[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 132 (Monday, September 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8130-H8137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 A RIDICULOUS THREAT FROM THE PRESIDENT TO CONGRESS REGARDING CAMPAIGN 
                             FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I have found few things as ridiculous 
since I have been elected to Congress in 1994 as the headline that I 
saw last week in the Washington Times, repeated in various publications 
around the country in different ways. That headline says ``Clinton 
Threatens to Recall Lawmakers to Hill. Campaign Finance Vote Demanded 
During Session.''
  Madam Speaker, I was trying to sort this through. My basic 
understanding of this was that the President of the United States, Mr. 
Campaign Finance himself, is threatening to call us into session for 
campaign finance reform; this, the President who has made more from Air 
Force One, the plane, than Harrison Ford made from the movie? He wants 
us to have a session on campaign finance reform?
  Tonight, Madam Speaker, we are going to talk a little bit about this 
President and some of his friends. Additional Members will be joining 
me as we go through this. But I have been soliciting some information 
about different people's opinion on this, and what their reaction was 
to this headline.
  Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments that I want to share with 
the Members. We will be going through a number of these tonight.
  I think that principle No. 1, and if I can, I am going to move down 
to the other microphone here so I can use these posters, rule No. 1, 
before we pass a bunch of new laws, is, how about we start in this 
campaign finance reform with follow the current law. Because it does 
not do a lot of good if in this country we pass a bunch of laws but 
then we ignore those laws.
  As I suggested the other day, if the President wants to have a 
special session, maybe we could have the first day with his friends who 
are in jail; the second day with his friends who have already been 
released from jail; maybe the third day would be his friends who have 
been indicted and are headed to jail. Then we could have a couple of 
days for his friends who have pleaded immunity, 1 day for those who 
pleaded partial immunity, 1 day for those who pleaded full immunity. 
Then we could have a couple days for his friends who pleaded the fifth 
amendment. There are I think 56 of those right now. Then we could have 
3 days for his friends who have fled the country, possibly 1 day for 
each continent.
  Madam Speaker, it is ridiculous. They are not following the current 
law. Why does he want us to come in and pass a bunch of new laws if we 
cannot get people to follow the current law?
  We have the Vice President of the United States, and we will get into 
this more later, but who said that he was not following the existing 
law because he was not clear on the controlling legal authority. Madam 
Speaker, that is quite the explanation, that he was not sure of the 
controlling legal authority.
  The sale of access by this administration is unprecedented. To be 
fair, the President does not discriminate where they are going to take 
the money from. If the money is green, they will take it. They have 
taken it from drug dealers, international fugitives, from arms dealers. 
Hey, it is an equal opportunity administration.
  There are some things that you can buy, for example, if you tune into 
the Clinton Shopping Network. For $100,000 you can become a managing 
trustee of the Democratic Party, which entitles you to two meals with 
the President, two with the Vice President, issue retreats, private 
impromptu meetings with administration officials, and your very own DNC 
staffer to assist with your personal requests.
  For $300,000, you can bypass the national security aides and get 
directly to the President, even if you are an international fugitive 
like Roger Tamraz. In his case, it was $250,000 or $300,000 to be able 
to talk to the President about a pipeline, and he did not even get it. 
I do not know what it would have cost if he was going to get the 
pipeline.
  We cannot even make up a cast of characters like the contributors who 
wound up at the White House coffees, overnight in the Lincoln bedroom, 
or posing for photographs with the President. It is something like out 
of the bar scene from ``Star Wars.'' It is such an odd conglomeration 
of different types of people.
  The key, driving thing was, how can we raise more money so we can put 
more ads up. Do not worry about the details. Drop the background 
checks, in spite of the advice they were getting from different people 
regarding individuals that were coming. The key thing was, can they 
bring in money, will they give the party money.

[[Page H8131]]

  One other thing in looking at this cast of characters, it is not 
clear because we have not at least found a memo regarding this yet, 
whether or not all these people who have been bringing the funds in, 
whether we have seen the exhaustive list.
  For example, what exactly does it cost if you want to see the 
President and somebody from the Department of the Interior? Does that 
cost more money? What if you want to see the President and somebody 
from the Department of Treasury? What if you want to see two cabinet 
officials? What if you have a case pending in front? What if you are 
from a foreign country that maybe has minerals that you want an 
international exclusive on, and maybe you would like a wilderness area? 
It is not clear how these things interrelate, and a lot of documents 
are missing or have yet to come clear.
  Hopefully we will have some people with the courage that we had under 
the Nixon administration, when clearly they were attempting to cover 
up. Democrats and Republicans joined together to try to find the truth. 
It was not a partisan event. Sure, the Democrats were very partisan 
against Nixon. We would expect them to be partisan against Nixon. 
Members might expect me and other Republicans to be partisan against 
the President.
  But where are the Democrats speaking out against President Clinton, 
like the Republicans did against Nixon? Where are the staffers whose 
conscience goes to the country as opposed to their boss? Are they so 
intimidated? Are they so dulled to the sense of decency that they are 
not coming forth? Or have people learned so much from Watergate that 
maybe they did not leave as many messages as they did in the old days? 
Quite probably they did not tape the conversations at the White House 
like they did under Nixon.
  But we need to have ways to find out, because it certainly is clear 
that the administration did everything they could to get as much money 
as they could. They backed off of the clearances of the people that 
were coming in. They clearly had coffees, for which they had a going 
price.
  They took the Lincoln bedroom from the days of just a few people 
going there, friends, other dignitaries. I think, if I recall right off 
the top of my head, President Bush had maybe 8 to 10 major contributors 
there. And they took it to a system, a production line of people who 
could give the money to the President of the United States, and get to 
stay in the Lincoln bedroom. They took all these things to a new high 
effort.

