[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]


[[Page H2338]]
SPEAKER TROUBLED BY PARTISAN BEHAVIOR IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Gingrich), the Speaker of the House.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Madam Speaker, I just want to make one comment.
  I do not intend to debate my colleague from California, but I would 
ask every Member of the House who just watched this colloquy to go back 
in your memory, as I did when I was a young teacher at West Georgia 
College, to remember what it was like to sit mesmerized watching the 
Watergate hearings and to see Senator Howard Baker not ask that they go 
back and investigate Lyndon Johnson; not ask that they go back and find 
a Democrat; not ask that they have this excuse, that excuse, the next 
excuse; not say, ``Don't go after the little guys because you have to 
go after the big guys; you can't go after the big guys because you 
didn't go after the little guys;'' not give 25 different, phony 
excuses.
  Howard Baker set the standard for this country of a bipartisan, 
serious effort at getting at the truth. Howard Baker understood that 
Richard Nixon could not be allowed to take the entire Republican Party 
and the Constitution down in flames and that his job as a United States 
Senator was to get at the truth, and Howard Baker again and again and 
again cooperated with the Democrat Chairman Sam Ervin.
  And I would simply ask every one of my colleagues: Look at what you 
just heard from the ranking Democrat, go back in your memory and 
remember Howard Baker's effort to find the truth, and then I think you 
will understand why we are being forced inch by inch to break through 
the stonewall and the cover-up despite the defense attorney tactics 
being used by Democrats who ought to be ashamed of it and ought to be 
helping us get at the truth rather than finding some flimsy excuse to 
avoid voting for immunity.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.

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