[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8716-H8723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CAMPAIGN FUND-RAISING INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cooksey). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I think before moving into the general topic 
I am getting into tonight, I want to express my support for many of the 
education initiatives, although I think sometimes we get it backwards 
and think Washington is the fount; unless something is done out of 
Washington, it will not be done.
  I know that it was under a Republican President that Head Start was 
created, and Ed Ziegler of Yale University worked with then President 
Nixon because he felt there were some gaps. We ought to look to 
Washington to fill gaps, not to be the end-all, be-all of education.
  Sometimes I think while the motives are correct on the other side, 
that is, that we need to help our children, and all of us who are 
parents of young children, older children, are very concerned about 
education and it is not a partisan type of thing, but we do have some 
substantive disagreements over whether it should come out of Washington 
and be controlled out of Washington or whether it should start with the 
parents and back home.
  I am joined tonight by my friend, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Hayworth]. I know he wanted to make some opening comments, too.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, likewise, I 
thank those who preceded us this evening in this Chamber for discussing 
the issue of education. I think the gentleman from Indiana makes a very 
salient point when he distinguishes part of the difference of how best 
to deal with schools, how best to deal with this precious notion of 
educating our children and what is at stake in the future.
  I was pleased to hear many of our friends on the other side talk 
about local initiatives but this, I believe, is the key. That is that 
initiatives can develop at home rather than be Washington-based, with a 
Washington community then trying to send those notions down to the 
schools, if you will. Things can happen at home on the front lines with 
volunteerism, with innovative teaching, with people taking time in 
their respective communities to adopt a school. But my colleague from 
Indiana is quite right when he mentions that there are ways for 
government to fill in the blanks.
  I would take this time, Mr. Speaker, to inform my colleagues on the 
other side, as I have through many interoffice letters, of a couple of 
pieces of legislation that I think are vitally important, both of which 
are drawn on a rich history of bipartisan cooperation. The first I 
would commend to everyone in terms of attention is the Education Land 
Grant Act of 1997, a bill I developed for those rural school districts 
that live adjacent to federally controlled land.
  It is based on what happened in the Sixth District of Arizona in the 
104th Congress, where the small town of Alpine, Arizona did not really 
have any resources to build a new school. Its tax base had been 
eviscerated because the folks there were not really allowed to ranch or 
to harvest timber any longer because of some court orders. So they came 
to me and said, ``Do you think we could get a conveyance of 30 acres of 
Forest Service land, so that we could save what scarce resources we 
have on books and bricks and mortar and teachers and students and 
building a new school?'' I was pleased that during the 104th Congress 
we passed a conveyance of land of 30 acres to the Alpine School 
District.
  I got to thinking, based on our history, is there something else we 
could do. I looked back to the Morrill Act of the 1800s during the 
Lincoln administration where through land grant opportunities, Federal 
land was given back to the States for the creation of institutions of 
higher learning. Out of that grew the notion of the Education Land 
Grant Act where we can go and convey acres, up to 30 acres at a time to 
those school districts adjacent to Federal lands, so that they can save 
their precious resources for school construction and for improving the 
quality of instruction within those schools.
  I would commend that to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. And 
also a bipartisan bill I coauthored and cosponsored with my friend the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis]. We do not agree on a lot, but one 
thing that we think is important has to do with mathematics rather than 
philosophy. It is the notion of raising the ceiling for private bonding 
authority for local school districts working with banks and financial 
houses that are private.

                              {time}  2045

  Right now Congress has a ceiling of $10 million there. When we 
checked, we have seen that banks and other financial houses say we can 
raise that level to $25 million with no problem whatsoever and that can 
help school districts across the country as well.
  One other note on the Education Land Grant Act, or as some have come 
to calling it, with an acronym, HELGA, the Hayworth Education Land 
Grant Act, we should stipulate, Mr. Speaker, that the lands we are 
talking about are not Park Service lands nor wildlife refuges. Those 
areas would not be available for conveyance to local school districts. 
But so much other land is federally controlled from coast to coast, and 
specifically in the American West, that there is a variety of land that 
could be available that is not Park Service land nor wildlife refuges 
that could make a real difference for many different school districts.
  So I am pleased to join my friend from Indiana, and based on what we 
heard in the previous hour, in offering other approaches to education, 
which we believe may be more practical and certainly can have profound 
effects for all congressional districts, for all school districts from 
coast to coast.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss in joining my friend from Indiana 
if we were to neglect the reason we are primarily here tonight, and it 
is something as basic as education and, indeed, one of the first things 
we learn, and that is the notion of what is right and what is wrong. 
And, sadly, recent events in Washington force us, really compel us to 
come to this floor to discuss inaccuracies, discrepancies and what, 
sadly, may in fact be widespread breaking of laws.
  I yield to my colleague from Indiana, because I know in his role on 
the committee overseeing this, he has had firsthand experience on this 
legislative day.
  Mr. SOUDER. And it is important to note, because people may get 
confused sometimes in these special orders when we, some of us in 
particular, have been trying to point out some of these problems that 
have developed in basic justice in this country and abuse of the 
political process, it does not mean we are not doing lots of other 
things. I also serve on the Committee on Economic and Educational 
Opportunities. It was my first choice. For 4 years in the House and for 
4\1/2\ years as a Senate staffer, my first focus was children and 
family issues. I was Republican staff director of the Children-Family 
Committee; worked on many of these issues, and worked on them with 
Senator Coats in the Senate.
  I have a deeply held conviction of the importance of education in the 
system, and I get tired of hearing we do not care about public schools. 
My kids have gone through public schools, I went through public 
schools, my wife went through public schools, and that is an important 
issue to us. But I am also on the Committee on Government Reform and 
Oversight, and we have also seen a perversion of our political process.
  I wanted to, first, on the eve of an important day, because tomorrow 
the House investigation begins on the abuses in the political process, 
and particularly the campaign process, I would like to sketch a little 
background. I know the hearings that we held today, where we gave our 
opening statements,

