[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H10322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SECRETARY BABBITT'S ABUSE OF POWER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Gibbons] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today in disbelief, in 
fact in total disgust. I stand here before you in an effort to seek the 
truth in campaign fund-raising allegations involving the Secretary of 
Interior, Mr. Bruce Babbitt, a serious abuse of power.
  I am here to inform my colleagues of the mounting evidence that 
Secretary Babbitt potentially misused his administrative position to 
influence the outcome of a 1995 Department of Interior decision 
regarding an Indian gaming permit to a group of Chippewa Indians in 
Wisconsin, all that in exchange for political contributions to the 
Democratic National Committee.
  Allow me to set the stage. Three groups of Wisconsin Chippewa Indians 
recently filed a lawsuit charging that the Clinton administration bowed 
to improper political pressure when the Interior Department rejected 
their application for a gaming permit in 1995.
  So what was the reason for this otherwise unexplainable denial? Well, 
other tribes opposing their application donated more than $270,000 to 
the Democratic National Committee soon after their proposal was 
rejected. The rival tribes were trying to prevent competition to their 
lucrative gaming interests located some 20 miles from Minneapolis and 
St. Paul, MN.
  Now, Mr. Paul Eckstein, an attorney and old friend of Mr. Babbitt, 
recently testified before a Senate Governmental Affairs panel on 
campaign fund-raising hearings that he met with Secretary Babbitt on 
July 14, 1995, after being told by another Interior Department official 
that the casino planned by 3 Wisconsin Chippewa tribes was being 
disapproved. Eckstein proceeded to tell the Senate Governmental Affairs 
Committee that Mr. Babbitt's response was that Deputy White House Chief 
of Staff, Harold Ickes, had directed him to issue the decision that 
day. In a 1996 letter to Senator John McCain, a Republican of Arizona, 
the Interior Secretary denied making the comment about Ickes. But last 
month, Mr. Babbitt again recanted, acknowledging that he did, in fact, 
make the remarks to Mr. Eckstein simply to get the lawyer out of his 
office.
  Well, the contradiction in Secretary Babbitt's responses troubles me 
almost as much as the act of trading favors for campaign money. The 
blatant misuse of administrative power for monetary gain is a serious 
offense. If no other inconsistencies were uncovered beyond this, this 
would still warrant the appointment of an independent counsel.
  At issue in this case is whether Secretary Babbitt's decision to deny 
the application was influenced by the promise of political 
contributions and whether his actions came as a result of an order from 
higher up in the administrative ladder.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not my intent to stand here before the House in an 
attempt to influence the outcome of this case, nor to comment on any 
more specific details of the event that precipitated this matter. 
However, the apparent seriousness of the allegations of this wrongdoing 
and underlying facts clearly dictate further investigations into this 
matter.
  I have in my office investigative reports, many from major news 
publications on this subject, that confirm in precise detail the 
pervasive, serious and potentially unlawful conduct of Secretary 
Babbitt's 1995 decision.
  The likelihood that government policy was made in return for a 
political donation in this case clearly brings into question whether 
criminal misconduct occurred in fund-raising efforts for the 1996 
Federal election.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to inform you of major 
malfunctions in the campaign fund-raising machine for the 1996 
election, and I am also here to inform my colleagues of my intent to 
pursue this matter further.
  In fact, I would like to report on Friday of last week I sent a 
letter to the Attorney General, lauding the Justice Department's 
decision to open a 30-day initial review into how Secretary Babbitt 
handled the application for an Indian gaming permit back in 1995. But 
this is not enough. In this same letter I expressed my earnest sense of 
urgency on behalf of the American people in pushing forth with the 
appointment of an independent counsel to investigation this scandal.

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