[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 56 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW ABOUT SECURITY BREACHES IN THE CLINTON 
                             ADMINISTRATION

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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, in light of continued revelations about the 
extent to which a political appointee of President Clinton's had 
regular access to classified information and contact with a foreign 
conglomerate, not to mention officials of the People's Republic of 
China, it's about time the President cooperated in getting to the 
bottom of this. I have tried to impress upon President Clinton the 
importance and severity of the potential breaches at hand which could 
have very well taken place on his watch. Since the Attorney General is 
unwilling to appoint an independent counsel to investigate these 
matters, it is the duty of Congress to act on its constitutional 
authority to uncover any violations or penetration of our national and 
economic security and determine the principals involved. I have every 
confidence in Chairman Burton and his Committee to determine the 
answers to those critical questions, but the President needs to 
understand the full implications himself and assist in every way 
possible.
  I recommend to everyone the following article by his predecessor, 
former Chairman Bill Clinger, about the lack of cooperation in getting 
the full story out of the White House. It appeared in the Wall Street 
Journal. The synopsis: The Clinton White House spells the public's 
right to know n-o.

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1997]

                       A Pattern of Stonewalling

                        (By William F. Clinger)

       As the former chairman of the House Government Reform and 
     Oversight Committee, I have watched with a great interest and 
     sympathy the efforts of any successor, Rep. Dan Burton (R., 
     Ind.), to get the Clinton administration to comply with his 
     legitimate requests for information and documents. At issue 
     this time is the investigation of questionable White House 
     fund-raising activities and related national security issues. 
     It is clear--as it often was during my tenure--that the 
     administration is consistently resisting Congress's oversight 
     efforts and denying the public its right to know the facts.
       We are seeing the same pattern of dissembling stonewalling 
     and lack of cooperation that I endured for four years, first 
     as ranking GOP member and then as chairman of the committee. 
     This pattern was established during the Clinton 
     administration's first months in office.
       In conjunction with the first lady's effort to reform the 
     health care system, a number of task forces were established. 
     Many members of these task forces were not full-time federal 
     employees, yet notices of the meetings were never published, 
     and the meetings were closed to the public. The Federal 
     Advisory Committees Act mandates that advisory panels that 
     make policy recommendations to the president must advertise 
     their proceedings and open them to the public if 
     nongovernmental individuals are members. Yet when my 
     committee requested the names of the people serving on the 
     task forces, then-White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum told 
     me: ``Congressman, I don't have to give you that information, 
     and I'm not going to give you that information, and you can't 
     make me give you that information.''
       This open defiance of the committee's legitimate requests 
     continued throughout my tenure:
       Commerce Secretary Ron Brown refused to explain 
     discrepancies in his financial disclosure statement despite 
     repeated requests.
       A ``damage control'' unit was established in the White 
     House by Special Counsel Jane Sherburne, who reported 
     directly to Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes rather than to 
     the White House counsel. Apparently, the sole purpose of this 
     unit was to deny the committee as much information as 
     possible and drag out document production as long as 
     possible.
       The White House counsel's office, under four successive 
     counsels, refused to comply with repeated requests for 
     documents related to the firing of the White House Travel 
     Office employees.
       In fact, then-White House Counsel Jack Quinn sat in my 
     office a little over a year ago and informed me he would go 
     to jail before turning over certain Travelgate documents. 
     Unknown to us at the time, these documents,which the 
     president asserted were ``privileged,'' included the White 
     House request to the FBI for Billy Dale's file seven months 
     after Mr. Dale was fired in the 1993 Travel Office purge. 
     This single document led to the discovery that hundreds of 
     FBI files of Reagan and Bush appointees had been 
     inappropriately gathered at the White House. FBI Director 
     Louis Freeh called this an ``egregious violation of 
     privacy.''
       Mr. Quinn finally turned over 3,000 pages of documents, 
     which the White House had spent months trying to withhold, on 
     the morning the House scheduled a floor vote to hold Mr. 
     Quinn in contempt if he didn't turn over the documents.
       These are just a few examples of the stonewalling and 
     defiance that have characterized the Clinton administration 
     from the start and which continue up to my last days in 
     office. Now this modus operandi continues in response to 
     Chairman Burton's requests.
       When the committee first opened its Travelgate hearings, I 
     said: ``If senior White House officials will bend the rules 
     over so seemingly inconsequential an issue [as the White 
     House Travel Office] and then spend two years keeping the 
     true story from coming out, what lengths might they go to, to 
     frustrate oversight of areas of far more serious 
     consequence?'' Now we are learning how the White House 
     responds when serious national security matters are the 
     subject of oversight.
       The first hints of what is turning out to be a pattern of 
     massive fund-raising abuses emerged in October 1996, when I 
     first wrote Mr. Quinn asking for information about the 
     activities of John Huang. His answer was conveniently delayed 
     until after the election, and six months later the White 
     House still hasn't fully responded.
       In the passing months, key figures in this investigation, 
     like John Huang and Webster Hubbell, have taken the Fifth 
     Amendment, and others, such as Charlie Trie and DNC 
     contributor Pauline Kanchanalak, have fled the country. With 
     revelations that the Chinese Embassy in Washington may have 
     been involved in funneling foreign funds into the 1996 
     campaign, serious matters of national security are at issue. 
     The past patterns of obfuscation and hide-and-seek games with 
     documents must not continue. The matters at issue simply are 
     too serious.
       For more than four years the president has promised 
     cooperation with investigations--but his actions have been 
     quite another story. As one who has walked this walk and 
     listened to the president talk the talk, I encourage my 
     former colleagues to continue aggressively pursuing the 
     information to which Congress is entitled. You must expect 
     that the Clinton administration will resist you at every 
     step, but the issues at stake require the vigilance of 
     serious congressional oversight and members of Congress 
     committed to getting the facts to the American people.

     

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