[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, AND JUDICIARY, AND RELATED 
                   AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. JOSEPH M. McDADE

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, August 5, 1998

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4276) making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and 
     State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal 
     year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes.


  Mr. McDADE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in unequivocal opposition to the 
Hutchinson amendment. It unfortunately turns the country toward the 
darkness of yesterday's night of oppression.
  We speak of a time when the king rules by fiat, and could not be 
questioned, no matter how oppressive or heinous his conduct.
  And so it was till that magnificent new beginning in 1215 on the 
plains at Runnymede, when King John was forced to submit to the rule of 
law.
  So too, at Philadelphia in 1776 when the Founding Fathers penned the 
Declaration of Independence and began writing the Constitution, all 
intended to limit governmental power in the quest for liberty.
  So it is today when you are called on to vote on the Citizens 
Protection Act.
  For the same question is asked: Should the Department of Justice and 
its employees be subject to the rule of law in the same fashion as all 
other citizens of this nation, or should they be given the right to 
decide, like monarchs of old, when and if the universal law applies to 
them.
  But this executive department has the arrogance to proclaim their 
right to enact law and to decide as if in a separate government how and 
if the law shall apply to them.
  Listen to this language the Department of Justice wrote and tried to 
enact (in the 104th Congress, in the other body, in ``crime'' bill S. 
3):

                                    

     SEC. 502. CONDUCT OF FEDERAL PROSECUTORS

       Notwithstanding the ethical rules or the rules of the court 
     of any State, Federal rules of conduct adopted by the 
     Attorney General shall govern the conduct of prosecutions in 
     the courts of the United States.

  The Department is so wrong in its thinking that all 50 States, though 
their chief justices, condemn the department's position, the 8th 
Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously found against them, the American 
Bar Association and the leading professional legal organizations join 
in the unanimous disapproval. And most importantly, 200 members of this 
body have voiced their disapproval, by co-sponsoring the legislation 
which is included in this bill as the McDade-Murtha amendment.
  Tell the lawyers at DOJ to abide by the same ethics rules which 
govern all other lawyers. Vote against the Hutchinson amendment.
  That's title 1 in the bill . . . not difficult to understand.
  Neither is title 2.
  Just as we acted to reform the IRS, today we set about reform in the 
Department of Justice.
  Most people at the Department are fine motivated citizens. As is 
always the case, this legislation is required to protect citizens of 
our Nation against predatory actions of rogue employees, out of 
control, and acting inimically towards citizens and therefore the 
Nation at large.

  Where there is injustice to one of us, there is injustice to all of 
us.
  And the power, for good or evil is without peer.
  In 1940, then Attorney General and later Supreme Court Justice Robert 
H. Jackson counseled the 2nd annual conference of U.S. attorneys.
  Listen to his words:

       The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and 
     reputation than any other person in America. . . . If the 
     prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he 
     can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous 
     power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he 
     thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be 
     prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment 
     of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at 
     least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost 
     anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering 
     the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who 
     has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and 
     then searching the law books, or putting investigators to 
     work, to pin some offense on him.

  To protect the constitutional right to liberty of our citizens, title 
2 sets a series of standards, clear, unambiguous and self evident. They 
set guidelines for DOJ employees which must be met. They are neither 
controversial nor hostile. Unless, that is, you consider it hostile to 
be directed not to lie to the court:
  Alter evidence;
  Influence witnesses to color their testimony;
  Fail to release information that would exonerate a person under 
indictment;
  Impede a defendant's right to discovery;
  Leak information during an investigation;
  Mislead a court as to the guilt to any person; or
  In the absence of probable cause seek the indictment of any person.
  All of these standards are in fact court decisions which found 
specific improper conduct by the DOJ.
  Let me quote from just one court decision, U.S. v Taylor, in which 
the court found that employees of the DOJ had convicted citizens of our 
country on perjured testimony.
  We should all be familiar with this case before we vote . . . after 
the finding of perjury, the judge of course freed the citizens from 
jail, their lives ruined, reputations destroyed, chewed up by corrupt 
power.
  The employees responsible for the false conviction on tainted 
testimony were punished, punished by main DOJ with 5 days suspensions, 
and 6 months probation. A 5-day suspension.
  Because of cases like this, section 2 of the bill also sets up a 
review process to afford a citizen a process which will limit if not 
eliminate corrupt uses of power, and by limiting government powers, 
enhance the liberty of every citizen of this country.
  And we must do so . . .
  I conclude with a statement by Justice Brandeis:

       Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government 
     officials should be subjected to the same rules of conduct 
     that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, 
     existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to 
     observe the law scrupulously . . . Crime is contagious. If 
     the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for 
     law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it 
     invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the 
     criminal law the end justifies the means--to declare that 
     Government may commit crimes in order to secure the 
     conviction of a private criminal--would bring terrible 
     retribution. Against that prenicious doctrine this Court 
     should resolutely set its face. (Olmstead v. U.S., 1928).



     

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