[[Page H8717]]

will probably be aired later tonight if not later this week, and then 
tomorrow we have our first witnesses in the House investigation, but I 
wanted to put a little bit of context into what we are doing and how 
this developed.
  I want to start with a little bit different spin. A man named Dick 
Morris, who has become relatively infamous around the United States, 
has written a book. While it may not be the most interesting book that 
has ever been written, and quite frankly is a little bit self-serving, 
as many of these type of books are, nevertheless gives us some very 
interesting insights as to how the political process can become 
corrupted.
  Let me give my colleague a brief book synopsis that really outlines 
how we got to what has been happening since we came into Congress. And 
that was, basically, in 1994, after the election that brought the 
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] here, brought me here, the 
President was in deep trouble. Much like happened in Arkansas when he 
was defeated after one term as Governor, he realized he needed to 
change his strategy, and he brought Dick Morris back.
  One thing Dick Morris suggested, and he writes about it, and he 
writes about it proudly, was they needed to have a permanent campaign. 
An interesting thing happens when are going to have a permanent 
campaign. It means one has to have a permanent fundraising operation. 
And early money is hard to raise, so one has to go to some places that 
may or may not be quite as up front and a little different, plus there 
is the need for huge quantities of this money.
  They wanted to run ads in the district of the gentleman from Arizona 
[Mr. Hayworth] from day one, pounding him, from the time he got elected 
until his reelection came up. They wanted ads running while we were in 
this government shutdown debate trying to spin to the American public. 
Quite frankly, our side sat back and waited until the election.
  In this process, a man named Harold Ickes, Jr., it is clear in 
Morris' book, and some is not as clear in the book, Ickes and Morris 
fought when they were in New York City growing up. Because Harold Ickes 
is most liberal he has been committed to the liberal cause. Dick Morris 
is committed to the latest poll. It is not that he does not have some 
convictions of his own, but his convictions are a little movable and he 
is willing to try to win elections first.
  Harold Ickes did not like that and he found himself getting cut out 
of the process from the White House. It is documented in other places 
too, but Morris more or less ignores him in the first part of the book. 
Then an amazing thing happens. Harold Ickes, whose memos, quite 
frankly, have been very important in this, because he had some with the 
President's initials on them and Mrs. Clinton's initials on them, 
Harold Ickes was suddenly brought in and Morris delineates why: Through 
praise. He praises him for his fund-raising efforts and how much money 
he has been able to bring in.
  And Ickes got access in the decision-making process of the White 
House by being the point person with the outside in how the money came 
into the system. This is documented by the memos he left the White 
House with.
  So Morris takes over and takes it in a polling direction. So we get 
things like welfare reform, that Ickes did not like, and the liberal 
Democrats did not like. Ickes gets back into the process through fund-
raising.
  Interestingly, also, the Vice President of the United States is 
praised repeatedly in this book for his wonderful efforts in 
fundraising.
  Now, in the book there is no indications there was illegal fund-
raising, but that gives us the ideas of the pressures in the system 
that were occurring that lead to the dramatic fund-raising abuses. And 
that has not really been laid out exactly why did this happen and what 
was different and why were there such massive amounts of money. It was 
because they decided to do a permanent campaign.
  But some of this actually started earlier. In the Committee on 
Government Reform and Oversight, from the time we took over and we 
started to investigate, we heard there was this problem in the Travel 
Office. And we started looking at the Travel Office and we wondered, 
well, why is this person walking around the White House without a 
security clearance? Why is this person walking around? Why are the 
Thomasons involved in such a little thing? Because it did not seem that 
many dollars. And even though they owned the travel agency, why were 
they involved in this?
  And as it evolved, we discovered they were trying to get the travel 
budget elsewhere; that there was this person over here who was a 
girlfriend or boyfriend of this person and there was a Clinton distant 
cousin over here. And we started to see the pattern we are now seeing 
in full bloom a couple years later. So as we were investigating the 
Travel Office, we started to check on where did these security 
clearances come from.
  The next thing we know we turn up the FBI files case, because we 
start saying how did they get these clearances. Hey, some of these 
names, they do not have any business having. These people are 
Republicans. They have not been in this administration. John Towers is 
dead, as a matter of fact.

  Mr. HAYWORTH. If my colleague from Indiana would yield for just a 
second, if I am fully cognizant of the reports and our recent history, 
we are not talking about a few files. We are not talking about a dozen 
files. Could the gentleman from Indiana provide for the record how many 
files are we talking about?
  Mr. SOUDER. We honestly do not know. We know there were at least 200, 
then 400. It appears there were at least 800. Chuck Colson went to 
prison after the Nixon administration for showing one.
  We documented that interns had them, that multiple people had them. 
We know they were out there. What has not been documented yet is 
whether they have been abused. But merely having people's secret files, 
with any allegations, raw allegations, unproven allegations are in 
these files.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Indeed, to draw the proper analogy, and I thank my 
colleague from Indiana for yielding, but it would seem to me these FBI 
files contain very personal information. And it would be akin to 
someone, a pickpocket, having hundreds of wallets that he had purloined 
from different folks. Now, maybe the pickpocket never used the credit 
cards in the wallet, maybe the pickpocket never took the currency out 
of the wallet to spend, but yet that wallet, something very close to 
someone, personal possessions, were taken away and in the possession of 
someone else who could have used that information, that currency, if 
you will, in this information age, in a very disparaging way.
  Sadly, again, it seems that was another example of some folks in the 
executive branch running roughshod over constitutional rights and, 
indeed, our traditions of law in this country.
  Mr. SOUDER. And to take the gentleman's analogy further, in addition 
to, in effect, pickpocketing people's billfolds and private things that 
were official and on record, this is not a matter of FBI files where 
they just have whether an individual has been picked up for a parking 
ticket or where they went to college. These are when an individual 
applies for a secure government job and they go try to find out what 
anybody says about them.
  So there are raw unedited transcripts of if somebody says I saw him 
at dinner somewhere and he was having an affair. I saw him at a gay bar 
one time. I heard that he beats his kids. These things are in those 
files and individuals do not even know they are in their files, and yet 
we have kids, we had all sorts of people walking around with these.
  The question comes, were they potential blackmail files for people 
who were holdover, or for people who they had to do business with 
outside, or for, quite frankly, staff members who used to work in the 
administration and came over. We do not know, and that is still 
unanswered.
  But as we moved through this, we turned up Craig Livingstone, and he 
was in charge of White House security and the files, along with Anthony 
Marceca, who had been kicked out of different campaigns for multiple 
questions, had had various problems in their lives. The question was 
who hired these people? Craig Livingstone would not say who hired him. 
The attorneys would not say who hired him. They said maybe Vince Foster 
did, which

