 
the day after a major story broke about a problem involving the 
Democratic National Committee, the Central Intelligence Agency, the 
National Security Council, and the fundraising operation of the White 
House. I think this is probably the most damaging, or at least one of 
the most damaging allegations relative to the entire fundraising 
efforts by the Democratic Party for this last election. We now know 
that the Central Intelligence Agency was used by the Democratic 
National Committee to encourage access to the President by an 
individual who is an international fugitive and was a major donor to 
the Democratic Party.
  The administration, in response to Mr. Lake's withdrawal, indicated 
that it was the confirmation process by members of the Intelligence 
Committee that is at fault in the withdrawal of the Lake nomination. 
The fault, Mr. President, I suggest, lies elsewhere. The Lake 
nomination was eventually undermined because Mr. Lake was forced to 
operate, or at least chose to operate or was forced to operate, in the 
very center, the very heart of a political fundraising machine whose 
abuses are revealed to us each day as we pick up the paper in the 
morning.
  The White House blames partisan Republicans, and yet a major story in 
the New York Times today, titled ``Leading Democrat Tells of Doubt of 
CIA Nominee, White House Was Warned, Senator Kerrey's Reservations May 
Have Persuaded Lake Not To Fight the GOP,'' hardly speaks to a partisan 
effort to dethrone Mr. Lake.
  Legitimate questions were asked of Mr. Lake of what his role was as 
National Security Adviser to the President in terms of clearing certain 
individuals to come to the White House for various favors, coffees, 
Lincoln Bedroom stays, et cetera, and, on several occasions--at least 
two that we know of--the National Security Council issued very direct 
reservations and, in fact, warnings about certain individuals who, 
nevertheless, attended more than one meeting at the White House.
  Mr. Lake's response was that he essentially was out of the loop; he 
did not know what was going on. Legitimate questions were raised: If 
you did not know what was going on with a 150-member staff that went to 
the very essence of the Presidency, of who sees the President, of what 
the involvement of these individuals is relative to fundraising for the 
election, if you are not aware of that going on, how are you possibly 
going to manage a multithousand-member agency with 12 separate 
divisions as important to the security of the United States as the 
Central Intelligence Agency?
  So even though the White House blamed partisan Republicans, we now 
know that the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee had raised 
his own concerns about Mr. Lake's qualifications and what his role was 
and the role of the National Security Council in terms of all this 
fundraising morass that the administration is caught up in.
  Mr. President, fortunately, publications that are following the story 
are not buying the White House response. The New York Times editorial 
today states:

       In the end, Mr. Lake was undone by Mr. Clinton's reckless 
     1996 election campaign and the failure of top White House 
     officials, including Mr. Lake, to insulate American foreign 
     policy from fundraising efforts.

  That is an extraordinary statement, Mr. President, and I want to 
repeat it. The New York Times editorial today refuting the White House 
response to Mr. Lake's withdrawal from nomination to be CIA Director, 
states:

       In the end, Mr. Lake was undone by Mr. Clinton's reckless 
     1996 election campaign and the failure of top White House 
     officials, including Mr. Lake, to insulate American foreign 
     policy from fundraising efforts.

  Jim Hoagland, in today's Washington Post, states:

       [Lake] is not a victim of the system but of the President 
     he served. His angry words try to obscure an embarrassment 
     and the true dimension of one more political fiasco at the 
     Clinton White House. One more close Clinton associate is 
     badly damaged while the President cruises on with high but 
     flagging approval ratings.

  To continue:

       The system that did in Tony Lake is the one that allowed 
     the fundraisers to trump Lake's staff repeatedly over access 
     to the White House.
       In Washington the system is people--people who are 
     supremely attuned to the wishes, needs, and whims of the 
     boss. If Roger Tamraz, Chinese arms supplier Wang Jun, Thai 
     trade lobbyist Pauline Kanchanalak and the others made it 
     into the White House, it is ultimately because Bill Clinton 
     communicated, in one form or another, that he did not want 
     tight screening of campaign contributors. In the end, Tony 
     Lake paid the price for Clinton's need not to know.

  That from today's Washington Post. Then, finally, Maureen Dowd in the 
New York Times states:

       Although Mr. Lake's ``haywire'' line got all the 
     attention--

  That is referring to a process ``gone haywire'' that Mr. Lake 
stated--

     it was another sentence in his letter that provided the real 
     reason for his withdrawal.

  Quoting Ms. Dowd:


[[Page S2513]]


       In addition, the story today about the activities of Mr. 
     Roger Tamraz is likely to lead to further delay as an 
     investigation proceeds.

  Maureen Dowd goes on to state:

       Mr. Lake would have had a tough time explaining why he was 
     missing in action while the Democratic Party tried to use the 
     CIA to pressure Mr. Lake's office to help get an accused 
     embezzler and big donor access to the White House. The cold 
     war might be over, but don't these agencies have something 
     better to do than vet global hustlers and fat cats?
       Sheila Heslin, an NSC Asia expert with a regard for ethics 
     unusually high for the Clinton White House, offered to shield 
     the President from the notorious Roger Tamraz. But like the 
     ubiquitous Johnny Chung, who also got into the White House 
     despite tepid NSC warnings, Mr. Tamraz had his run of the 
     people's house.
       So that's why Tony Lake pulled out:

  She concludes--

       He was not Borked. He was Tamrazzed.

