Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 105 (Wednesday, July 23, 1997)

[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7889-S7892]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TIME TO APPOINT AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the confidence of the American people in the
American political system, in our Government here in Washington has
been eroding in recent months, a subject that numerous pollsters and
pundits have been writing about. One of the reasons that I believe this
exists is that they believe people in high places can get away with
things and they are, in effect, above the law, unlike the average
American citizen, and that neither the Congress nor the administration
has the ability, under that circumstance, to adequately track down
perpetrators of crimes and pursue them to appropriate conclusion.
One of the aspects of this that is most troubling to me right now has
to do with the Justice Department's purported investigation of people
and events surrounding various contributions, allegedly illegal
contributions, to the Democratic National Committee, to the
Presidential and Vice Presidential campaigns. Attorney General Reno
has, after numerous requests, steadfastly refused to appoint an
independent counsel to look into these matters, and I had literally
hundreds of requests from constituents to make the point to Attorney
General Reno that they think this is wrong, or questions asked by
constituents as to how this could be when there is such an obvious
conflict of interest, at least to the average American citizen.
As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I joined in an effort with
other members of the committee to follow a statutory procedure of
writing to the Attorney General, asking her to either appoint an
independent counsel or explain to us the reasons why she could not do
so. She refused to make the appointment and gave her reasons. At the
time, I thought they were relatively unconvincing. But since that time,
irrespective of whether it has been appropriate up to now, Mr.
President, a

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couple of events have occurred that I think has made it crystal clear
that the time has come for the Attorney General to appoint an
independent counsel, because the integrity of her office is literally
in question as a result of actions taken in connection with the
Congress' investigation of these same matters.
In June, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee announced its
intention to grant immunity to 18 witnesses. They are very low-level
witnesses against whom no prosecution is believed ever to be pursued or
will be pursued. They were the straw donors who contributed money to
the Democratic National Committee and were reimbursed by others,
including one Charlie Trie, who apparently has fled the country and is
currently hiding in China. Charlie Trie is a very close friend and
fundraiser for President Clinton, who appointed Trie to membership on a
governmental commission on U.S. Pacific trade and investment policy.
Fifteen of these eighteen witnesses that the Governmental Affairs
Committee wanted to grant immunity to were Buddhist clerics who have
taken vows of poverty and yet contributed funds to the Democratic
National Committee at fundraisers in substantial amounts.
One was a Buddhist fundraiser in Los Angeles attended by Vice
President Gore, who, of course, is a covered person under the
independent counsel law; in other words, one of the people with whom
there may be a conflict of interest as a result of which the Attorney
General is supposed to appoint an independent counsel.
Since June, the committee has announced its intention to immunize two
additional witnesses in connection with these Buddhist fundraisers.
Most of the 17 Buddhist witnesses have had immunity requests pending
with the Justice Department since March of this year, and yet the
Justice Department has not been able to visit with these people--most
of them--or to take proffers of evidence from them or declare them for
immunity for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
The Justice Department's policy on this is clear. Their policy is not
to prosecute low-level people such as this, low-level straw donors or
conduits who merely launder campaign contributions at the requests of
others. So the Justice Department should have had no problem in quickly
clearing immunity for these witnesses, the 18 original witnesses and
the 2 additional ones.
On Wednesday, June 11, the day before the markup at which the
committee was to vote on this immunity request, both the minority and
the majority counsel on the committee spoke with Justice Department
officials who were conducting this probe, and these officials expressed
no objection to granting immunity for 17 of the 18 witnesses. But the
next morning, June 12, the New York Times had a front-page story
declaring that Vice President Gore had knowledge about this temple
fundraiser.