  In the foreign contributors, there is a lot of debate about what the 
lines are in foreign contributions. Can you do this? Can you do that? 
But there are some lines that are crystal clear. Foreign governments 
cannot put money into campaigns. Furthermore, you definitely cannot 
have somebody who is not wealthy give money on behalf of somebody else. 
That is law violation No. 1.
  Law violation No. 2 is if that person then gets refunded their money 
from somebody who is not an American citizen, from an overseas thing. 
And it is clear that that is what happened to this administration, 
because it had to give the money back.
  For example, we have seen the concerted efforts by foreign 
contributors and governments to generously support Clinton-Gore. We 
have watched them use executive branch officials and fact-finding to 
raise money overseas. It is against the law, and it was supported with 
taxpayer dollars. President Clinton and the Democratic Party received 
more than $75 million in Federal funds during the 1996 campaign, and 
the infusion of Federal matching funds provided additional fuel for 
their fundraising obsession. We have never seen this level of use and 
abuse of the system.
  A friend of mine who is a historian, a former history professor, made 
a list for me of 10 reasons for a special congressional session on 
campaign finance reform to determine whether the Clinton administration 
has set a record for the largest number of officials under 
investigation in American history.
  Runners-up, Grant, Harding, and Nixon. Harding just appeared not to 
know what was going on. He never claimed to be a detail-type person. 
General Grant had good days and bad days, depending on other things in 
his personal lifestyle. So while they were accountable for what went on 
under them, they did not claim to be micromanaging, like our current 
President and Vice President, who said they were going to reinvent 
government and were going to be hands-on President and Vice President. 
Of course, Nixon we all know about. And maybe Nixon was as bad as 
Clinton, but he does not have or did not have quite that number of 
people under investigation.
  No. 2, of the 10 reasons for a special congressional session on 
campaign finance reform, to find out if the American timber industry is 
large enough to handle the paper needs of the special prosecutors, 
grand juries, and congressional committees looking into the deeds and 
misdeeds of the Clinton officials. After all, as an environmentalist, 
he needs to be concerned about all the paper we are using and all the 
trees that are being chopped down for all these investigators.

                              {time}  2100

  Maybe he could call a special session to enable Paula Jones to 
address us on sexual harassment at the workplace. That would make about 
as much sense as the President calling us into session on campaign 
finance reform.
  No. 4, to commission Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to conduct a government 
funded survey in which noted historians assess ``distinguishing 
characteristics'' of the 42 men who have been President.
  No. 5, to ascertain why the administration has had such difficulties 
in persuading witnesses to return from safe havens in Beijing and other 
places committed to MFN, religious freedom, and human rights.
  No. 6, to learn at long last who hired Craig Livingstone and who is 
paying the fees of his attorneys. I sit on the Government Reform and 
Oversight Committee. I got to actually ask questions of Craig 
Livingstone and ask him who hired him. It was quite the experience. He 
did not come in for a tour at the White House. He did not even come in 
to work at the receptioninst desk. He came in to be charge of security 
at the White House. Yet he doesn't know who hired him.
  He said under oath that it was the goal of his life to some day work 
at the White House, that he worked in many low level campaigns, got 
what a lot of people would consider to be dirty jobs in those campaigns 
in order to some day have a chance at working his way up and maybe 
working at the White House. So he finally gets to the White House and 
he does not know who hired him.
  I asked him, because he had been saying all day he did not know what 
all of us know, who our early supporters were, especially if it was 
your dream to get to the White House, I said, who did you say thank you 
to. Are you so ungrateful that you never told thank you to anybody who 
hired you? And he hung his head down. And I want to say that I believe 
he felt badly. I do not know what intimidation was on him. I do not 
know why he would not give up the information. He just said, I do not 
know who hired me.
  My next question was relatively simple as well. The American people 
are watching and they know, as visitors in the gallery know, that if 
you go to the White House and want to take a tour, they do checks on 
you. If we, as Members of Congress, want to go over, they do checks on 
us, if we take somebody through, they run background checks on us. He 
was coming in to be head of White House security and he did not know 
who hired him. I said, who let you in the door. He gave me the name of 
the receptionist.
  I mean this is a joke. This is absolutely ridiculous. We kept the 
questioning up. And later one of the former counsels at the White House 
ventured that maybe Vince Foster hired him. Do you know what? Every 
time we came to a tough point in the travelgate hearing, every time we 
came to a tough point in whatever investigation we were going through, 
the FBI files, who hired Craig Livingstone, whenever the pressure got 
toughest, they blamed it on the dead guy. Either Vince Foster was 
carrying tremendous baggage or some people are really abusing Vince 
Foster, who is no longer with us to defend himself. So maybe we could 
learn in a special session who hired Craig Livingstone.
  No. 7, to charge the civil Rights Commission with investigating 
whether Gennifer Flowers was actually retained

[[Page H8132]]