[[Page H8718]]

was always the convenient answer. It was always the dead guy when we 
tried to get an answer.
  But then we found out they had a data bank. And from the files 
investigation we turned up they had this data bank. And as we looked at 
the data bank, they had these piles of documents with little codes on 
them. And we found out that the codes were amounts of money that the 
people gave, and they had a code so they could know at the White House 
how much money these people gave. And that was the codes for coffees 
and Lincoln bedroom. And that is how we evolved into the coffees and 
the Lincoln bedroom question.
  So this has been an unfolding process as we go through this, and we 
are now seeing the last phase of this, which is the foreign money, in 
what appears to be at least on the surface. And we are trying to get 
the evidence, and that is the purpose of these hearings, of were we 
penetrated by foreign governments? Was national security compromised? 
Did they make land deals or other government decisions based on who was 
at the Lincoln bedroom; based on who was at a coffee? Because we have 
seen this pattern.
  And I want to relate two other things that make us extra suspicious. 
The American people are generous people, and they will give people the 
benefit of the doubt, but we have seen a repetitive pattern of 
stonewalling through all these investigations. And every one we get 
into, there is this excuse as to why they cannot give us the 
information of why this person has fled overseas. Sixty witnesses 
pleading the Fifth Amendment. Twenty-five so far have fled overseas. 
They always have an excuse.
  I also happen to have, for a variety of reasons, chaired two 
investigations of the INS. I, quite frankly, and bluntly, was 
reluctant, because the chairman was not here at that point. Mr. Zeliff, 
who had led much of this, decided to run for governor of New Hampshire, 
and I wound up chairing the subcommittee.
  But I was reluctant, because I was afraid that in investigating these 
things would be perceived as anti-Hispanic. But at some point the truth 
just stares us in the face. We saw the piles of documents that civil 
servants, many of them Democrats, were bringing in bundles of tests, 
citizenship tests filled out in the same pencil, in the same 
handwriting; there are people coming in and saying we had eight boxes 
of applications that never had a background check; and we watched and 
heard these people say that the deadline was the voter registration 
deadline.
  The deadline was not to try to get people in. We wanted legal aliens 
to become citizens. And out of the 1.1 million who came in, at least a 
million were completely legitimate. But it appears that up to 100,000 
were not. We had rapists. We had all sorts of people brought in because 
of the pressure to get the voters registered for an election, which 
ties in with Morris' whole scenario.
  So we already have the public acknowledgment that the INS has fired 
people and cleaned up their process, and are working hard to do this, 
but the INS clearly violated the law.
  Now, interestingly, Mr. Zeliff and, then full committee chairman, Mr. 
Clinger, were pursuing another category. In this other category was the 
White House communications agency. I wound up at that hearing as well 
and chaired part of the hearing, and found it, quite frankly, one of 
the more boring hearings I have been to. I confess that not everything 
we do here is interesting, even when we pretend it is interesting.
  We heard GAO tell us that the White House Communications Office had 
major reporting problems; that it was funded under the Department of 
Defense, and the Department of Defense was accountable, but the 
political people at the White House, because usually they had a fairly 
low to mid level defense person over there, was being pressured by 
White House high ranking political people. And we, in particular, were 
looking at a major waste of a huge broadcast system they had purchased 
with a high percentage of their budget that then they could not get on 
one plane so they were not using it.
  Also came out charges of a variety of different things that they were 
looking at.

                              {time}  2100

  One the charges of this office that we said could easily be abused, 
that GAO said could be abused, that we were holding a hearing on, one 
of their charges was to videotape key events at the White House.
  As of last night, the media started to ask questions, because we 
turned in fraud potential in this office a year and a half ago, and it 
is clear in the process not only has this committee, full committee, 
been requesting tapes and they only turned up yesterday edited, but 
these tapes, we had a hearing where we were investigating this agency 
and they did not come up. And then when the tapes come up, it is, 
``Sorry, the audio is missing.''
  Some people did not seem to have read Watergate. And that is, when 
there is a missing 14\1/2\ minute gap in Rosemary Woods' transcript at 
a very key point, people jump to logical conclusions. And when the 
tapes come back without the audio in the part where the allegations 
have been that there was fund-raising, we have doubts.
  One of the things I went to this chairman of this subcommittee today 
to follow up on is, I think we need immediate hearings in this 
subcommittee that is already investigated, on top of the hearings from 
Chairman Burton that are starting, and say, ``Okay, who filmed the 
stuff, the stuff that was played on C-Span the other night that was 
clearly edited? Where is the full tape? Did you doctor these tapes? 
What happened to the audio of these tapes? Who did this? Who authorized 
you to do this?''
  This is shocking, that they went through and did this and abused a 
Defense Department agency, which we had already been warning about, 
that they had potential fraud in the way that they were setting it up.
  As the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] knows, I am on the same 
committee with the gentleman that is looking into this issue, the 
Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and was there for the 
opening statements today.
  My colleague raised some serious points about this issue of the 
tapes. I just want to bring a little levity here because, quite 
frankly, there are parts of this thing that I find incredibly humorous. 
Let me just kind of walk through it.
  The tapes the gentleman has been referring to are videotapes of the 
so-called coffees that the White House conducted, where they invited in 
these individuals, most of them, coincidentally, major donors to the 
Democrat party and of the White House and of the President, but 
maintained, and had maintained for months now, that these were not 
fund-raisers, ``Look, these are reasonable and legitimate, and we are 
having nice discussions, but they were not fund-raisers.''
  What I find humorous about it is a couple of different things that 
reveal how we got the revelation of these tapes. For example, when the 
White House, first in response to our committee's subpoena, searched 
for the names of the individuals we knew had attended those coffees, 
according to press reports, and I am quoting here from George Lardner, 
Junior's Washington Post story the day before yesterday, they searched 
for those individuals' names, the White House database came up empty.
  As a matter of fact, they could not find anything on those 
individuals in the White House database. So they said, what we really 
should do is search under the name ``coffees.'' And, in fact, they did 
come up with what they call, I think it is a total of 44 hits, under 
the name ``coffees,'' and that is how we led to the discovery of these 
tapes. They only bothered to wait from March, when we subpoenaed this 
information, until, we are in October, are we not? until October to 
decide, well, let us look under ``coffees.''
  But the fascinating thing is that in Mr. Lardner's story, he goes 
beyond that and he says, guess what? Somebody had the bright idea of 
searching under ``coffees'' to look under ``DNC.'' What is ``DNC''? 
Democratic National Committee. And to look under ``fund-raiser.''
  Now, I do not know why they would look under ``DNC'' or ``fund-
raiser,'' because, as we all know and as the American people have 
already come to believe in their heart and soul, these