Just a little bit later that morning, at about 10:30, the Senate
minority leader held a press briefing in which he said all of the
minority members on the committee would oppose the granting of immunity
during the markup later in the day. Of course, since it takes two-
thirds of the committee to grant immunity, without some Democratic
support, at least two Democrats on the committee, the Republican
majority would never be able to get immunity for a witness.
Shortly after the minority leader made his statement, the committee
minority counsel informed the majority counsel that he, the minority
counsel, had spoken with the Justice Department and it now objected to
immunizing 15 Buddhist clerics. You had a direct connection here
between the minority counsel on the committee and the Justice
Department as a result of which the Justice Department flip-flopped.
Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator from Arizona yield for a question?
Mr. KYL. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. SANTORUM. I want to make sure I understand this. What you are
suggesting is, prior to this story in the New York Times that Vice
President Gore knew, was involved and had knowledge, of this
fundraising activity, that the Justice Department was not objecting to
allowing witnesses to come and be granted immunity before the
committee, and there seemed to be a recognition that these people were
not the target of the investigation--they were called conduits--and, as
a result, should be able to come to the committee and testify under
immunity; that was the state of play before this article.
Mr. KYL. The Senator from Pennsylvania is entirely correct, Mr.
President. That is the exact chain of events, according to the
committee's majority counsel, whose word has never been questioned on
this. It was only after the front-page story.
Mr. SANTORUM. After the front-page story that morning, the story that
implicated the Vice President with respect to knowledge of the
fundraising scheme, Senator Daschle came forward and said, ``You're not
going to get any support for allowing these people to testify under a
grant of immunity,'' and then what? The Justice Department changed its
mind overnight.
Mr. KYL. The Senator from Pennsylvania is correct. And there is an
additional factor that makes this even more troublesome, and that is
that it was the committee's minority counsel, not in conjunction with
majority counsel, which is the normal way----
Mr. SANTORUM. Democratic counsel; minority counsel is the Democrats'
counsel.
Mr. KYL. That is right, minority counsel represents the Democratic
members of the committee; majority counsel represents Republican
members of the committee. In the past, they had dealt with the Justice
Department together as counsel for the committee. On this occasion, the
minority counsel, the Democratic counsel, made contact with the Justice
Department, immediately after which the Justice Department position was
announced as having been changed----
Mr. SANTORUM. Your sense of the timing of the Democratic counsel's
contact with the Justice Department was after the New York Times
article----
Mr. KYL. The Senator from Pennsylvania is correct.
Mr. SANTORUM. Once they understood that the Vice President could be
implicated in this testimony, he called the Justice Department, not the
Justice Department called him; is that your understanding?
Mr. KYL. The minority counsel apparently made contact with the
Justice Department.
Mr. SANTORUM. And the Justice Department, as a result, I assume, of
this conversation changed its mind as far as allowing these witnesses
to testify under a grant of immunity.
Mr. KYL. The Senator from Pennsylvania is correct, and as a direct
result of that, the Democratic members of the committee denied immunity
to the witnesses. Only one of the Democrats on the committee supported
immunity for two of the witnesses, but none of the witnesses, the
remaining witnesses, was granted immunity because of the solid vote of
the Democratic members of the committee.
Mr. SANTORUM. Did the Justice Department give any other rationale for
changing its mind, other than the fact that what we know is the Vice
President was implicated in this, directly now implicated, with
knowledge of this fundraising scheme at this Buddhist temple?
Mr. KYL. I have to say to the Senator from Pennsylvania that I am not
aware of all of the conversations that members of the Justice
Department may have had with people regarding the position that they
have taken. Publicly, there have been a couple of different points
made: One, that it takes a long time to visit with all of these people.
Well----
Mr. SANTORUM. Wait a minute. The Justice Department said it was OK to
give immunity. The only thing we are aware of, that has been talked
about, intervening between the Justice Department saying yes to 17 of
the 18 monks to be able to come up here and testify and then
countermanding that was information then presented to the public that
the Vice President had knowledge of what was going on at that event?