as an Arkansas State employee at the expense of a more qualified 
minority applicant.
  No. 8, to permit Roger Tamraz to fuel all the automobiles retained by 
Members of Congress and their staffs in return for attending all the 
receptions held in the Rayburn building for a year with an overnight 
stay in Statuary Hall.
  No. 9, to commission the printing of the motto ``no controlling legal 
authority'' on all letterhead charged to the House Ethics Committee, 
the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Department of Justice.
  No. 10, present the Congressional Medal of Honor to Mary Heslin, 
lately of the National Security Council, for daring to attempt to 
preserve the honor and integrity of the presidency from the corrosive 
clutches of its present occupant and to ban all Georgetown bar bouncers 
from obtaining access to her FBI file.
  It is really scary, when we go through. In the Nixon administration, 
Chuck Colson went to prison because he had one FBI file. When we went 
through the FBI files in our committee and we started asking, I 
remember one of the early questioners asking one of the former 
attorneys at the White House if he knew Craig Livingstone and he looked 
around and said, I met him once. He reported to me but I did not really 
know him. Then they asked him if he knew Anthony Marceca. He looked 
down the thing, no, never met him, never saw him. He later, to another 
question, said, yes, the FBI files were under my office. The FBI files 
were never looked at by anybody. Nobody looks at these, these were 
under Livingstone and Marceca's control. So former Congressman Bill 
Martini asked the question, Mr. Nussbaum, under oath, you earlier said 
that you had met Craig Livingstone one time. You never met Anthony 
Marceca; you did not know him. Yet you also said under oath that all 
these files were never violated, nobody looked at them and does not 
that seem to be a contradiction? And Mr. Nussbaum said, the reason I 
can say that is I know nobody in our administration would stoop so slow 
as to look at any of those files.
  It is like, come on, guys. If you have hundreds and hundreds of files 
scattered through various staffers, they had interns having these files 
with background information that they had checked on Republicans, 
people they had no business even investigating in the first place yet 
alone looking at their file. They do not know who hired the national 
security advisor who most of his qualifications were that he had been a 
dirty tricks person in large part in different campaigns. They have in 
Travelgate, when we got into that, you look at that and see that what 
the whole deal there was is first you have a girlfriend of a staffer 
getting a deal. Then you realize that a friend from Arkansas is trying 
to get, without White House security clearance, is wondering around 
trying to get the contract for the travel office. What he really wants 
is the contract for travel for his agency for all the different 
branches of the Federal Government which, rather than just the small 
travel office budget, is now millions and millions of dollars. And we 
see this unfold first in the Travelgate. Because we are looking at the 
Travelgate, we find out about the files. And we are looking at the 
files and we find out about Craig Livingstone.
  It is just like what is now starting to happen, when we start to 
unravel the money, part of the reason this is so confusing to the 
American people is you start, you go, wow, there is money from China 
here and some arms dealer and such-and-such, and the next thing you are 
over in Indonesia and next thing it is happening from Thailand. Oh, 
Taiwan, too. And pretty soon you have people confused because it is 
coming from about every major country in the world that has any 
business. You have all these different people pouring money in left and 
right. It is no wonder the American people are confused as to the 
particulars.

  I have a couple of other charts here. This is a list of witnesses who 
have fled the country. Charlie Trie was last seen in Beijing, China. He 
is a former restaurateur and old friend of President Clinton who tried 
to give $640,000 in suspicious contributions to the President's legal 
expense trust. Part of the reason it is hard for our committees to lay 
this out is it is not like China is cooperating and it is not like the 
banks in China are cooperating, and it is not like Charlie Trie is 
cooperating. So it is a little hard to get all this information.
  I think you will see, as the House investigations start this fall and 
go through next year, that we will hopefully get more of this. Pauline 
Kanchanalak, in Thailand, had $235,000 in DNC contributions returned 
because she could not verify that she was the source. In other words, 
we are already seeing this money being sent back. It is not like it is 
a dispute whether the funds were legal. He is telling us he wants 
campaign finance reform when rule No. 1 is this, follow the current 
law.
  The current law seems to be, in the eyes of this administration, if 
the Senate investigators or the House investigators turn up the funds, 
send it back fast. That seems to be what is happening. We are seeing 
very little money sent back until we uncover it in one of the 
committees. Then they send it back. That is not the law. The law says, 
do not take the illegal money and send the illegal money back, not 
until Congress discovers it.
  Third, Ming Chen, a businessman in Beijing, China, runs Ng Lap Seng's 
restaurant business in that city and is the husband of Yue Chu.
  Agus Setiawan, Indonesian employee of Lippo who signed many of the 
checks to the DNC drawn on Lippo affiliates.
  Subandi Tanuwidjaja, in Indonesia, gave $80,000 to the DNC for a 
dinner with Clinton, which may have come from wire transfers from his 
father-in-law, Ted Sioeng, who lives in China. Arief and Soraya 
Wiriadinata, Indonesian couple who gave the DNC $450,000 after the 
receipt of a $500,000 wire from Soraya's father, a co-founder of the 
Lippo Group.
  It knows no country. John H. K. Lee, South Korean businessman, 
president of Cheong Am America, Inc., DNC returned $250,000 to Cheong 
Am.
  Antonio Pan, ex-Lippo executive and friend of Charlie Trie and John 
Huang who delivered cash to individuals for conduit payments.
  And then there is Ted Sieong, father of Jessica Elnitiarta, who 
donated $100,000 to the DNC. He is reportedly connected to the Chinese 
intelligence community.
  Then there are the witnesses who have pled the fifth amendment to the 
House or Senate committees. John Huang, former DNC fundraiser, Commerce 
Department official and Lippo Group employee who solicited more than $1 
million in questionable contributions.
  Jane Huang, wife of John Huang, her name appears on DNC documents as 
a solicitor of some DNC donations while Huang was at Commerce.
  Mark Middleton, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who became 
an international businessman, worked with the Riadys and Trie. Maria 
Hsia, Taiwan-born consultant who helped Huang organize the temple 
fundraiser.
  Manlin Foung, sister of Charlie Trie, was given thousands of dollars 
to donate to the DNC in her name by Trie.
  Joseph Landon, Manlin Foung's friend, was given thousands of dollars 
to donate to the DNC in his name by Trie.
  David Wang, made $5,000 contribution to the DNC at Trie's request.
  Nora and Gene Lum, fundraising couple who pled guilty to violations 
of Federal election laws.
  These are people to pled the fifth, remembering that rule No. 1, 
before we do campaign finance reform, is follow the current law. Do you 
know what? Generally speaking, I am not an attorney. I know some of my 
friends here tonight are attorneys. It does not mean you are guilty 
because you plead the fifth. But it means you are not being very 
cooperative in trying to find out the truth, and it does not look 
particularly good.
  The next name on here, Webster Hubbell, already is coming out of 
jail, former Associate Attorney General, not the kind of person you 
want to see go to jail or that kind of ups your confidence in the 
President that he would put in an Associate Attorney General who goes 
to jail, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Lippo after 
leaving the Justice Department. Hsiu Luan Tseng, a Buddhist nun at a 
Hawaiian temple who contributed to the DNC at the Hsi Lai temple event.