[[Page H8719]]

were not DNC fund-raisers. And yet the curious thing is, when they did 
search that same White House computer database under ``DNC'' or ``DNC 
fund-raiser,'' they did not get 44 hits, they got 150 hits.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, people who put that in 
there never would have acknowledged it in their own computer system.
  Mr. SHADEGG. After all, the White House spin machine has been running 
around the clock to spin this thing as coffees, get-togethers.
  What did my colleague say the other night? What is the coffee shop, 
prominent coffee shop?
  Mr. SOUDER. Starbuck's.
  Mr. SHADEGG. This is Starbuck's on Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Mr. SOUDER. Only a lot more expensive.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Only a lot more expensive. And the fascinating thing is, 
well, all 44 coffees also happened to be hit under the same computer 
system for DNC fund-raisers.
  Now, let me see, the White House spin machine has been saying these 
were not fund-raisers, ``We were not using public property for fund-
raisers.'' But when they searched DNC fund-raisers, the same 44 turned 
up. And we know that. Now, what is the difference between 44 and 150? 
There are 106 others out there that we do not know anything about. I 
find it absolutely fascinating and tremendously humorous.
  But there is one more point in all of this that I want to bring out. 
When this came out, I happened to be in Arizona en route back to 
Washington when I first heard this story of the tapes released: ``White 
House releases tapes of White House coffees,'' not fund-raisers, even 
though the White House itself in their own computer called them DNC 
fund-raisers. But when the tapes came out, the national news reporter I 
heard on this radio story said, ``But they do not show any breaking of 
the law; they actually back up the President's story.''
  I kind of listened to that for a minute. Then I got here, and I 
happened to see the tapes the other night. There are fascinating things 
in the tapes; for example, the missing gap of time. Rosemary Woods 
surfaces again, and there is, you know, a human gap. Now it just so 
happens that the gap appears on the one tape where we see none other 
than John Huang. It is kind of, huh, I wonder how that happened.
  Mr. SOUDER. Coincidence. We are jumping to conclusions.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mere coincidence. We are leaping to conclusions. ``These 
were clearly not fund-raisers.'' They will call them fund-raisers in 
their database, but that was a goof.
  Mr. SOUDER. They had to have some way to distinguish it from other 
coffees.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Of course.
  But one last point I want to make on this that is also humorous is 
that while the news spin was that these were, in fact, clearly not 
fund-raisers, and indeed nothing in the tape shows the President 
saying, ``give me the money,'' that is true, it is not there, what is 
there is the understanding of the people who attended.

  The understanding of the people who attended is quite clearly shown 
on a tape for which they accidentally released the audio. And you know 
what it is? It is this gentleman in the audience saying, ``Hey, I got 
the checks. I got the checks.''
  As a matter of fact, the White House spin is, ``Well, these were not 
fund-raisers because the DNC official in the room turned the checks 
down.'' Now, I mean, I am certain this is one lost soul who happened to 
make it to these coffees and had the mistaken notion that he should be 
offering up these five checks. Clearly, he was a mistaken soul.
  The fact that there was a DNC official who said, ``Wait until later; 
wait until later,'' I am certain these were not fund-raisers. Thank 
goodness the White House has come forward.
  The last point I want to make: Because the White House has been so 
incredibly forthcoming, I am certain that within minutes of when we 
discover there are over 150 events, take away the 44, 106 events, the 
White House will be forthcoming. They will give us all the tapes of 
those events, computer records, all the lists of people identified; 
they had never stalled or delayed in any way of providing information; 
they have never stonewalled or failed to respond to a subpoena until we 
threatened contempt. I am certain that within minutes the President 
himself is going to run down here and say, ``Here is everything.''
  As a matter of fact, in this morning's paper, the President said, 
``Well, they have the evidence.'' The chairman of our committee, the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], pointed out they do not have the 
evidence. They, in fact, stonewalled. But I am sure it is just a 
glitch.
  Mr. SOUDER. The key thing is, as the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Shadegg] knows, he is an attorney, what we need to do is check out the 
statute of limitations on a lot of these things.
  Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman would yield again, I understand. Now 
they will surface the day after the statute of limitations. How foolish 
of me.
  Mr. SOUDER. What a pattern.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Souder]. And I am very pleased that we are joined by the gentleman from 
Arizona [Mr. Shadegg], because he has distinguished himself in the 
legal profession as he distinguishes his work here in this body.
  I would simply offer one different take on one aspect, because I know 
my colleague is laughing to keep from crying, because none of this 
should bring us joy.
  It is one thing to have political differences with folks and to have 
philosophical discussions. In a free society, we champion that. The 
problem now is a pattern, as my colleague said tongue in cheek, that is 
really not coincidence, that seems to be a habitual pattern of 
lawbreaking.
  I thought it was very important when he mentioned the videotapes and 
how they had obviously been edited and when my colleague mentioned the 
lone, soundless tape.
  Let me read today from the Omaha World Herald on this point. Quoting 
now the Omaha World Herald, ``The lone, soundless tape in Clinton's 
collection is one of the potentially more important videotapes made. It 
shows DNC fund-raiser John Huang introducing the President at a coffee 
on June 18, 1996. A Johns Hopkins University professor has testified 
that Huang said, `Elections cost money, lots and lots of money. And I 
am sure that every person in this room will want to support the re-
election of President Clinton.' ''
  Mr. SOUDER. This is the part that is missing.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. That is the audio that is missing, according to the 
testimony of a professor from Johns Hopkins University.
  What is also fascinating, and my colleagues have distinguished 
themselves, I believe, in these special orders where they have helped 
to inform the American people, but I want to call on my colleague, the 
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg], for some free legal advice here 
in the people's House, and it has to do with some other things we have 
heard now dealing with these issues, because there are some at the 
White House, some attorneys there, who tell us that if a law is an old 
law, it should not count any longer.
  I refer specifically to the Pindleton Act. Let me ask my colleague, 
the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg], has he ever seen a situation 
where a cogent, logical defense is, a law is old, therefore, it should 
not be observed?
  Mr. SHADEGG. Well, certainly I have not. Indeed, perhaps the first 
laws enacted in the world are laws against murder, therefore the 
oldest, certainly laws we ought to respect before any other. The notion 
that an old law is due less deference than a new one is, on its face, 
absurd. Actually, the existence of a law for a long period of time 
establishes that it truly embodies the consensus of the society.
  Clearly, these are searched-for excuses by the White House to try to 
get out from under what they have done.
  A fascinating parallel is the line, ``Everybody else does it.'' 
Another one is, ``Well, we certainly thought we were complying with the 
law.''
  I love that one with regard to the issue of phone calls by the 
President himself from the White House, because if my colleagues recall 
the sequence of events, his first story on phone calls from the White 
House was, ``I don't recall making any.'' And then his second story 
some several weeks later was, ``Well, I know that at the time we did