  Mr. President, former President Harry Truman had on his desk a sign 
that said, ``The buck stops here.'' Unfortunately, it seems that the 
sign posted throughout the White House and throughout this 
administration is ``The Buck Must Rest Somewhere Else; It Sure Doesn't 
Stop Here.''
  Mr. President, we have a very serious situation before us. We have 
allegations, backed by substantial evidence, that the executive power 
of the White House was abused to improperly influence the outcome of an 
American Presidential election. We have serious questions about foreign 
governments' involvement at invitation by the Democratic Party and the 
Clinton administration, involvement in helping corrupt American 
elections. We have serious allegations, backed by considerable 
evidence, that the privilege of American citizenship has been distorted 
and undermined to serve the President's reelection. And now we are 
forced to ask, were American intelligence services manipulated by this 
administration as part of this fundraising machine?
  All of this, Mr. President, speaks for the need for independent 
counsel, speaks for the need to move this process outside of the 
Congress because clearly the administration has taken the position that 
whatever is said by this Member or any other Member of the Republican 
Party is simply partisan politics, that everything that happens is 
directed from a partisan basis.
  What we are trying to get at here, Mr. President, is the truth. What 
we are trying to do is examine what statutes were violated, trying to 
examine what ethics rulings were violated, trying to impose some 
standards on the way in which we conduct elections in this country and 
the way in which the White House is viewed and held by occupants of 
that White House and what its purpose should be.
  Mr. President, for that reason, I supported the resolution to call 
for an independent counsel. I would hope that the Attorney General 
would pay close attention to the recently passed Senate resolution in 
that regard. I think these are serious issues and they must be 
addressed.
  Finally, let me just say that the practice of this administration and 
this President of simply saying, the process is corrupt, that the 
Congress is partisan, that all of this has to do with politics and none 
of this has to do with ethics and legal violations, that that is a lame 
excuse and removal from accountability and responsibility that we 
expect in the leadership of this country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Indiana for 
bringing together for us what is a perplexing issue.
  I had watched from afar, because I am not a Member of the 
Intelligence Committee, the process of the interviewing of the nominee, 
Tony Lake. While I know there was considerable controversy and an 
unwillingness on the part of this administration to send forth the full 
FBI file, that was really the only argument I ever heard. Finally some 
of that file came, but certainly not all of it did, nor was there ever 
full disclosure.
  Yet on the evening news last night I watched a very indignant 
President talking about the corruption of the procedure. And nowhere 
during all of this did I understand that there was any corruption, only 
a request for knowledge, for information to decide whether the No. 1 
intelligence officer of this country was eligible to serve in that 
position.
  The Senator from Indiana has told us the rest of the story. And the 
rest of the story is that Tony Lake is a refugee of this 
administration's mispractices, if not illegal acts. He is not a refugee 
of this Congress' failure to act, because we were doing what is our 
constitutional responsibility.
  I, too, today voted for an independent counsel. Two weeks ago I 
called for an independent counsel, as I think most of us were growing 
to believe that anything we did here would be either tainted by the 
opposition or tainted by the media as somehow a partisan act.
  What the Intelligence Committee of the Senate did was not partisan. 
It was constitutional. It was responsible. What the President did in 
his ``mea culpa, mea culpa'' last night was the first to the altar of 
the sinners to say ``not I'' when in fact the stories are now pouring 
out that somehow the process was corrupted and that Tony Lake, as an 
instrument of that process, grew corrupt along with it.
  Just because the great Soviet empire and communism as a sweeping rave 
of ``isms'' around the world seems to be on the rapid decline, is 
foreign policy and the integrity of foreign policy in our country any 
less important? I would suggest that it is not.
  When foreign countries wish to influence the most economically 
powerful country in the world for purposes of commerce or access to its 
decisionmaking, that in itself is of concern. And it has to be this 
Congress that understands that and this President that understands that 
and in no way allows foreign policy, decisionmaking, or any part of 
that process to be biased by undue influence. And yet day after day, 
now almost hourly, the stories pile up. Tony Lake is now part of that 
story.
  Janet Reno must step aside from what appears to be at this moment a 
gross conflict of interest and do what is her statutory responsibility, 
and that is to appoint an independent counsel. Then let the chips fall 
where they may. And I do not know where they will fall. And I do not 
think the Senator from Indiana knows.
  We are talking about allegations, allegations that were first 
launched, not by a politician, but by the media itself. It was an 
article in the Los Angeles Times back in the latter days of the last 
campaign that argued that somehow there appeared to be an issue of 
corruption or an issue of compromise or an issue of illegality as it 
relates to how this administration, most importantly, this President 
and his Presidential campaign had raised money.
  Now Janet Reno, do your job. Call the independent counsel. Get on 
with the business of ferreting out whether there were illegal acts 
involved in the corruption of or the compromise of this President and 
this President's foreign policymaking.
  And, thank goodness, through all of the winnowing process Tony Lake 
is now out of the picture and we can get on with the business of 
reviewing nominees who can meet the test of integrity and legitimacy in 
conducting what is still a very important part of this country's 
affairs, and that is our intelligence-gathering network, the eyes and 
ears of a government who is responsible for conducting the foreign 
policy of a nation that still remains critical to the security of our 
country and our financial and economic well-being.
  I thank my colleague from Indiana for so clearly pointing these 
issues out. I yield back my time.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business until 3 o'clock, 
with a 5-minute limitation.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I will need more than 5 minutes. May I ask 
the distinguished Senator from Nevada, does he wish to speak?

[[Page S2514]]

  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, if I might respond, the Senator from Nevada 
needs about 5 to 6 minutes, but if that inconveniences the Senator from 
West Virginia, I am happy to wait. Whatever the Senator wishes.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may speak for not 
to exceed 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may yield to the 
Senator from Nevada for not to exceed 5 minutes, without losing my 
right to the floor.
  Mr. BRYAN. I appreciate that. That would accommodate the Senator from 
Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, let me preface my remarks by acknowledging 
the courtesy from the senior Senator from West Virginia. I appreciate 
his courtesy in allowing me to make a floor statement for a period not 
to exceed 5 minutes.

                          ____________________