[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 56 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E821]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WILL THE RULE OF LAW SURVIVE CLINTON?

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                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 1, 1997

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I am increas-ingly concerned about our 
Nation becoming a nation of men, not a nation of laws.
  I am not alone in this concern. Paul Craig Roberts, one of the best 
columnists in the country, expressed his own concern in a recent Op Ed 
in the Washington Times. This is not a partisan issue, Mr. Speaker, but 
one involving the constitutional prerogatives of the House. I am not 
concerned if certain members of the executive branch dislike us. But 
they will respect the offices we hold and the institution in which we 
serve.
  In the hopes that more Members will become more sensitive to the 
contempt in which this House is treated, I proudly place the Roberts 
article in today's Record.

                 Will the Rule of Law Survive Clinton?

                        (By Paul Craig Roberts)

       Who would have dreamed that a U.S. citizen could return 
     home from a visit to South America and feel that he had come 
     back to a less ethical political system? But that's just the 
     way I feel after my return from Chile.
       A person must strain to find any shred of propriety 
     anywhere in the Clinton Administration. Consider:
       Attorney General Janet Reno stonewalls the U.S. Congress 
     and refuses to appoint an independent counsel to investigate 
     the illegal campaign contributions that poured into Mr. 
     Clinton's re-election from foreigners seeking to control U.S. 
     policy.
       Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has been so 
     thoroughly stonewalled by the Clinton administration and by 
     witnesses protecting the Clintons that he has had to request 
     an extension of the term of the grand jury that is 
     investigating such felonies as perjury, obstruction of 
     justice, concealment and destruction of evidence, and 
     intimidation of witnesses. In his statement to the federal 
     court, which granted the extension, Mr. Starr reported that 
     the conduct of his investigation has been delayed ``by a 
     failure of persons and/or entities to make timely or complete 
     production of documents pursuant to grand jury subpoena,'' 
     that persons and entities have resisted compliance with grand 
     jury subpoenas ``even in the face of a motion to compel by 
     the Independent Counsel,'' that ``witnesses and entities have 
     refused to be interviewed and/or to produce documents 
     voluntarily'' without subpoenas, and that witnesses seeking 
     to avoid testimony have asserted privileges that ``are 
     unfounded and invalid.''
       What Mr. Starr's language means is that the Clinton 
     administration is stonewalling the legal system of the United 
     States, just as Caligula laughed at Roman law or what was 
     left of it. Mr. Clinton is striving mightily to establish 
     that he is above the law, and so far he is succeeding. He has 
     even used the power of his office to evade a civil suit for 
     sexual harassment.
       Scandal follows scandal with such rapidity that the public 
     cannot keep up. Whatever happened, for example, to Resolution 
     Trust Corp. official John E. Ryan, who squashed his agency's 
     investigation of the Whitewater banking scandal three years 
     ago? Investigators and their supervisors testified before 
     Congress that this was indeed the fact and produced tape 
     recordings and other evidence of a coverup designed to 
     protect the Clintons. Apparently, the coverup succeeded, 
     because everyone was soon distracted by the next scandal.
       Last November the Democrats stole (at least) two elections 
     to the U.S. Congress, one in Louisiana and one in California. 
     Republican Robert Dornan lost the California race by 984 
     votes. Orange County District Attorney Michael Capizzi has 
     found that a single ``immigrant rights'' group (funded with 
     $35 million in taxpayers' money) registered 890 noncitizens 
     in the county and that most of them voted. California's 
     secretary of state has also found hundreds of illegal voters 
     and asked the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for 
     help in checking the voter rolls.
       INS on orders from Washington not only refused any help in 
     identifying illegal voters but also refused to comply with 
     court-ordered subpoenas. Loretta Sanchez, the beneficiary of 
     the illegal votes, also refuses to comply with a 
     congressional subpoena for documents.
       The INS and Loretta Sanchez, although not as powerful as 
     the president, are having equal success in stonewalling 
     Congress.
       Republicans can be stonewalled because they are intimidated 
     by the Democrats' audacity. Republicans simply do not know 
     what to do when their opponents refuse to follow the rules. 
     It presents them with a conflict that is too big for them to 
     handle. They are embarrassed for their opponents, and they 
     shy away from facing down such defiance of law. Republicans 
     pretend that something less is happening, and they look to 
     make a deal so they can ``move on.''
       The media also shield the Clintons. Unable any longer to 
     deny the appearance of impropriety, the media have turned it 
     into a joke. The corruption has become something to laugh at, 
     not to be serious about. Anyone who decries President 
     Clinton's ethics is told it is unsophisticated to expect a 
     bubba-boy from the South to be any different. Not even Yale 
     and Oxford can turn a pig's ear into a silk purse; so what's 
     the big deal?
       But there is a big deal--the rule of law and the 
     accountability of the executive. The rule of law is being 
     shredded, and the precedent is being established that a 
     Democratic president favored by the media is not accountable 
     to a Republican Congress. The Republicans who are allowing 
     this to happen are far greater villains than the Clintons.

     

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