[[Page H8720]]

this, whatever it is we did, we believed we were complying with the 
law.''
  Now, spare me, and maybe my colleagues can help with this. I have 
problem with the logic that says, ``I do not remember doing it, but if 
I did it, I remember that I thought I was complying with the law.'' 
That one is tough for me.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. And even more astounding, as the gentleman from Arizona 
[Mr. Shadegg] and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] will 
acknowledge, even more astounding was the explanation that we heard 
from the Vice President of the United States, who stood before a 
gathering of the press and said that he was proud of his actions but, 
from that day forward, he would not repeat them.
  And he developed for that press conference one of the most infamous 
phrases that I believe has been hoisted upon the American people, 
because the Vice President of the United States, the man who, if 
circumstance and tragedy struck, would be elevated to this Nation's 
highest office, the Vice President of the United States said, ``There 
is no controlling legal authority that pertains to my conduct.''
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, and those who join us through the miracle 
of television, coast to coast and around the world, ponder those words, 
because words mean something.
  For the Vice President of the United States to presume and to protest 
that there is no controlling legal authority can only lead us to 
conclude, sadly, that the Vice President of the United States believes 
himself to be above the law, believes his conduct, which is and has 
been and is suspected of being illegal in this regard, somehow should 
result in no sanction, somehow should result in no punishment, but 
instead should be blithely dismissed as just one of those things, 
because as my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg], to 
paraphrase so many who work in the fourth estate here in Washington in 
the news rooms here so eager to explain things, so eager to change the 
agenda for our Nation, as they try to say, ``Everybody does it.''

                              {time}  2115

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to go on the record tonight with my 
colleagues here to protest that notion; to say most certainly, not 
everyone does it. Indeed, when we came to this Chamber, when we started 
to help change the way Washington works, one of the first things we 
were taught was that these offices are government offices provided by 
the taxpayers, belonging to the taxpayers and our constituents; they 
are not to be used in any way, shape, fashion or form, for fund-
raising.
  This is an elemental lesson in the education of a public servant in 
this role in the people's House, in the other Chamber, and dare I say 
at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. This is one of the first 
things we are told and we are taught, and sadly, there are some who 
have ignored the lesson, some who would presume that they are above the 
law because they claim there is no controlling legal authority. How 
tragic, how shameful that utterance truly is.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, clearly the Vice 
President of the United States first was warned by the legal counsel in 
a memo that has been circulated all over the country in newspapers. He 
was a Member of this body in the House and knew that we could not do 
it. Then he was a Member of the other body, the Senate, and told that 
he could not do it. He has no excuse. We are tired of hearing these 
kinds of excuses.
  The gentleman read earlier from the Omaha World Herald, and in 
Hotline today, now admittedly, these are audio only; I do not have any 
video, and also, I only have highlights from some of these editorials. 
But if I was at the White House, I would not complain about me editing. 
They are not in a real strong position here.
  But I want to show the reaction around the country and express my 
disappointment with, quite frankly, a lot of members in the other party 
for not agreeing to speak up. As my colleagues will see if they watch 
C-SPAN and the upcoming opening statements of the members of this 
committee, there were a lot of excuses and a lot of dancing around 
about how everybody does it, which, A, is not true; how we ought to be 
investigating Congress, which we have no jurisdiction over, we are an 
oversight committee on the White House and the executive branch. Our 
duty is to look into misconduct. That is what our committee's charge is 
to do and we are going to do that.
  Back in the days of the Grant administration when they looked into 
the Credit Mobilier scandal, they did not say well, Philmore did it; 
well, so-and-so did it before. They looked at the scandal that was in 
front of them.
  Back in the days of the Teapot Dome, the excuses were not, oh, other 
people did it. They looked into the scandal of Teapot Dome. Quite 
frankly, in Watergate, some, including myself, initially felt they were 
picking on Nixon, but we had the courage to say as it unfolded, what he 
did was wrong, what the Vice President did was wrong, and that we did 
not say, look, because Lyndon Johnson bugged Barry Goldwater's room and 
because Lyndon Johnson covered up, therefore, Nixon should not be 
kicked out of office just because Johnson did it.
  First off, we have not established that other people did what Clinton 
did. Particularly we are looking at all these scandals put together in 
one administration. But it is no defense, and when is the other party 
going to start to step forward?
  I want to read these newspapers and show that newspapers around the 
country have come to this conclusion. Where are the members of the 
other party?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I just simply want to make the point, and 
I thank my colleague from Indiana for yielding, because he makes the 
point that I can recall many of the arguments as I was coming through 
school, as my colleague from Indiana was, in the wake of the Watergate 
scandal. And I do wish that many on the other side of the aisle would 
heed the words of the late Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Sam 
J. Ervin, who said in response to those types of protestations, well, 
does that make it right?
  Are we to ignore it in this situation because it may have gone on 
before? That is the type of selective analysis that is akin to saying 
that if a traffic cop pulls me over and I try to say, ``Well, everyone 
else is speeding,'' is the traffic cop simply supposed to say ``Well, 
you are right, so I will let you go on your merry way.'' No, of course 
not.
  By definition, it is going to be selective, but how I wish that 
others would speak up and remember those words of Senator Ervin: Just 
because it happened before and perhaps was not prosecuted or 
investigated, does that dismiss the current problem? Of course it does 
not.
  Again, it brings us no joy to do this, but it is a sad tale of woe 
that goes to the very fabric of our constitutional republic, and to 
ignore these problems, these discrepancies, these misdeeds would be to 
do our country a grave disservice.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I know this will take a couple of minutes, 
but I want to show how overwhelming public reaction has been around the 
country.
  New Mexico, Albuquerque Journal: ``The administration could save 
itself considerable trouble and criticism if only it learned to be 
candid.''
  Georgia, Augusta Chronicle: ``It's time for Congress to start drawing 
up articles of impeachment against Reno. She is open to charges to both 
conflict of interest and incompetence. It's time to get rid of the 
worst Attorney General in the Nation's history.''
  Alabama, Birmingham News: ``Apparently, Ms. Reno believes she must 
have photographs of illegal transactions taking place before she can 
proceed with a special investigation. Perhaps the videotapes of the 
coffees and other fund-raising functions at the White House will give 
her what she's looking for.''
  New York, Buffalo News: ``President Clinton can insist that no money 
changed hands and no policies changed at all when he schmoozed with 
donors in White House receptions caught on videotape. But the reality 
is that the public is entitled to suspect the worst.''
  West Virginia, Charleston Post and Courier: ``Clearly the White House 
is not cooperating fully with Ms. Reno's probe. That puts her in an 
impossible bind. The sooner Ms. Reno hands off this investigation to an 
independent

