[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1410-H1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WASTED MONEY ON IRRELEVANT INVESTIGATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Committee on House Oversight 
is expected to give $1.3 million to the House Committee on the 
Judiciary for an enlarged congressional staff to investigate President 
Clinton. The American people are tired of this waste, and so am I, and 
this is from a leadership that promised to trim congressional staffs.

                              {time}  1800

  Now, what is amazing to me is the exchange between the chairman, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Henry Hyde), myself, and the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) only 1\1/2\ hours ago in the Committee 
on the Judiciary, when I explained that I thought we needed no more 
wasted dollars and harassment of the President.
  The chairman of this committee, in session, sought to reassure me 
that the monies would be used for harmless oversight of the Department 
of Justice and for the noncontroversial reauthorization of the 
Department. It is on the record in the committee. This is in direct 
contradiction to the written statement yesterday of the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hyde) in a letter that has come to my attention that he 
has sent to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), chairman of the 
Committee of House Oversight, to justify this new windfall by saying 
that new investigators were needed to recycle and duplicate nearly 
every independent counsel investigation into the Clinton 
administration, from fundraising to allegations at the Department of 
Energy and the Department of the Interior. These matters have already 
been overinvestigated, but they directly contradict the purpose for 
which these funds are being authorized by the committee.
  I have never received a letter about this in my career. This is a 
unilateral Republican action to which I take total exception. There has 
been stealth in correspondence, there have been internal 
contradictions. But I must now come to the House and report that the 
Republican leadership is planning to surreptitiously commence to staff 
for an impeachment investigation without any notice to the Congress, to 
the Democrats on the Committee on the Judiciary, or to the American 
people, without a vote from the House of Representatives.
  I urge the gentleman from Georgia (Speaker Gingrich), with all 
respect, to rethink this dangerous, radical political strategy. It is 
outrageous that we are being told publicly one thing by the gentleman 
from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) when his letter to his own leadership is 
saying something else entirely different: More money to investigate the 
President.
  Why can the majority not just admit it, rather than hiding under 
these cloaks and misstatements. Members of the House will get no 
opportunity to vote on this massive increase of funds. When I explained 
that the Speaker agreed with this request in a cover letter, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) asked that he not be saddled with 
the Speaker's words.
  So today, Mr. Speaker, I will release to the press the words of the 
gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) justifying this new 
congressional surplus of money and staff and resources, and let the 
American people judge for themselves.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking 
subcommittee chairman.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member, 
and I think he is performing a very important service.

[[Page H1411]]

  I know as the second ranking minority member that neither he, I, nor 
any other Members have been consulted. We have read a lot in the paper 
about what the Committee on the Judiciary was going to do, what it 
would not be allowed to do, how it was going to be bypassed.
  To have this funding request come forward, it is over a $1 million, 
some of which would be presumably assigned the minority, with no 
consultation is a problem. And the problem is compounded because the 
chairman of the committee did say there would be consultation, but the 
consultation he discussed was on a subject that appears to be 
different.

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