[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 157 (Tuesday, November 9, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14370-S14372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NOMINATION OF CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, 4 days ago, on November 5, the Senate 
Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee conducted 
its hearing on the Moseley-Braun nomination. Since it was a 
subcommittee meeting and a hearing, I viewed it on television. I have a 
long practice of giving chairmen and ranking members of our 
subcommittees free rein in conducting their respective hearings. So I 
viewed the hearing on television, as I say, and it was a sight to 
behold.
  In fact, what it was was a political rally, lacking only a band and 
the distribution of free hot dogs, soda pop, and balloons. Last night, 
the full committee met briefly, almost informally, just outside the 
Chamber here, and reported the nomination to the Senate, with one 
dissent. I will let you guess whose dissent that was.
  Before I proceed further, I express the sincere hope that the 
nominee, when confirmed to serve as U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, 
will serve diligently, effectively, and honestly. She will be 
representing the United States, the country of all Americans. For the 
sake of our country, I pray there will be no further reports of 
irregularity involving her conduct. In short, I wish her well.
  Before the book is closed on the scores of reports regarding the 
nominee's often puzzling service as a U.S. Senator, I decided a few 
footnotes were in order. Many citizens from many States all over this 
country--principally, however, from the Chicago area--have contacted me 
during the past few weeks. There have been expressions of puzzlement 
that the President of the United States decided to reverse the clearly 
expressed judgment of the people of Illinois in the 1998 election. 
Several speculated over the weekend that the Senate was about to rubber 
stamp the President's nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to New 
Zealand. After all, the Illinois voters have made the judgment that 
serious charges of ethical misconduct by Senator Moseley-Braun 
disqualified her from further representing them in the Senate. Now they 
say the same Senate is preparing to declare she is qualified to 
represent all Americans abroad.
  I think it important, therefore, that the people of Illinois --
indeed, all Americans--be assured before the Senate proceeds that what 
they are witnessing is by no means an absolution of Ms. Moseley-Braun. 
What the American people are witnessing is a successful coverup of 
serious ethical wrongdoing. I am not going to dwell this afternoon on 
each of the many serious charges that have been raised, such as the 
continuing mystery of who really paid for her numerous visits to 
Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha or where Ms. Moseley-Braun's fiance, 
Kosie Matthews, got the $47,000 downpayment on the Chicago condo. For 
the record, Mr. Matthews was also her campaign manager and is now 
conveniently a missing man. Nobody knows where he is.
  Whatever happened to the $249,000 the Federal Election Commission 
cannot account for her in her campaign? Or who was it exactly who paid 
for several thousand dollars in airfare, luxury hotel bills, and 
jewelry purchases during her 1992 trip to Las Vegas or the $10,000 in 
jewelry she purchased on her 1992 trip to Aspen, CO?
  In most cases, the Foreign Relations Committee and its legal officer 
were unable to get to the bottom of these and other matters because Ms. 
Moseley-Braun has been hiding behind Mr. Matthews. Mr. Matthews, a 
South African native, has skipped the country and is nowhere to be 
found.
  My purpose today is not to go through the laundry list of Ms. 
Moseley-Braun's well-known ethical lapses but, rather, to focus on the 
Clinton administration's culpability in all of this affair. Ms. 
Moseley-Braun was suspected of serious tax crime by the Internal 
Revenue Service following her 1992 campaign. According to a report in 
the New Republic magazine, she had:

     . . . a $6 million-plus war chest for her general election 
     campaign, only $1 million of which was spent on TV 
     advertising. Moreover, her campaign wound up $544,000 in 
     debt.

  Where did this money go? The IRS wanted to find out, but the IRS' 
efforts to investigate allegations that Moseley-Braun had diverted an 
estimated $280,000 of those campaign funds for personal use and failed 
to report it as personal income, those allegations were blocked every 
step of the way by the Clinton Justice Department.

  In 1995, the Clinton Justice Department twice refused routine 
requests by the IRS Criminal Tax Division to convene a grand jury to 
investigate the charges against Ms. Moseley-Braun. The IRS had credible 
evidence that, among other things, she had spent some $70,000 in 
campaign funds on designer clothes, $25,000 on two jeeps, $18,000 on 
jewelry, $12,000 on stereo equipment, and some $64,000 on luxury 
vacations in Europe, Hawaii, and Africa.
  Without a grand jury, Government investigators were denied the 
subpoena power to get at the key documents they had to have to prove 
their case. The Clinton Justice Department refused repeated requests to 
convene a grand jury.
  Refusing such a request is highly unusual, according to numerous 
former IRS and Justice Department officials who made clear that the 
Justice Department's routine in such matters was to impanel grand 
juries so the IRS could continue gathering evidence. One former 
official with the Criminal Tax Division of the Justice Department, a 
Mr. John Bray, called it virtually unheard of to deny such a request. A 
former head of the Criminal Tax Division, Cono Namorato, commented:

       They [that is to say, the IRS] don't need to show much. . . 
     . By and large, if it is requested, it is approved.

  Another described the relationship between the Justice Department and 
the IRS this way:

       The Justice Department basically sees the IRS as their 
     client, and as their attorney they should do as requested.

