[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6-S7]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE ROLE OF INDEPENDENT COUNSEL

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to discuss a serious matter. I 
hesitate to comment on ongoing law enforcement investigations. I have 
always felt that way.

  I am not going to jump into the swirling mix of rumor and revelation 
and innuendo that has transfixed many in Washington over the last 
several days. I spent nearly a decade as a prosecutor. I have a very 
strong sense of what prosecutors should and can do. I am one who has 
tried to keep any kind of ideological partisanship out of law 
enforcement decisions. I did that during the time I was a prosecutor, 
and I have urged that same thing to prosecutors since.
  But I am troubled that the independent counsel law has itself been 
corrupted and no longer serves its intended purpose. The law was part 
of a congressional effort to create a mechanism that would reassure the 
American people that partisanship was not influencing prosecutorial 
decisions, and that law enforcement judgment was being exercised by 
those who did not have an ax to grind either way--by those who 
approached matters from a law enforcement point of view, and not--not--
from a lodestone set in a partisan rock.
  I cannot say with confidence that this is the case with the current 
Whitewater counsel. I look at the continuing and very selective leaks 
and tactics employed by Mr. Starr's office over the last few years, and 
particularly over the last few days. And, like so many other Vermonters 
and so many other Americans, it gives me pause to see these kind of 
tactics that no prosecutor should ever condone in his or her offices.
  I have seen reports that two weeks ago he was intent on constructing 
a sting operation to engage the President of the United States in 
secretly recorded conversations. Have we sunk this low, Mr. President, 
that we would do things like this?
  I have seen complaints that he sought to pressure a young woman and 
threaten her mother and father if she did not cooperate in allegations 
that she was counseled to lie under oath.
  Maybe I am missing something here, Mr. President. But this is a far 
distance from investigating a decade-old land deal in Arkansas. Having 
spent more than $30 million of taxpayers' money in what apparently 
became a self-perpetuating investigation, the goal now seems to go 
about getting the President by whatever means necessary.
  Last summer I was critical of efforts by Mr. Starr's office to 
involve itself in allegations of marital infidelity. The justification 
then to justify the leaks coming out of Mr. Starr's office was that 
maybe pillow talk might lead to the discovery of some evidence relevant 
to this decade-old land deal in Arkansas.
  Now it seems that the current activities of Mr. Starr's office seem 
oddly coordinated to aid in a civil lawsuit against the President. The 
Paula Jones case has had a gag order on it from the beginning. Yet 
every single day we find the lawyers and those allied with Ms. Jones 
selectively leaking depositions and court proceedings to the public. 
Almost in conjunction--almost in the same package--we see items 
selectively leaked from Mr. Starr's office with one passing the other. 
You would think it was the same law firm carrying out this civil case. 
I have never ever seen a prosecutor do something like that in a State 
court, a Federal court, or any kind of a case.
  Having been a prosecutor, I have a sense for the enormous power in 
that office. If you have $30 million to spend you have the most power 
any prosecutor could ever have. But with that power comes a 
responsibility. Decisions about what to pursue and what to prosecute 
are among the weightiest exercises of public authority. Exercised 
irresponsibly and without accountability the prosecutor's power is 
easily abused and is left to go towards effectively partisan purposes.
  My point is that at this juncture we need an independent counsel who 
is clearly removed from partisanship and who can exercise independent 
judgment. But the country has neither. This is the most partisan, 
unjustified, demeaning investigation that I can ever remember in my 
life. Rather than succeed in insulating the power of the prosecutor 
from abusive partisan purposes, the independent counsel law appears to 
have captured partisan forces. This goes beyond any question of what 
might have happened in Whitewater or anywhere else. It is the tactics 
being used. The tactics tend in many ways to become so outrageous that 
they can only be considered partisan. If you want people to have 
confidence in the result of an investigation, then the investigation 
has to be nonpartisan, and it has to be perceived to be nonpartisan so 
that all people can respect what comes out of it.

  Frankly, Mr. President, from what I am hearing throughout the 
country, as well as in my own State, people do not expect any idea of 
impartiality or nonpartisanship from the prosecutor's office. I hope 
that Mr. Starr will quickly take steps to change that, and will quickly 
take steps to stop having his office somehow coordinating itself with a 
civil case, a civil case involving Paula Jones.
  I say this because the country is facing some other issues that also 
have to be attended to.
  On Friday I flew back to Vermont, as I do so often during the month, 
and I picked up every newspaper that I could on the way up just to read 
in the airplane. There on the front page of a major newspaper were all 
of the stories of what leaks are coming out of the Paula Jones case and 
what leaks are coming out of Mr. Starr's office. Tucked almost as an 
afterthought were such stories as this: The Pope making a historic 
visit to Cuba, with all the ramifications that means; Microsoft's 
settlement with the Justice Department and implications that is going 
to have for jobs and consumer protection in the years to come; the 
Unabomber, who terrorized this country for years, pleads guilty; U.S. 
forces move to arrest a war criminal, something we have not seen I 
don't think since the time of Nuremberg; the successive visits by 
Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat to this country and the 
implications on the peace process for the Middle East. There are other 
such significant stories: The question of whether we are going to have 
to go into Iraq and act unilaterally because our allies don't appear to 
have the guts to stand up to Saddam Hussein. All of these

[[Page S7]]

things are tucked back, I say to my colleagues, almost in the fast-food 
ads in the newspaper. Every one of these things is going to have an 
enormous effect on your life, on my life, and on the lives of the 
American people, just as the State of the Union Message will tonight, 
just as what we do on the floor of the Senate this year.
  These are the things that need debate. I am not suggesting that it is 
wrong to ask questions about the conduct of anybody--not of me, of you, 
of the President, or anybody else. I am not suggesting that. But what I 
am suggesting is let us not forget that we represent the most powerful 
nation history has ever known and the greatest economy history has ever 
known, at a time of economic boom. Let us not lose sight of what the 
American people want us to do in protecting this country.
  But also let us ask--and I asked the same question incidentally 
during the activities of the special prosecutor in the Reagan era--let 
us ask whether we undermine the very things we want to protect in this 
country by allowing a special prosecutor situation to go way out of 
bounds of what its original aim was--especially when it becomes 
ideological, partisan, and allied with those who are carrying out civil 
cases which have nothing to do with the issue initially contemplated by 
Whitewater.
  Mr. President, I will speak on this more as we go along. I see other 
Senators who are seeking the floor. I yield the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank you. I ask that I be recognized 
for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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