[[Page H8133]]

  Judy Hsu, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  Yumei Yang, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  Seow Fong Ooi, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  By the way, either nuns make a lot more money than I thought they 
did, or we have a serious problem here. Jen Chin Hsueh, gave $2,000 to 
DNC, listed address as home owned by the temple but does not live 
there. Jie Su Hsiao, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  Gin F. J. Chen, DNC donor at a fund-raiser at Washington's Hay Adams 
hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi Lai.
  Hsin Chen Shih, DNC donor at a fund-raiser at Washington's Hay Adams 
hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi Lai.
  Bin Yueh Jeng, Taiwanese national who, at John Huang's urging, gave 
$5,000 to the DNC.
  Hsiu Chu Lin, employee of Hsi Lai, who gave the DNC $1,500.
  Chi Rung Wang, a California man who gave DNC $5,000 at the temple 
fundraiser.
  Noland Hill, business partner of the late Secretary Ron Brown.
  Yogesh Ghandi, while receiving $500,000 in wire transfers from a 
Japanese bank, contributed $325,000 to the DNC.
  These are people who pled the fifth amendment. They do not want to 
talk to us about it. Jane Dewi Tahir, college student related by 
marriage to the Riadys who received $200,000 in wires from the Lippo 
bank and gave $30,000 to the DNC.
  Duangnet Kronenberg, sister-in-law of Pauline Kanchanalak, attended a 
coffee at Vice President Gore's residence.
  Maria Mapili, employed by Trie, familiar with wires he received from 
Ng Lap Seng.
  Jou Sheng, gave DNC $8,000 listing a Maywood, CA, Buddhist temple as 
his address but does not live there.
  I want to make it clear that these people at the Buddhist temple, 
they may or may not have known what the American laws are. That is the 
responsibility of the people soliciting the money. It is the 
responsibility of the Democratic National Committee, the Vice President 
of the United States, the President of the United States to know the 
law.
  And I personally want to make it clear that it would be very easy to 
make this seem like somebody is anti-Asian or anti these countries. 
That is not the case here. The question is what were the leaders of 
this country doing when they know the law, as every one of us know the 
law, soliciting money and taking advantage of people who think that 
that is how the U.S. Government works?
  It is an insult to our Nation and a shame on our Government that they 
would use these other countries, use how they may have to deal in other 
parts of the world to let them think they have to give money to the 
President's campaign committee and the President's party in order to do 
business with the United States. They should be up front and say, we do 
business fairly here. We do not have things for sale in this country. 
We have a different standard than the rest of the world. And instead, 
we abuse people who may not have known, who had always looked to 
America as a country different in the world, a country that was not 
corruptible. And they went and used these people, even in their own 
Buddhist temple. They used these people to get their money and to then 
use it for campaign purposes to stay in power. It is very difficult, I 
feel bad if I mispronounce these names but there is a whole bunch more 
from there.

                              {time}  2115

  I could go on, but I see I have been joined by a few of my friends 
here. I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Shadegg].
  Mr. SHADEGG. I would be happy to join in this discussion if the 
gentleman would yield.
  One of the posters the gentleman put up is one that strikes me a 
great deal in this debate, and if he will put it back up, it says, 
first rule, follow the current law.
  I notice we are now debating on the set-aside the whole issue of 
campaign finance reform, and there is this hue and cry that we really 
ought to be revising our campaign laws because, clearly, this episode 
demonstrates that we need to rewrite the law. And yet, as the gentleman 
shows there, rule No. 1, follow the current law, it kind of makes me 
wonder what is the point of rewriting the law so that we have a new law 
if they did not follow the old law. Why do we think they will follow 
the new law? It is kind of amazing.
  I know the gentleman talked about legal authorities. I am an 
attorney, and I was proud to make my living in that field before coming 
here, but in that regard, and just to touch on follow the law, let us 
talk about Al Gore's favorite phrase: The controlling legal authority. 
And guess what? There is some in this area. As a matter of fact, there 
are a number of statutes that touch on these practices quite directly.
  For example, 18 United States Code section 201 outlaws bribery in 
this country. Now, whether or not we quite have the facts to establish 
bribery, whether they will come out before the Thompson hearings end, 
whether they will come out in the course of the Burton hearings may not 
be clear, but there is a law here that says bribery is wrong.
  But let us talk about some others where we do have some pretty clear 
evidence.
  How about 18 United States Code section 600, which prohibits the use 
of government offices for political purposes. How about that same 
section of law that says it is a crime to promise access to a 
government building or to government services in return for campaign 
contributions.
  There were, I think, 103 White House coffees held with the President, 
telling them they could come to the White House and have coffee with 
the President for $500,000. It seems to me we turned this place into 
Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Let us talk about another one. 18 United States Code section 607 
specifically says it is a Federal crime to solicit campaign 
contributions in a Federal building. On that one we have Al Gore on at 
least 86 different solicitation calls from the White House.
  We also have a fascinating note, that maybe the gentleman has put it 
up or maybe he has not put it up, where a White House staffer makes a 
note that BC made 15 to 20 calls and raised $500,000. Now, BC, I 
suppose we could be talking about the cartoon character BC who I used 
to read about. We could be talking about Bill Cosby.
  Mr. SOUDER. Or Boston College. We should not be so judgmental.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Boston College. There could be that other remote 
possibility, that when it says on a staff note written in the White 
House, written by David Strauss, ``BC made 15 to 20 calls and raised 
$500,000,'' there is at least a slim chance, I would suppose, and maybe 
I could ask my colleague if he wants to comment on this, that BC did 
not refer to Bill Cosby or Boston College but Bill Clinton.
  Mr. SOUDER. Especially when we look at the--it is hard to read the 
small print, but it is talking about the $5 million needed by year's 
end, refers to other specific individuals, and then it said BC made 15 
to 20 calls, raised 500 K. Hard to believe that would not be Bill 
Clinton.
  Mr. SHADEGG. We are trying to bring some light to this discussion and 
maybe some humor here, maybe we should do a national call-in, where we 
put up a 1-800 number and ask the American people how many people think 
BC in that note refers to Bill Cosby or Boston College or the cartoon 
character BC or somebody other than Bill Clinton; and how many think 
maybe BC in that White House note refers to 15 to 20 calls raising 
$500,000 by BC, referring to Bill Clinton.
  Mr. SOUDER. Kind of a credibility test.
  Mr. SHADEGG. We could do that and let the American people call in and 
tell us what they really think.
  To continue the theme of mentioning a few controlling authorities 
that the Vice President did not happen to notice.
  Mr. SOUDER. Did the gentleman mention the HRC?
  Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman can talk about the HRC.
  Mr. SOUDER. Well, there is one here that says HRC was making calls, 
too, which I assume is the human resources counsel. I would not want to 
jump to the conclusion it was Hillary Rodham Clinton.