[[Page H8721]]

counsel, the better it will be for her and for the reputation of the 
Justice Department, which is sinking fast.''
  Ohio, Cleveland Plain Dealer: ``If the failure to reveal these tapes 
to the congressional investigative committees isn't obstruction of 
justice, it's far from the `full cooperation' the President and his men 
keep claiming.''
  Texas, Corpus Christi Caller-Times: ``The President's team is either 
spectacularly inept or willfully obstructionist.''
  Michigan, Detroit Free Press: ``Janet Reno is part of the problem, 
not part of the solution.''
  Indiana, my hometown, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, another Democratic 
paper, which many of these have been: ``You hear no claims of executive 
privilege this time. No excuses about controlling legal authority. No 
accusations that the Republicans did it, too.''
  New York, Long Island Newsday: ``The tapes made Reno look clueless in 
denying once again the need for an independent counsel.''

  New Hampshire, Manchester Union Leader: ``Of course only the 
Clintonoids know whether these tapes, under subpoena for six months, 
were tampered with, altered or edited. Only the Clintonoids know 
whether these are all of the tapes or whether there were others of a 
more incriminating nature that have since disappeared. And so it goes 
in the Clinton klepocracy.''
  New York Times, New York: ``Justice has been conducted in a slipshod 
investigation.''
  We already heard from Nebraska and the Omaha World Herald.
  Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Inquirer: ``Janet Reno needs to get her 
head out of the sand, tune in to the conflict-of-interest problem, and 
hand these allegations over to a preeminent lawyer free of political 
pressure.''
  Oregon, Portland Press Herald: ``Only an independent special 
prosecutor can bring the credibility needed to determine whether the 
President and Vice President of the United States violated the law.''
  Missouri, St. Louis Post Dispatch: ``Ms. Reno should seek a special 
prosecutor for the Clinton-Gore telephone solicitations and ask the 
prosecutor to investigate the other White House fund-raising 
investigations as well.''
  Now, once again, these are not Republican conservative papers.
  Minnesota, St. Paul Pioneer Press: ``No more than Richard Nixon could 
`circle the wagons' during Watergate can a modern White House keep 
`losing' documentation of its actions and hold onto its credibility.''
  California, San Diego Union Tribune: ``The Justice Department's 
investigation of possible White House campaign finance violations has 
lost all credibility.''
  California, San Francisco Chronicle: ``The long-sought videotapes may 
show nothing incriminating, but the Clinton administration's history of 
stonewalling, delay and obfuscation only add to the public perception 
that an independent counsel is needed to finally untangle the mess and 
find the truth.''
  California Stockton Record: ``President Nixon had to resort to the 
infamous Saturday Night Massacre to get the Justice Department to his 
political bidding, and it ultimately failed. Reno's Justice Department 
is just rolling over and playing dead.''
  Washington Post: ``The attitude of this White House toward the truth 
whenever it is in trouble is the same. Don't tell it, or tell only as 
much of it as you absolutely must, or as helps.''
  Washington Times: ``There has been so much obstructionism in document 
and evidence production that only someone as naive as Attorney General 
Janet Reno could believe that it hasn't been intentional.''
  Kansas, Wichita Eagle: ``Many Americans and most Republican lawmakers 
doubt whether Ms. Reno, a Clinton appointee, has conducted a thorough 
and honest investigation. And who can blame them?"
  North Carolina, Winston-Salem Journal: ``The lesson the White House 
keeps failing to learn is that any attempt at a cover-up usually makes 
matters worse.''
  This is overwhelming, from nearly every part of the country, and this 
is just a sampling, of liberal press for the most part, some 
conservatives, saying this is outrageous.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I commend the 
gentleman from Indiana for bringing that information forward. I must 
say as I stood here I was shocked to listen to that. I had no idea that 
the editorials across the country and the editorial page editors were 
that unanimous.
  I do want to point out the significance of this particular point the 
gentleman is raising right now. In any free society, we can only 
survive if people, largely voluntarily, choose to comply with the law. 
That is, in a democracy, the success or failure of that democracy is 
dependent upon respect for the law and respect for the government that 
creates that law.
  It seems to me that it is absolutely patently clear that Janet Reno 
is not only not doing her job and covering up and rolling over and 
playing dead, but most importantly, in not doing her job, in covering 
up, in rolling over and playing dead, in, for example, ruling as 
recently as this weekend that the Justice Department for the 18th time 
was going to refuse to open an investigation or authorize a special 
prosecutor for the President because he had done nothing wrong; 
moments, literally moments before the White House released these tapes, 
her conduct, I would suggest, is eating away at the most fundamental 
aspect of what our society depends upon, and that is faith and credit 
by the American people in the integrity of this government.
  If she continues to cover up for him and to not be forthcoming and to 
not acknowledge the flagrant conflict of interest she has, and to 
refuse to recognize the evidence that is staring her in the face, she 
is helping to destroy the faith that the American people need to have 
in this government if we are to survive as a Nation.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk about a couple of actual 
cases and refer to something else as people look at the opening 
statements today, and I want people to remember all of these editorials 
around the country and the universal outrage, and then watch the kind 
of creative excuses that people come up with here in Washington to 
defend why they are not speaking out. I believe that eventually we will 
have more and more Members on the other side, like there were 
Republicans, say, ``I cannot defend this any more. This is too 
humiliating. This is undermining the core of our system.''
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for joining 
us here tonight, and the American people.
  What my friend from Indiana has pointed out from newspapers, both 
liberal and conservative, is tantamount to a litany of shame. What is 
even more compelling and even more difficult are some reports we hear 
that perhaps White House attorneys met with the Attorney General on 
Wednesday night, perhaps those people even had knowledge of those tapes 
and they did not share that knowledge with the Attorney General. Very, 
very disturbing and serious questions need to be answered.
  I would simply point out to those who would wrap themselves in that 