Mr. KYL. Well, Mr. President, if I can say to the Senator from
Pennsylvania, there is an old Latin phrase that is used in law, ``post
hoc, ergo propter hoc,'' meaning ``after this, therefore because of
this.''

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It seems fairly obvious that if, on June 11, the Justice Department
has no objection to granting of immunity, and then there is a big
headline in the newspaper on the following morning, and immediately
after that the minority leader announces that all of the Democrats will
oppose immunity--now, there obviously had to be some kind of a meeting
at which this was discussed or he could not have confidently spoken of
how the minority members would react--and then a minority counsel talks
to the Justice Department and announces that their position has been
changed, the only conclusion that one, I think, can legitimately draw
from this is that the intervening events caused the change of policy at
the Justice Department. If that is true--and, of course, none of us
know whether it is true--but if that is true, that clearly injects
politics into this investigation in a way which makes it crystal clear
that the Attorney General does not have the credibility to continue the
investigation of this matter and must appoint an independent counsel.
The law requires in a conflict of interest that that be done.
What I am saying here this morning is that this chain of events
clearly suggests that result. There is no other explanation that has
been proffered. To the Senator from Pennsylvania, I say your questions
are right on the mark in trying to get to the bottom of this entire
matter.
Mr. President, I know time is short. Might I ask how much of the
remaining time I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five minutes.
Mr. KYL. Fine. Let me then continue with another aspect of this that
is important. Again, just to summarize this, it is not at all uncommon
in law enforcement in order to be able to make the case against the
people who are masterminding a crime, for example, to get the little
fish to talk. And the way you do that is to say, ``We will not
prosecute you if you will tell us under oath everything you know and
that information is useful in our ability to make a case against the
bigger fish.'' That is the way it works in law enforcement.
With respect to these Buddhist nuns and monks who have taken vows of
poverty, it is clear that nobody wants to prosecute them. They were
used. They were abused in this process. I don't think anybody thinks
they were criminals or that they had criminal intent. But what is
alleged to have occurred is that somebody brought a lot of money in and
gave it to them and said, ``Now, tomorrow, when the Vice President is
here, we want you to write a check in this same amount to the Vice
President or to his campaign.'' That is called laundering money.
The way you make the case against the people who were behind that is
to get the people who were the conduits to talk. That is why the
Governmental Affairs Committee wants to grant immunity to these people,
to bring them forward so that the American people can see what has
happened here, and the law enforcement people can get on with their job
about getting these prosecutions completed.
So far we hear nothing from the Justice Department. Mr. President,
none of us want to jeopardize prosecutions, and when the Attorney
General came before the Judiciary Committee, I accepted her explanation
that, in effect, she was saying, ``Trust me, we have professional
investigators pursuing criminal prosecutions and we will do that to the
appropriate end.''
I can do nothing but trust the Attorney General when she makes that
kind of statement, and none of us want to jeopardize prosecutions. But
what I am saying this morning is that the chain of events now appears
to be raising questions that are so serious that unless they are
adequately publicly answered by the Attorney General, her credibility
to continue this investigation on her own without the appointment of a
special counsel is called into such serious question that I believe
that the Senate of the United States could not adequately continue its
public investigation and the American people would rightly question
whether or not the administrative branch of Government, the embodiment
of the Attorney General and the Justice Department, is not improperly
involved in the investigation and hearings of the Governmental Affairs
Committee of the U.S. Senate. I think that conclusion is inevitable.
It would be a shame for that conclusion to be reached, and, as a
result, Mr. President, to clear it all up, to get to the bottom of
everything and to avoid the conclusion that the Justice Department is
improperly involving politics in this matter, once again, we call upon
the Attorney General of the United States to call for the appointment
of an independent counsel in these fundraising matters.
Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator from Arizona yield for a question?
Mr. KYL. I will be happy to.
Mr. SANTORUM. It is my understanding that in addition to this
apparent flip-flop on granting immunity to witnesses to testify before
the committee, there was another instance where the Justice Department
injected itself into the investigation in an apparent partisan move
that showed very clear favoritism.
Can you explain how that occurred?
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I know time has expired.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Pennsylvania be given 5
minutes to continue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if I could respond then to the Senator from
Pennsylvania, he is absolutely correct. There is a second event which
again calls into question the objectivity of the Justice Department and
I think requires us to add a second element to this request for the
appointment of a special counsel.
On July 11, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois, who is a
political appointee running the Office of Legislative Affairs, and who
frankly is very unlikely to have access to the classified information,
the sensitive information on which Chairman Thompson based his opening
statement about the influence of Chinese money in American Government
on, this individual, this Assistant Attorney General, sent a letter
asserting that the chairman's statement did not represent the views of
the executive branch.
Now, this is important for the following reason. Recall that when
Chairman Thompson began the Governmental Affairs hearings, he announced
that the committee had sensitive information implicating the Chinese
Government for its efforts to involve itself illegally and improperly
in American political campaigns.
Some people in the media and in the minority questioned whether
Chairman Thompson could legitimately make that claim. His response
could only be that it had been cleared with the FBI, of the Department
of Justice, and the CIA. He could not go any further because
information was classified and highly sensitive. So he was in effect
defenseless, Mr. President, to further explain his position. But he had
to rely upon people's reliance upon his statements.
Then comes this letter from the Justice Department casting doubt on
Chairman Thompson's assertions saying, no, they had not cleared the
content of his statement. That is the Department of Justice, that is
supposed to be engaged in an independent investigation of these
matters, clearly undercutting the chairman of the committee.
Mr. SANTORUM. When in fact the chairman has said--and I think it has
come out since then, that the FBI and CIA in fact cleared that
statement and in fact had made some changes, I think one change in one
word, is my understanding, one change in one word to the statement that
the chairman read, and that they cleared that statement, that this
letter was in fact erroneous, that this letter was put forward by
someone who I think you suggested probably had no knowledge of what was
right or wrong.
Mr. KYL. If I could respond to that direct point by the Senator from
Pennsylvania. You and I know, all our colleagues know, how long it
takes to get a letter cleared downtown. It takes a long time. A
legislative liaison cannot quickly get a letter out without a lot of
higher-ups signing off on it. So I have no doubt in my mind that this
was not a rogue act of an Assistant Secretary, but it had to have been
approved at high levels of the Justice Department.
Mr. SANTORUM. Who knew otherwise, knew that the FBI--part of the

