[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 55 (Wednesday, May 6, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2310
CHAIRMAN BURTON APOLOGIZES FOR HANDLING OF HUBBELL TAPES BUT REFUSES TO 
                              ADMIT ERROR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gilchrest). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today we have learned that the Chairman of 
the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has fired his 
chief investigator and apologized to his fellow Republicans for any 
embarrassment caused by his actions in releasing distorted summaries of 
telephone conversations between Mr. Hubbell and his wife.
  If the chairman now recognizes that the actions taken by his 
committee were wrong, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) also owes 
an apology to Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell as well as the President and the 
First Lady. The release of those summaries as well as the tapes 
themselves represents something that may be truly unprecedented in the 
House of Representatives: the elevation of partisanship over the 
sanctity of the privacy of conversations between a husband and wife.
  This is such a profound affront to most people's sensibilities and 
the values that we hold dear that it raises new questions about whether 
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) can or ought to continue to 
lead that committee's investigation into alleged campaign finance 
violations.
  Chairman Burton's continuing release of the private telephone 
conversations of Mr. Hubbell, including conversations with his wife and 
his attorney, appear to represent a serious abuse of government power 
intended to humiliate Mr. Hubbell because of his prior association with 
the Clinton administration.
  Have we really reached the point where we think it is appropriate to 
publicly broadcast intimate conversations, most of which have nothing 
to do with the allegations of campaign finance violations, between a 
man and his wife? If we are concerned about family values, Congress 
should support the privacy of marital relationships, not make them 
public.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I would say to the gentleman from Michigan, we know 
that in prior Congresses you had the occasion to chair this committee 
of the House. Can you tell us from your personal experience of having 
served in the Congress more than 30 years any recollection on your part 
of the conduct of this particular chairman of this committee in the 
investigation of such a serious matter?
  Mr. CONYERS. Well, we do not have enough time to discuss the conduct 
of the chairman of the committee, but I can tell you that never in any 
committee can I recall to the Members of the body that we went into 
privacy and violated the spirit of privacy laws in the way that they 
have been done now. And there was a curious coincidence between the 
release of information from the special prosecutor and the release of 
these tapes. The chairman, a friend, his own chief counsel, advised him 
not to release the tapes, but he did so anyway. The Speaker of the 
House of Representatives publicly stated that a third party should 
screen the tapes for privacy issues before further releases were made. 
What did the committee do? It continued to release more tapes.
  So almost daily, the impression continues to grow that the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Burton) or his committee is simply out of control. If 
the chairman's goal is simply to get at the truth, then there was no 
need to doctor the tapes.
  Considering all of this, along with the chairman's recent public 
statement that he was after, quote-unquote, the President, President 
Clinton, how can the important investigative work of the committee lead 
to any findings that will be accepted as legitimate by the public?
  I would appeal to the higher instincts of the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Burton) to apologize to the Hubbells and to the President and to 
the First Lady.

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