[[Page H8134]]

  Mr. SHADEGG. Hillary Rodham Clinton? Oh, no, I am certain that is a 
coincidence. I doubt if it would be Hillary Rodham Clinton.
  Mr. SOUDER. It is against the law. They would not do that.
  Mr. SHADEGG. No, that is right. That is in the same note where it 
said BC made 15 to 20 calls and HRC is making calls. I doubt if that is 
Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am certain it is just someone else who 
happens to have similar initials.
  Mr. SOUDER. We will probably discover it after the statute of 
limitations runs.
  Mr. SHADEGG. No doubt shortly after the statute of limitations.
  Just, again, reclaiming the time the gentleman has yielded to me 
graciously, Al Gore, in his perusal of the statutes, could not find a 
controlling legal authority. My staff found yet another one they 
thought was interesting.
  18 United States Code, section 641, which talks about converting 
Federal property to a private use. That, of course, brought to my 
staff's mind the idea that there was a notation, I believe, since we 
are talking about notations on House documents, that said quote, ready 
to start overnights right away, and was signed President Clinton.
  President Clinton. Now, those initials BC, Bill Clinton? That would 
be the same one?
  Mr. SOUDER. Maybe it was supposed to have a P in front of this one.
  Mr. SHADEGG. PBC?
  Mr. SOUDER. Well, maybe it was Bill Cosby.
  Mr. SHADEGG. There was one last one. The gentleman was just talking 
about the use of the Buddhist temple and the innocence of the people 
there. We found one more controlling authority that our friend Mr. Gore 
might want to take a look at.
  It was 18 United States Code, section 371, and 26 United States Code, 
section 7201, which similarly make it a crime to misuse a tax exempt 
organization such as, for example, a Buddhist temple which has tax 
exempt status.
  Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will yield for a second, I need to make 
a brief point before yielding to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Earlier the gentleman mentioned the White House coffees and the 
$50,000 for the coffees and mentioned Starbucks. Starbucks is $1.27 for 
me. I did not want people to think coffee at Starbucks was the same as 
coffee at the White House.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Good point. So coffee at Starbucks is $1.27, coffee at 
the White House is $50,000.
  Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona once 
again.
  Mr. SHADEGG. If I could, briefly, while we are on this point, and 
then I will be happy to yield back. We are trying to bring some light 
and make this a little humorous, so I hope everyone watching 
understands this is a little tongue in cheek.
  We did discover a rather tongue-in-cheek memo from the White House, 
actually probably not crafted in the White House because I doubt they 
would let this memo out, but it says ``Clinton White House Lessons 
Learned in the Campaign of 1996.''
  I thought the gentleman mentioned some humorous things his friend had 
sent him, and so I thought I would mention a couple of these things 
that I thought were rather pointed in the vein of Clinton White House 
lessons learned in the campaign of 1996.
  First, lesson No. 1, ``Blame it all on the DNC chairmen.''
  Lesson NO. 2, ``Don't give back illegal money until it's discovered 
in a Senate hearing.''
  Lesson No. 3, ``Make sure all donors know their 5th Amendment 
rights'' against self-incrimination.
  Lesson No. 4, ``The press won't cover the truth until after the 
campaign.''
  Lesson No. 5, ``Spin illegal international contributions as `foreign 
investment,' helping the trade deficit, pro-labor.''
  Mr. SOUDER. That is a good point, I never thought it as helping to 
balance the trade. Get some of our money back.
  Mr. SHADEGG. We are trying to help out the economy. Helps the trade 
deficit and the labor movement.
  Lesson No. 6, ``Sprint has the best rate for international calls.''
  Mr. SOUDER. That is good to know, if I ever make one.
  Mr. SHADEGG. If we are going to call overseas to get a contribution, 
use Sprint, it is cheap.
  Mr. SOUDER. They have done our field work for us.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Lesson No. 7, ``Never put it in writing.''
  This one Al Gore should have learned. Obviously, he does not have 
friends.
  Lesson No. 8, ``Friends don't let friends call from work.''
  And one that touched on the point the gentleman went into at length 
about what happened in this Buddhist temple, and the fact that people 
there were extremely generous, as a matter of fact. This is an 
important Clinton White House lesson learned in the course of the 
campaign of 1996: ``Monks may not be as poor as you think.''
  Another one, ``Don't settle for less.''
  Yet another, ``Never sell the Presidency for less than $50,000,'' 
unless of course you can get $50.
  Another one, ``Felons deserve a second chance: Donor mentoring.''
  ``The CIA can't keep a secret.''
  Mr. SOUDER. That is something we just recently learned in these 
hearings.
  Mr. SHADEGG. The last one, and I will conclude: ``Leak it as soon as 
you know it, so that before the hearing you can call it old news.''
  That one we watched play out last week, where it was very important 
in the Committee on House Oversight that we make all depositions 
instantaneously public so that they could be old news by the time the 
hearings were held, and we brought them out and brought them to light 
and pointed out, oh, by the way this sentence in the deposition 
demonstrates a crime.
  Mr. SOUDER. Then the President says it is old news. ``They already 
proved I did this immorally and illegally.'' What is news about this?
  Mr. SHADEGG. If it was leaked last week or a month ago, it is old 
news, even if it is just now revealed to show a crime.
  I thank the gentleman and give back my time.
  Mr. SOUDER. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan, who has been a 
leader in a lot of these issues in trying to root out corruption in 
government.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate 
some of this tongue-in-cheek tonight, but I think we also recognize 
that this is very serious business, and recently we have encountered 
another whole aspect of what may be corruption in the administration. 
We know that there is corruption.
  What I am talking about is an action that the House took here last 
week, on Friday, and we also took a similar action the week before, and 
it deals with the Teamsters Union, where in 1996 the Teamsters had 
another election for a Teamsters president.
  The election cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million. And 
it is kind of like, well, I really hope that when the Teamsters run an 
election and they spend $20 million, that the Teamster members are 
entitled to a fair and honest election, and there are Federal laws in 
place to make sure that that happens.
  But there is one slight difference with the Teamsters election in 
1996, in that the Teamsters did not pay for the election in 1996. They 
did not pay for their own election. They did not pay for the printing 
of the ballots, they did not pay for the counting of the ballots, they 
did not pay for the facilities that were rented, they did not pay for 
the campaigns; none of these things. The sad thing was, in 1996, and 
over a period of about 2\1/2\, 3 years, the American taxpayers spent 
about $20 million, the American taxpayers spent $20 million to pay for 
a Teamsters election.
  The Teamsters election was completed in December 1996, the ballots 
were completed, counted early in 1997, and on August 22 the election 
officer who oversaw the election process overthrew the election. She 
looked at the election, looked at the charges that were made, and said 
this was a fraudulent election and we are going to throw it out; 
meaning we have to do it over again.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I want to make sure that I and those 
listening understand this. Was it Congress' intent to pay for that 
election?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. No, we do not think so. It was a consent decree in 
1989, where the Justice Department reached