rather infamous excuse of no controlling legal authority that yes, Mr. 
Speaker, there is a controlling legal authority. It is called the 
Constitution of the United States, which gives this body and the other 
body in the legislative branch oversight ability to check on 
allegations and to deal with these growing concerns, and it is the role 
of the people's House and the other body here in the Capitol to 
exercise that oversight, because our constitutional Republic and those 
who live in it can demand nothing less.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I had a series of 
pictures, but I want to use this to illustrate another point. This is a 
picture of the Vice President with Jorge Cabrera. I want to go through 
this case to illustrate that the things that we are going to hear 
tomorrow in our first House hearing are not isolated. There are so many 
that the Senate has already done, that we have pending, it is 
overwhelming.
  I want to go through this case to illustrate several points. The Vice 
President has been a good student of President Clinton's in more ways 
than one in fundraising. He attended a fundraiser in Florida for 60 
wealthy contributors. One of the attendees was

[[Page H8722]]

Jorge Cabrera, a drug trafficker with links to a Colombian cartel, and 
Dr. Joseph Douze, a fugitive who once blew up a bridge. The host for 
the evening was Jerome ``Jerry'' Berlin. He was indicted in 1990 and 
later acquitted on Federal conspiracy charges of bribing public 
officials. One of the politicians allegedly targeted in that charge was 
Senator Al Gore, who prosecutors said did not know of the alleged plot.
  One guest who paid the minimum $10,000 cover charge said, maybe the 
reason I got to sit with the Vice President is I was the only honest 
person in the room. To be fair, a Gore spokeswoman pointed out that the 
Vice President was disappointed to learn that his picture had been 
taken with a longtime drug dealer. This is my favorite quote so far of 
the whole investigation. ``He never wants to be associated with people 
who break the law.'' That probably makes for real interesting cabinet 
meetings.
  Some of the same donors at the fundraiser later received personal 
greetings from President Clinton and the First Lady. Only days later 
the Cali-connected Cabrera was sipping eggnog at the White House at a 
Christmas party. Cabrera, who gave $20,000 to the DNC, was later 
sentenced to 19 years in prison for helping to import 6,000 pounds of 
Colombian cocaine. He was indicted, mind you, when he was going to all 
of these fundraisers.
  At the time of the Gore fundraising and the White House visit, he had 
already been arrested twice on drug charges in the eighties, and 
pleaded guilty to nine drug-related charges. Court papers said that by 
1995 he was deeply involved with the Cali Colombian drug cartel, the 
largest in the world.
  Ross Perot put it nicely: I never thought I would live to see a major 
drug dealer give $20,000 bucks in Florida, and then be invited to a big 
Democratic reception by the Vice President of the United States, Al 
Gore, and then be invited to the White House for a reception. An 
invitation to the White House Christmas party was also sent to Dr. 
Douze, who the government had confiscated his passport, another branch 
of the government had taken his passport, yet this man was at the 
Christmas party, and they restricted his travel after his arrest on 11 
counts of Federal mail fraud and conspiracy. The Federal judge denied 
his request to leave the area to visit the White House, but Douze, who 
was arrested in 1988 for blowing up a bridge in Haiti, received the 
judge's permission to visit his dying mother in Haiti a few weeks after 
the Gore fundraiser. He has not returned from Haiti since. How does 
this happen? They let it.
  Rule number one is follow the current law. The moral equivalency 
crowd is saying everybody does it. No, not everybody does. Everybody 
does not take pictures with drug dealers who have already been 
convicted or fugitives or swindlers. This happens when cash and 
contributions guide, and as I said at the beginning, when your driving 
force is you have to have money to hold your power, and your goal is to 
get power in Washington, and then you start chasing the almighty 
dollar, pretty soon you make mistakes like this.
  What we are going to see in the hearing, in the opening statements 
today, as one Member of Congress said, we are applying guilt by showing 
fuzzy pictures, because this makes the Vice President look seedy and 
this Cali cartel person look seedy.
  Do Members know what? If I call up Vice President Gore and say, will 
you give me a fresh color picture of you posing with that member of the 
Cali Colombian cartel, I do not think he is going to give it to me. The 
only way I can get a picture is to get it out of a newspaper.
  I did not deliberately make this picture fuzzy, just like we do not 
make the pictures at our committee fuzzy. But the White House does not 
want to give us pictures of them posing with John Huang. They do not 
even want to have videotapes with audio on them being with John Huang. 
They do not want to give us pictures with John Chung. They do not want 
to give us pictures with the swindler who bilked new Americans coming 
into our country in one of the biggest credit card scams.
  So the picture tends to be a little fuzzy. But Members know what? 
Part of the problem here is not that we are making them look like 
violators of the law, they are. If you pose with drug dealers, there is 
not a whole lot you can do to clean up the picture, because you are 
posing with a drug dealer. It is particularly disappointing that in the 
background checks of this administration, that they have been so sloppy 
in doing that.
  I hope that Members will watch as we go through the hearing process 
and as we try to bring some of these points out. This is very 
difficult. I realize a lot of people think it is partisan, but our 
democracy is at stake. If money can buy this much influence across the 
board, if agencies can be corrupted, if our national security can be at 
risk, that is what we are trying to find out. If we do not find it, the 
President will get off free. If we do not find it, the Vice President 
will be fine.
  But our job as Members of the United States Congress is to look into 
what appears to be repeated across-the-board types of that, and we need 
the White House to start cooperating and the Attorney General to start 
cooperating.
  I agreed to lend the last few minutes of this special order time to 
my friend, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg]. I want to thank 
the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth], too, for his great efforts, 
not only tonight but at other times, because there is another matter 
pending right now in conference committee on national testing, and 
earlier tonight the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] and I were 
talking about education, as well as some of the Democratic Members. I 
thought that might be a fitting way to close here, too.


