[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 37 (Friday, March 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2698-S2699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            SPECIAL PROSECUTOR KENNETH STARR'S INVESTIGATION

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, another Senator in this body made some 
very strong criticisms of the special prosecutor, Mr. Ken Starr. Judge 
Starr was appointed to that office some time ago. In recent months he 
was asked to continue his investigation into matters involving the 
Monica Lewinsky situation and to the possible obstruction of justice.
  It happened this way: Mr. Starr presented information to the Attorney 
General of the United States, Janet Reno. He told her about the 
circumstances and what he knew and the evidence that had been obtained. 
She agreed that a special prosecutor should be appointed. They then 
went to a three-judge court, and the three-judge court, as the law 
requires--Federal judges, all with lifetime appointments, above 
politics--those three judges commissioned Kenneth Starr to be an 
investigator of this circumstance. He, therefore, has been directed by 
a court. He accepted that responsibility. As a result of that, he has a 
duty to perform.
  Now, Mr. President, I know that the Chair has served, himself, as 
attorney general of the great State of Missouri. I have served as 
attorney general of Alabama. And I served almost 12 years as a Federal 
prosecutor, a U.S. attorney. I have prosecuted a great many public 
corruption cases, fraud cases, white-collar-crime cases. They are not 
easy. The people who have committed those kinds of crimes do not desire 
that they should be caught. They do not make it easy that they should 
be apprehended. It would be their preference to be able to get away 
with whatever they may have committed.
  Now, many say Ken Starr as special prosecutor has a duty or 
responsibility to get someone. I assure you, that is not true. I assure 
you, with all confidence, because I have served in the Department of 
Justice with Mr. Starr and I know his reputation, that he has

[[Page S2699]]

absolutely no desire to get anyone. But he has been commissioned, he 
has been given a mandate, he has been given a responsibility to find 
out what the facts are. Sometimes that requires issuing subpoenas. If 
you do not get the facts, you have not conducted an investigation, and 
you have violated your responsibility and the requirements that have 
been given to you. If you do not interview the secretary sitting 
outside the office about what went on there, what kind of investigation 
is that? What kind of investigation is that? That would be like no 
investigation at all.
  What about this circumstance--some say that his attempt to question 
the mother of Miss Lewinsky is somehow wrong. Congress makes the laws 
of the United States. I was a prosecutor for nearly 17 years. I know 
how the law is written. There is no grant of immunity or protection for 
a mother for confidentiality of communications under these 
circumstances. It is not there.

  If the Senator from Vermont or other Senators in this body want to 
change the Federal law to create a protection for that, let them 
introduce the legislation. Let us have it out right here. Let us 
discuss it. But that is not the law.
  So we have, in the special prosecutor, an individual who is supposed 
to gather the evidence he can legally gather. Presumably he believes 
the mother of this young lady has information that she ought to give, 
and he has every right to ask for it. In fact, to fail to ask for that 
information would be a failure of the responsibility that has been 
given to him by the courts and laws of this country.
  There are a lot of other things being said, such as why would you dig 
into his books? I saw a report recently about an individual who was 
charged with poisoning someone. This is not hypothetical but it is an 
example, I think, of why subpoenas sometimes are issued. Under the 
subpoena the authorities discovered and uncovered a book the individual 
had describing how to make poisons.
  I had an occasion to personally prosecute, a number of years ago, a 
doctor. He was the subject of two national television movies and a 
book. In the course of that, we discovered a book that he had on deadly 
poisons and how to commit murder. It was relevant to our case, and it 
was introduced in the case.
  So I do not know what it is that Mr. Starr issued that subpoena for. 
He cannot defend himself. He cannot run in here and say, ``Oh, Senator, 
let me tell you why we did that. Your remarks are unkind. They're 
unfair. I had a specific reason for issuing that subpoena. Let me tell 
you what it is.'' He can't do that. So he is a victim of these kinds of 
complaints by those who want to undermine his ability to do the job he 
has been commissioned to do.
  I am really troubled by this. I am very, very troubled that we in 
this body, and, in fact, the President of the United States of America 
and his staff, are systematically trying to intimidate and undermine 
the legal and moral authority of the commissioned special prosecutor. 
To my knowledge, that has never happened before in our country.
  If there is nothing to hide, why not let him do his job? They say, 
why doesn't he finish? If they would be more forthcoming, he would have 
already been finished. How can you finish when people refuse to give 
testimony? They claim executive privilege and therefore make you go to 
court to obtain court orders, which takes months to get, to argue over 
these issues.
  The President committed early on that he would be forthcoming, that 
he would give all the evidence, and the truth should come out. But, as 
so often occurs with this President, we are finding that not to be the 
case.
  Mr. President, I will just conclude and say that, if nothing else, we 
need to respect the rule of law. That great hymn, ``Our Liberty is in 
Law,'' that is the American form of government. We respect the rule of 
law. We do not use political power or other efforts to undermine that 
rule. We trust our system to work. We have multiple opportunities to 
appeal if the system goes awry at any stage. Ultimately we have to 
accept that. And if we respect it and give ourselves to it with 
integrity and ability, I think we can get just results.
  We may not ever know the full truth in this circumstance. That is not 
Mr. Starr's responsibility. Mr. Starr's responsibility is to get as 
much truth as he can get. He can find the truth within the rule of law. 
So it is really discouraging to me to see when a subpoena is issued to 
any institution for a specific piece of information, it is to be 
compared to some fishing expedition. Because I assure you, that is not 
true. I assure you that that subpoena would not be issued unless there 
was a sound basis for it.

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