[[Page H8135]]

an agreement on a series of steps and activities to root out corruption 
out of the Teamsters and required a democratic election for the 
president of the Teamsters in 1991 and another election in 1996, and it 
was optional for the Justice Department or the executive branch to 
decide who was going to pay for the election in 1996.

                              {time}  2130

  In 1991, the Teamsters did exactly the right thing, they said this is 
an internal operation. We would like Government Oversight to make sure 
that Federal laws are adhered to and those types of things. The 
Teamsters paid for their own election in 1997. It was a good, fair, 
clean election. The people that we have interviewed and told us about 
that said it was a good election, 1996.
  Somewhere around 1993, 1994, we do not know exactly who or where, but 
somebody said do not worry about that $20 million, Teamsters. The 
Federal Government is going to pick up that tab. We will pay for it, 
and who knows what you are going to do with that other $20 million, but 
the Federal Government will pay for the election. We run the election, 
and 9 months later we throw it out.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, as my colleague has pointed out 
repeatedly in other issues, there really is not a Federal Government. 
That is your people in the district of Michigan and mine in Indiana 
that paid for that election. You are telling us that the Justice 
Department decided that we were going to pay for the Teamsters 
election.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. That is correct.
  Mr. SOUDER. And then after, in effect, deciding for us that without a 
vote that we were going to pay for the election, they were overseeing 
the election that they now say is corrupt?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. That is absolutely correct. What has happened, and I 
thank the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] for clarifying this. I 
was right, the Federal Government paid for it. You were more correct 
because, you know, when we in Washington spend $20 million, it is not 
our money, it is taxpayer dollars. It was about $50 a vote for every 
vote cast is what the American taxpayers paid for the Teamsters 
election.
  Now, the interesting thing is how did the election officer determine 
to make this serious, you know, change in policy that said, I have 
reviewed the election, and there is such corruption in this election I 
am going to throw it out. And what she found in this process was that 
there was money laundering. There was money laundering to vendors who 
would bill the Teamsters for certain activity, never complete the 
activities, but get paid for it and funnel money back into the campaign 
of Mr. Carey.
  There were political action committees, organizations, whose primary 
intent and focus is to drive the agenda here in this House and drive 
the agenda here in Washington, who all of a sudden started getting 
extraordinarily large amounts of dollars from the Teamsters.
  This is now the union money, funds coming to the union headquarters 
in Washington and being sent somewhere with the understanding that if 
we send you some money, oh, look, they gave me some money.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, is that because the union dues could 
not be used directly for Mr. Carey's election?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. That is because the union dues could not be used 
directly for the election of Mr. Carey. So they were laundered through 
campaign organizations with a quid pro quo, you do this for me and I 
will do this for you.
  The end result is what do we have? We have $20 million of taxpayer 
money that is right down the drain. We know that when the Teamsters ran 
their own election, they ran a clean election. When the Federal 
Government and this administration got involved in the process, we 
spent $20 million of taxpayers' money and all we got was an illegal 
election.
  So we know that the Teamsters election was full of illegalities. That 
is why it was overthrown. We know that there were lots of dollars that 
were funneled out into congressional campaigns, meaning that I believe 
that there were many congressional campaigns that we can accurately 
describe as being tainted elections because the dollars got into those 
elections in an illegal way. So we have got tainted Teamsters 
elections. We have got tainted congressional elections. And we have $20 
million of taxpayers' money right down the shooter.
  I just want to add one thing, what we did last week, in a very 
surprising vote, is Congress finally stood up twice in the last 10 days 
and said, we are not going to pay for the rerunning of the Teamsters 
election. We are going to follow the current law. We can run a 
Teamsters election fairly. We know that we did that in 1991. We do not 
need any change of the law to have Teamsters get a fair election. All 
we need to do is follow the existing law.
  In the last 10 days, this Congress and the other body on one occasion 
have said, we are not going to pay for any more internal operations of 
the Teamsters. But increasingly, in both cases, we had almost 190 
Members of this House say, oh, yeah, we will let the taxpayers pay for 
the rerun of this election. We have the Justice Department and Labor 
Department right now figuring out ways to get some money, the money we 
did not spend in 1996.
  We are collecting some fines and penalties. Why are we collecting 
fines and penalties? These are not wild allegations. There are three 
people that have already pled guilty and have been fined and the 
Justice Department saying, wow, here is some more money coming in, 
these people who will pay for the rerunning of the election.
  This House stood up and said, no more. We will supervise the 
election. It is our job to make sure that the Federal laws are 
enforced. That is our responsibility. That is the people's 
responsibility. But it is not the people's responsibility to pay for 
the printing and counting of ballots and to run the internal operations 
of the union.
  This is an interesting situation. We are going to be taking, I think 
both of our committees are going to be taking an additional look at 
this because of the involvement of taxpayers' dollars, the overthrowing 
of the election, and how it may have gone into other parties of the 
campaign process in 1996.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I want to yield, if the gentleman 
will, for a couple more questions just to reiterate, because it is 
confusing to a lot of people how this occurred.
  As I understand what the gentleman said, is that somewhere along the 
line, around 1994 or thereabouts, the Justice Department decided that 
the taxpayers should pay for the election, which had the Teamsters pay 
for it out of their own dues, would not have left as many dollars for 
the then President to go out and cut sweetheart deals with contractors 
and with the Democratic Party in return for them giving money to his 
campaign.
  In other words, if the dues had been used for a fair election, 
perhaps A, the president of the union might not have won, unless he 
wasted all his dollars in the campaign, and B, there are Members of 
Congress whose elections may have been different.
  Is that what you are, in effect, saying?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. We are saying that, as a result of the American 
taxpayer picking up the tab for the 1996 election, the American 
taxpayer spent $20 million that the Teamsters organization did not have 
to spend itself. I do not know what they did with that money, where 
that money went. But I think it is a question that is worth asking.

