[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 54 (Tuesday, May 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2779-H2780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REGARDING RELEASE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION PROVIDED BY MR. AND MRS. 
                                HUBBELL

  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, it would be useful for us to reflect on 
some of the matters that have transpired over the last several days in 
this political thunderstorm that is the continuing efforts by 
independent counsel Kenneth Starr to get the President.
  I find most troublesome the recent conduct of the distinguished 
chairman of the committee I once chaired, the old Government Operations 
Committee. I refer to none other than the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Burton) and his actions on the day the grand jury returned the 
indictments against Mr. and Mrs. Webster Hubbell.
  Chairman Burton released private and confidential conversations of 
Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell, and Mr. Hubbell's attorney, carefully selecting 
those portions that he believed would be most damaging to the First 
Lady. This release was designed and calculated to embarrass the 
Hubbells and, in the bargain, to conceal those portions of the 
conversation that contradicted the

[[Page H2780]]

tenor and content of the selected portions of the conversations that 
were disclosed. In addition, it has been reported that Chairman Burton 
and his staff not only withheld information, but they also made 
mistakes, serious mistakes, in transcription.
  At a minimum, these disclosures violated the spirit and, I believe, 
the letter of the law of the Privacy Act and the privilege any person 
enjoys when he or she speaks with a spouse or an attorney. The 
Department of Justice forwarded this information to this Congress with 
the understanding that any disclosure would be handled with discretion.
  I wish I could say that happened here. There has been no shortage of 
critical commentary about the scope, the timing, and the techniques Mr. 
Starr has used. By the same token, we in the House of Representatives 
must carefully consider our responsibilities while we await any report 
Mr. Starr may be preparing and guard against mimicking his excessive 
practices.
  Clearly, we must guard against bias or inappropriate procedures, 
including premature and indiscreet disclosures of sensitive 
information. To do less is to lack the discipline and the judgment 
necessary to meet this important responsibility.
  According to public accounts, the Speaker may well ask the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Burton) to participate and consider the product of 
Mr. Starr's $40 million so-called ``independent investigation.'' The 
recent actions of the gentleman from Indiana do not bode well for how 
he might handle secret grand jury information.
  Obviously, we already have a barometer of how this senior Republican 
Member of the House will approach his responsibilities. I cite this as 
further evidence of the plea I have issued more than once that the 
Committee on the Judiciary and not Chairman Burton or any special 
committee is the only appropriate forum to consider any report if one 
is ever to be submitted by Mr. Starr. Any effort to assign this task to 
a special committee should be seen for what it is, an ill-disguised, 
politically motivated effort to get the President and to protect the 
majority in the House of Representatives.
  As chairman of the former Government Operations Committee, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is in the singular position of 
representing and embodying the integrity of his committee's review, as 
well as the integrity of the process by which it does its work. And 
while I am confident that he would disagree, I am sure that many of my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been troubled by disclosures 
of information which we know to be selective, incomplete and wrong.
  We can only hope that any product that might be issued by his 
committee is not similarly flawed.

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