[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PARTISAN BEHAVIOR IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I am sorry the Speaker would not yield to 
me because I wanted to tell the Speaker that in the Watergate 
investigation the Chairman, Sam Ervin, did not accuse the President of 
the United States of being a scum bag. He did not say that he was out 
to get him. Those were the very words of the chairman of the Committee 
on Government Reform and Oversight in remarks in his district when he 
talked about what he was doing in this investigation.
  Are we stonewalling an investigation that is proper and legitimate 
and is trying to get to the truth under a chairman who is interested in 
objectivity and facts? The chairman of our committee has acted from the 
very beginning in the most partisan of manners. He has refused to give 
us the basic rights to request subpoenas to look at Republican abuses. 
He has refused to allow the Democrats to play a role. In fact, he does 
not even let his own members play a role. They delegated authority to 
him, and he, in turn, has delegated it to his staff.
  I might not be a Howard Baker, but the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Dan Burton) is no Sam Ervin.
  If we would have followed from the very beginning the requests that I 
made that we do a bipartisan, nonpartisan, fair investigation on 
campaign finance abuses, we would not be here a year and a half later 
having spent $6 million with a likelihood that at the end of this year 
we will have spent $10 million harassing witnesses. And I have a long 
list of people who have been abused of people who have been hounded 
either the Republican staff did not know the right people they were 
going after or people they have gone after to the point of just plain 
harassment. We would not have that sort of thing.
  We have had witnesses in our committee who have been called in for 
depositions over five times to be asked the same questions over and 
over again.
  Today, we have a woman coming in for the fifth or sixth time; and she 
already was in depositions in the Senate three separate days and asked 
the same questions over and over again; and she had never been accused 
of any wrongdoing. Does anybody know what that means when a witness is 
brought in day after day after day to answer the same questions over 
and over again, sitting there with her, as she must, with her attorney 
to whom she is paying out of her own pocket on a government salary?
  Now witnesses have been brought into depositions by the unilateral 
action of our chairman, and those witnesses have been asked questions 
that no one ought to be asked about their personal lives. But, as a 
practical matter, do you know what it means? It means that they can 
object and then the ruling would go to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Dan Burton) as to whether they would be required to answer questions 
about their personal lives, their drug use or whatever, which has 
nothing to do with campaign finance abuse. And then the gentleman from 
Indiana would rule they have to answer, and they could still refuse, 
and then they face a contempt of Congress.
  Do you know what it is like for somebody to have the full force of 
the Federal Government, the Congress of the United States, staring at 
them and telling them they will be in contempt and may go to jail if 
they do not answer questions about their personal lives? So they answer 
it.
  That is one area where people have been abused, but there is another 
area that I want to raise with my colleagues, and that is the action of 
the chairman to unilaterally release the tapes made of conversations 
that Web Hubbell had with his wife, with his children, with his friends 
when he was in this prison. He knew that the prison authorities were 
taping all conversations for security purposes, but he did not care 
about that because he was not talking about anything that breached 
security.
  Ninety-nine percent of the tapes are conversations with his wife 
about the children, about their finances, about their sex life, about 
friends who may be in trouble whom they name, friends who may be having 
difficulties, the kinds of things that every person talks to a spouse 
about. And the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) has moved to release 
those tapes to the public.
  It was bad enough that his staff was able to sit there in a very 
prurient manner and listen to those intimate conversations. I had asked 
my staff to do the same just so we knew what was on those tapes, and 
they were embarrassed having to listen to such personal conversations.
  We have not had the conduct of a chairman who has acted properly, and 
we should not give him this authority to go any further.

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