               Education and National Testing in America

  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding to me. This is in fact a very important topic and a very 
timely topic. Indeed, the gentleman was just talking about how the 
campaign fundraising scandals are sadly partisan. This is one on which 
I would hope we could be mutually bipartisan. In fact, on the floor of 
this House within the last few weeks we voted, 290-plus Members voted 
to oppose national Federal school testing as proposed by President 
Clinton, a national test.
  The Senate went a different route, and the Senate has proposed that 
we should allow national testing, but rather than allow the Federal 
Department of Education to write that test, they would be comfortable 
with letting what they claim is an independent body write the test.

  In point of fact, when we last discussed this issue on the floor, my 
colleague from Indiana pointed out quite accurately that that so-called 
independent body would not in fact be independent, but would consist of 
people appointed by the President, be totally administration-dominated, 
and not be independent.
  I have a passion about this issue, because I think it is one where 
many Americans, mainstream middle-class Americans, do not understand 
why some of us would be so vehemently opposed to testing; why we would 
stake out such a tough fight on this issue; why, indeed, we believe 
that if the provision in our bill that says there should be no national 
testing gets stripped, we are willing to fight, and fight, quite 
frankly to the death to put it back in.
  But let me explain that. I am holding a series of columns which I 
want to mention tonight. This one, ``National Exams Provide Few 
Benefits for Students,'' is written by Mark F. Bernstein. I do not know 
Mr. Bernstein, but he lays the first premise of this fight. He says, 
point blank, in a very bright and elucidating article, what is tested 
will be taught. Think of that. What is tested will be taught. That is 
the first plank in this argument.
  The President has not come forward and said, I want to have a 
national curriculum or national standards. The reality is that if we 
have a national test written by the Federal Government in the Federal 
Department of Education, what is in that test will be taught to my 
daughter, Courtney, and to my son, Stephen, in Phoenix, AZ.
  So once we get to that point, we have to say to ourselves, wow, the 
content of that test then becomes vitally important, because Courtney's 
teacher will want Courtney to know what is going to be on that test and 
she will teach it. And Stephen's teacher will want Stephen to know what 
they are going to

[[Page H8723]]

test, and that teacher will teach Stephen the information in that test. 
So what is tested will be taught.
  Why should we be concerned about that? Well, many people say these 
are controversial topics, and some of these articles we have here 
tonight talk about the fact that when the Federal Government, for 
example, proposed history standards, those history standards were not 
what you and I would think about history. They painted a grim and 
gloomy view of America, of American and western civilization, ignoring 
many of our heroes and accomplishments and emphasizing our failings.
  When the Federal Government proposed English and language art 
standards, they were so bad and considered such a muddle that the 
Clinton Department of Education threw them out. So the President came 
in and said, well, we will not test history, because that is 
subjective, and we will not test English and language, we will test 
math and science. Who can object to a uniform standard? How can my 
Arizonans oppose that?
  The sad truth is as Lynne Cheney detailed in an article in the Wall 
Street Journal on September 29, there are national experts who believe 
that we should never teach children simple mathematics skills. Indeed, 
the expert is a man by the name of Steven Leinwand. He sits on 
President Clinton's committee to do this.
  He says, it is downright dangerous to teach children mathematics 
skills. He wants to test my child on a national test so I can compare 
my children's performance to those of the children in New Jersey, but 
he says we should not teach them basic math skills. This is a battle 
which is going forward soon.
  Lynne Cheney wrote another article, ``The Latest Education Disaster, 
Whole Math.'' That is the kind of math where you do not teach children 
math skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and 
division. Marianne Jennings wrote an article, ``MTV Math Doesn't Add 
Up,'' pointing out how bad this is.
  National testing is a potential disaster for the Nation because it 
would set one standard driven by the Federal Department of Education, 
and it is a standard that I think we ought to all be concerned about. I 
trust the people in Arizona, the Arizona education department, and the 
experts at my children's school board to make the right decisions about 
what we need to learn. National testing is scary and dangerous.
  I urge America to listen up to this debate, and to join us in 
opposing the President, who may have a well-intended idea but an idea 
which would be disastrous.

                          ____________________