[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2339-H2340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            TAXPAYERS FORCED TO FUND PARTISAN INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Pryce of Ohio). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Lampson) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Madam Speaker, I yield to Mr. Waxman from California.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I want to make it very clear what has been happening in this 
investigation. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) has unlimited 
and unprecedented authority. He can unilaterally issue subpoenas, he 
can force people in for depositions, he can make people give up 
information, and then he can also disclose anything he wants to the 
press. His staff can leak it to the right press people to get the 
maximum story, and then get their spin on it. Democrats have never been 
in a position to stop their investigation, to hinder it in any way. 
They do not even ask us what to do, they just go ahead and do it. The 
only time we have any say on anything is when there is a question of 
immunity.
  Now, we hear the Speaker and the chairman of the committee coming to 
the House floor to complain that we are stopping their investigation. 
Well, the fact of the matter is that after over a year and a half, they 
have asked, through depositions and otherwise, for information about 
Democratic campaign abuses, and they have received over 1 million and a 
half pages regarding Democrats. They have gone after Democrats, at 
taxpayers' expense, doing research for opposition campaign purposes. 
This is what this is all about. It is a government-funded Republican 
campaign to smear Democrats. It is not a legitimate investigation about 
campaign finance abuses.
  These people, by the way, who are complaining today are the same ones 
who did not want us to have campaign finance reform even considered by 
the House, until they were forced by some of their own Members to bring 
it up.
  Madam Speaker, I want to point out that this Burton committee has 
been incompetent. They have blundered, these are not just my 
statements. I want to read the statements, a series of editorials from 
the New York Times. The New York Times called it a ``parody of a 
reputable investigation'', useless and unprofessional, and a ``rogue 
operation''. The Washington Post earlier last year already noted the 
``investigation runs the risk of becoming its own cartoon, a joke, and 
a deserved embarrassment''. The Los Angeles Times called it a 
``partisan sideshow''. The former chief counsel, the Republican chief 
counsel of the committee, quit last year, and he said, he was unable to 
conduct an investigation that complied with the standards of 
professional conduct that he had been accustomed to when he was in the 
U.S. Attorney's Office. He resigned because he said this whole 
investigation was incompetent and unprofessional.
  Madam Speaker, they have blundered, they have handled it in a 
partisan way, they have handled it incompetently, and what do they do? 
They come to the House floor and want to point fingers. They want to 
blame everybody but themselves. They want to point a finger at the 
administration, they want to point a finger at me, they want to point a 
finger at the Democrats, for their incompetence and their blunders.
  Oh, how I wish we really had a fair investigation. We pleaded with 
the Republicans, let us do a fair investigation. I even wrote an 
editorial in the New York Times, suggesting that if it helped, we ought 
to appoint some independent investigator to look at the Clinton 
administration issues, so we could then look at Democrats and 
Republicans in a fair way. We were told to forget it. They had the 
subpoena power, they had the millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to 
spend; they were going to do what they want to do, and that is what 
they have been doing for the last year and a half. It has been a series 
of embarrassments for them, and now, to get out of that, they are 
saying that we should go along and help them with immunity.
  They can send this investigation to another committee. They can go to 
the Committee on House Oversight chaired by the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) where they have stacked it so they have two-
thirds of the vote, and they can vote immunity, and then Chairman 
Thomas can do the investigation. Fine. If that is what the Republicans 
want to do, send it to another committee. It could not get any worse. 
It could not get any worse if they had somebody else trying to do this 
investigation.
  The chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Burton), is just not the person for the job. We do not put somebody in 
to investigate

[[Page H2340]]

about campaign finance abuses when he himself is being investigated on 
the issue of his possible campaign finance abuses.

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