  Just as a side note to this, not only did the American taxpayer pay 
for the Teamsters election in the U.S., now think about this, the 
American taxpayer paid for the printing of ballots, paid for the 
counting of ballots in Canada. We paid to run the private internal 
organization of the Teamsters not only in the U.S., but also in Canada. 
Unbelievable.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I guess it kind of counters the point 
that the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] was making earlier about 
the balance of trade. We were getting money in illegal contributions, 
but we were taking taxpayer dollars to pay for elections overseas.
  My colleague would know this more than I, but my understanding was 
that the losing candidate actually carried the Midwestern States, where 
we are from, and lost the Canadian vote which we funded.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I believe 
that

[[Page H8136]]

if the Teamsters election had only been an U.S. election, the result 
would have been different. But because the American taxpayer picked up 
the tab for the Canadian election, the result was different, and that 
is what pushed Mr. Carey over the top.
  And just a quick correction, before we get inundated with faxes, a 
correction, Canada is not overseas.
  Mr. SOUDER. It depends on how you define the Great Lakes. As a police 
Midwesterner, those are big lakes to us.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, at the risk 
of changing topics, and I think that is a vitally important issue about 
which we are all concerned and it fits with the theme of this hour, I 
notice we are running out of time, and I wanted to take a moment, both 
of my colleagues are on the Committee on Education, to raise a separate 
issue that was raised at the end of the last hour, and ask each of them 
to comment on it, because I think it is an issue that the American 
people need to know about.
  My questions tonight arise out of a Wall Street Journal column that 
appeared today that I hope each of my colleagues have seen. It is a 
column by Lynne Cheney, and it carries the caption ``A Failing Grade 
for Clinton's National Standards.'' If I could, I just would like to 
talk about this article for a moment because it is so compelling to me.
  I have a 15-year-old and an 11-year-old at home. As a matter of fact, 
just before coming over here to the floor, I was on the phone with my 
15-year-old and asking her some questions, and she was working on her 
homework and doing a small project for me. Nothing is more important to 
me than their education. And I am deeply interested that they get a 
good education and get ahead in this life.
  And that takes us to a debate that is at the fore of this Nation 
right now and on which conferees between the House and Senate will be 
meeting very soon, and that is the question of national testing. The 
point I want to make here is that I have reasonable friends at home, 
very bright people at home, who come to me and say, ``Congressman, I do 
not understand. Why are you against national testing? Should we not, as 
a Nation, want to know how our students are doing and want to compare 
our kids in Arizona,'' my home State, ``with the children in other 
States across the country,'' such as yours, Indiana. And I walk them 
through this explanation. But this article really brings the issue 
home.
  I point out to them that the sad reality is that teachers will teach 
to the test. And maybe that is not so sad. They want their students to 
do well. So if they know the content of the test, they are going to 
say, ``I better make sure my students learn the content of the test.''
  So people say to me, okay, Congressman, if you are worried that a 
national test will cause people to teach to the test, does that not 
simply say that when the President picked objective areas, such as 
math, and not more subjective areas, such as social studies, that that 
really should solve the problem about national testing, we will test 
English and we will test math and there are black and white, right and 
wrong answers and we will see how kids are performing and we will not 
get into the subjective areas like history?
  And I point out to them that, while that sounds good, reasonable, 
rationale people ought to be deadly opposed to National testing. And 
this article makes it clear why: Because there are not black-and-white 
areas in today's Washington, D.C. Education Department under Bill 
Clinton.
  And here is the point: The article by Lynne Cheney in today's Wall 
Street Journal, and I hope my colleagues all have read it and I hope 
America will read it, talks about a gentleman by the name of Steven 
Leinwand. He sits on the committee overseeing President Clinton's 
proposed national mathematics exams. He has written an essay, and this 
gentleman is mainstream, new education, Washington, D.C. expert. In the 
essay he explains why it is ``downright dangerous'' to teach students 
things like 6 times 7 equals 42. He says it is downright dangerous to 
teach students the multiplication facts.
  Now why does he say that is dangerous? Because such instruction, 
teaching kids their multiplication facts, ``sorts people out,'' Mr. 
Leinwand writes, ``annointing the few who master these procedures and 
casting out the many.'' His basic principle is, we cannot teach math to 
kids because some kids will learn the answer, 6 times 7 is 42, and some 
kids will not learn it; and the kids who do not learn it will feel bad. 
Now, if that is the kind of mindset that is going to dictate Bill 
Clinton's national testing and the teachers in America will be 
compelled to teach to that, I think it is disastrous.
  Let me conclude by pointing out, he writes another test for an 
organization called the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; 
and they propose, through this committee, a national math exam that 
will avoid directly assessing certain knowledge and skills, such as 
whole-number computation. He does not want kids to be able to do 
addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division because of this 
sense that some of them will fail and some of them will feel bad.
  And the organization says, in case this exam which they have written 
might indirectly assess whether 8th graders can add, subtract, multiply 
and divide, the committee recommends that, even for those basic skills, 
students should have a calculator throughout the entire time period. 
This is just amazing to me. But that is why I think national testing, 
while it sounds good and sounds reasonable, is in fact an attempt to 
impose a national standard and national agenda that the people in 
Arizona do not really like.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. HOEKSTRA. The problem gets to be, and we have had hearings around 
the country in my subcommittee. I chair an oversight subcommittee, and 
we have been taking a look at education.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Did a hearing in my district in Arizona.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. We have been in Arizona, and we also went to Delaware, 
and the reason I bring up Delaware is, Delaware is the size of one of 
our congressional districts, all right? So, you know, Delaware said, we 
want a State test, and what Delaware did is, they spent 3 years 
starting at the grassroots level to develop a State test. Remember, one 
congressional district; Michigan has 16. It took them 3 years to 
develop a test, because they wanted to get parental by, and they wanted 
to get teacher by, and they want to get school administrator, business 
community. They wanted the State to accept the test. Bill Clinton 
wanted to take 10 months and, top down, drive a test and impose it on 
all of America, on every school, on every child, and have them test, 
the exact wrong. It is the ``Washington knows best'' mentality rather 
than doing a grass, which is going on in the States right now; States 
are developing tests, and it is a grassroots, bottom-up type of move, 
not good enough for our President. Bill Clinton wants to be the expert, 
says, I am going to develop a test, I am going to impose it on 
everybody.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time, top down is just dead wrong.
  I want to rebut one other argument in support of national testing, 
and that is, the proponents of this idea said, well, States can opt 
out, and Lynne Cheney, in writing this article which I commend to all 
of my colleagues here in the Congress and to all of America, points out 
that even if States choose to opt out, a Federal test will strongly 
influence the textbooks because they are only a handful of textbook 
companies, and they are going to write those textbooks to such a 
national task.
  And it seems to me the whole notion of, well, one or two States, 
Arizona, can opt out; heck, Arizona opted out of daylight savings time, 
one of, I think, only two States in the Nation which did. But in this 
field, where Arizona just said, we do not want that national test, the 
textbooks we would have to go purchase would be driven by that top down 
Bill Clinton dictated, but I do not care if it was Ronald Reagan 
dictated top down, one-size-fits-all standard, and I think it is a 
mistake.
  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, because I would like to kind of tie a 
couple things together here, and one of the things we are seeing is 
that what has gone on in this country, it is hard for us, many of us do 
not get up here every day and talk, but it does not pass the laugh 
test. I mean a national test