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Justice Department--had cleared this statement, had signed off on that
statement.
Mr. KYL. Precisely. And that is confirmed.
Mr. SANTORUM. What would be the possible reason why someone at a high
level of the Justice Department would sign off on a letter which they
know would be untrue to basically call into question Chairman
Thompson's assertion that the Chinese had some plot to influence
American elections?
Mr. KYL. To respond to the Senator from Pennsylvania, I am not going
to attribute motives to anyone, but it did cast doubt on the claims of
the chairman of the committee. Yet a couple of days later, both the
ranking minority leader and Senator Lieberman made the point they
reviewed the FBI information and they agreed that Chairman Thompson's
allegations were entirely supported.
Mr. SANTORUM. So in the end everyone agreed that the chairman's
original statement was correct, and that really the sole voice of
dissent was a Justice Department letter which was intended really just
to muddy the waters and cast doubt.
Mr. KYL. Again, to conclude then, and to answer the Senator from
Pennsylvania, I cannot ascribe a motive to anyone, but it seems mighty
coincidental that at a very critical moment in the committee's
deliberations and public hearings great doubt would be cast upon the
chairman by the Justice Department of the United States, which is
supposed to be conducting an independent, objective----
Mr. SANTORUM. And apolitical investigation.
Mr. KYL. And apolitical investigation. And that I say is the second
reason why we believe at this time events warrant the Attorney General
to request the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate
these matters.
I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.

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