[[Page H8137]]

where the person on the math board does not want to do 7 times 6 equal 
42, because it might intimidate some people that they feel left out or 
behind.
  The idea that the taxpayers are going to pay for a Teamsters election 
so the Teamsters can use their money, the leadership, to try to finance 
their own race against what appears to have been the majority of the 
Teamsters members of the United States, and we pay for Canadian 
ballots, and then that money goes and elects other Members of Congress 
who claim they want campaign finance reform.
  How about those members paying for the Teamsters election who got and 
benefited from the money of the Teamsters' members and the taxpayers of 
the United States, and it flowed into their campaign. How about 
following the current law?
  Another debate that we are currently having that I simply cannot 
fathom is on the Census, because it is fine to use sampling to try to 
set up and understand where we are headed, but it is not fine to do the 
actual count mandated by the Constitution by guessing. That would be 
like going to the Clinton administration political appointees and 
saying, we are going to throw one out of every five of you in jail 
because we know at the end of this time, and when we get through, done 
with everything, one out of five is going to jail. They may have the 
wrong person, just like in the sampling that they have had around the 
country, they may have the people in the wrong State. That is real sad, 
but at least they got the rough number calculated.
  It does not pass a laugh test. National tests do not pass the laugh 
test. The funding of the Teamsters election, which the gentleman from 
Michigan has twice now had this House go on record where, against the 
Census sampling, it does not pass the laugh test, and, quite frankly, 
the President of the United States threatened to recall lawmakers to 
the Hill so that we would have a special session on campaign finance 
and the people here in the House who keep saying this, it is a joke, it 
is an insult to the intelligence of the American people in a book, now 
discounted because it did not sell that great, called ``Putting People 
First'' by Governor Bill Clinton and Senator Al Gore.
  In campaign finance reform, to show you how humorous this is, it says 
American politics is being held hostage by big money interests. Members 
of Congress now collect more than $2.5 million in campaign funds every 
week, like he did, while political action committees, industry lobbies, 
and cliques of $100,000 donors buy access to the White House. This is 
what Bill Clinton ran against, and he turned it into an art form.
  This simply does not pass the laugh test, and it is so frustrating to 
me, and I know that, and I thank the two gentlemen who are here tonight 
on this special order who have been leaders in investigating this and 
in campaigning against this, and I enjoy working with both of you on 
the different committees.
  I do not know if any of you have a concluding comment here, too, but 
I wanted to get that last comment in. No matter what area we look at 
right now, whether it is Census sampling, national tests, Teamsters 
election, campaign finance reform, it is hard for me to believe the 
American people are taking this seriously.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, I think it is pretty 
exciting we have made some progress on the education issue again, but 
it is interesting to watch the debate. In the Senate a couple of weeks 
ago, they passed a motion that said, they passed an amendment that said 
we are moving decisionmaking back.

                          ____________________