  But in Moseley-Braun's case, this routine request from the client was 
denied, not once but twice.
  Then the Foreign Relations Committee requested all of the documents 
from both IRS and the Department of Justice on this matter. Contrary to 
declarations by Ms. Moseley-Braun, the documents do not absolve her of 
wrongdoing. What the documents prove is that these serious allegations 
of ethical misconduct were never properly examined because the 
investigation was blocked by political appointees at the Justice 
Department, no doubt on instructions from the White House. 
Interestingly enough, the official at the Justice Department who made 
the decision, Loretta Argrett, was a Moseley-Braun supporter who had 
made a modest contribution to the Moseley-Braun

[[Page S14371]]

1992 campaign and who had a picture of Ms. Moseley-Braun on her office 
wall. Senator Moseley-Braun even presided over Ms. Argrett's 
confirmation in 1993.
  It is noteworthy that the White House had to spend more than a week 
digging around in the bowels of the Justice Department to find the 
documents requested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That is 
compelling evidence in and of itself because it demonstrates that the 
administration failed to properly examine the charges against this 
nominee when the charges were presented by the IRS in 1995. Again, the 
administration demonstrably failed even to review the charges in 1999 
before sending her nomination up to the Senate.
  It occurs to me that perhaps that was not unintentional. Perhaps the 
folks in the administration knew exactly what they were doing. Perhaps 
they hoped the spectacle of a public dispute between Jesse Helms and 
Carol Moseley-Braun would serve the base political interests of the 
Clinton administration.
  Well, Mr. President, I am not going to give them the spectacle they 
have been hoping to provoke. It may be that history, in a strange way, 
is now repeating itself. It is of interest to me that back in 1943, the 
then United States Senator Josiah William Bailey of North Carolina 
strongly opposed a proposal that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
nominate FDR's press secretary, a former Raleigh newspaper editor named 
Jonathan Daniels, as nominee to go--where? To New Zealand as United 
States Ambassador. Jonathan Daniels was a son of Josephus Daniels who 
had founded the Raleigh News and Observer many years earlier. Josephus 
once served as Secretary of the Navy and had chosen Franklin D. 
Roosevelt to be his assistant. Later on Josephus Daniels served as 
Ambassador to Mexico, nominated by President Roosevelt.
  Jonathan Daniels repeatedly pleaded with FDR to nominate him to be 
Ambassador to ``somewhere'' so that he could emulate his father 
Josephus, but FDR told Jonathan Daniels that he would nominate him to 
be an Ambassador only if Jonathan persuaded Senator Bailey to approve 
the nomination. The fly in the ointment was that Jonathan Daniels, 
prior to going to Washington as press aide to FDR, had written a series 
of abusive, mean editorials about Senator Bailey. Anyhow, Jonathan 
decided that he had nothing to lose by going to Senator Bailey's office 
to plead his case. Senator Bailey flatly rejected the idea of Jonathan 
Daniels' going anywhere as Ambassador--and flat-out told Jonathan so. 
To which Jonathan Daniels played his last card, pleading:

       Well, Senator, I would have thought that you wouldn't mind 
     my being sent to New Zealand--it's on the other side of the 
     world, you know.

  To which U.S. Senator Josiah William Bailey slowly shook his head and 
said:

       Yes, and it ain't fur enough.

  Mr. President, you are free to draw your own conclusion. I thank you, 
and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer an amendment 
on the bankruptcy bill, but in light of the statement that was just 
entered into the record by Senator Helms, in reference to my former 
colleague, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, I am constrained to respond.
  Let me say at the outset, I fully support President Clinton's 
decision to nominate Senator Carol Moseley-Braun to continue to serve 
this Nation as our Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. I was happy to 
appear before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee last Friday and to 
introduce her. I believe she received a fair hearing that day, and 
those of us who were there came away with the impression that, when her 
name is called to be appointed Ambassador, she will receive a strong 
bipartisan vote of the Senate. But I have to say some of the 
suggestions that have been made in the previous statement at least need 
to be cleared up for the record.
  Running for the Senate subjects you to all sorts of inquiry and 
investigation, not only by your opponent, who will look at you in the 
harshest terms, but by the press and any other inquiring mind. Those of 
us who subject ourselves to that process understand it is going to be 
tough. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun has done that repeatedly throughout 
her career, running for offices at the legislative level, the county 
level, and twice as a statewide candidate in Illinois. Not surprisingly 
during that period of time there have been many charges that have been 
thrown at her. Many of those charges were just repeated today on the 
floor of the Senate. I might remind my colleagues in the Senate, they 
are just that. They are charges; they are not proven.
  I might also say to my colleagues in the Senate, those who view this 
body as somehow a closed club that takes care of its own ought to take 
a look at what happened with this nomination, because what Senator 
Carol Moseley-Braun was subjected to during the course of this process 
is a standard which, frankly, may exceed a standard imposed on any 
other person who comes up for an ambassadorship to a post such as New 
Zealand. In other words, she was subjected to more rigorous examination 
and questioning than virtually any person off the street nominated by 
the President.
  It may surprise some people to think a former United States Senator 
would go through that process, but I am happy to report, as the Senate 
Foreign Affairs Committee learned last Friday, after Senator Carol 
Moseley-Braun went through an extensive background check at the request 
of the White House, after her campaign records were reviewed in detail, 
after all the charges put in the Record on this floor were 
investigated, after the Internal Revenue Service and Department of 
Justice and FBI were called in and asked point blank if she was guilty 
of wrongdoing, they all concluded there was no proof of wrongdoing, and 
they recommended her name to the President, who then submitted it to 
the Senate.
  Now we are in a position where many of those same charges, with no 
basis in fact, have been repeated again on the Senate floor. That is 
truly unfortunate. Let me address two of them. No. 1, as a Senator 
serving in this body, she visited Nigeria and a leader there of whom 
the United States did not approve.
  I will have to tell you I did not approve of that leader either, but 
no one has ever questioned the right of any Senator or any Member of 
the House to decide to take foreign travel and visit a foreign leader 
without the approval of the State Department. I think, frankly, that is 
all well and good. When the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, 
Senator Helms, chose to visit General Pinochet in Chile, that was his 
right. Many people in the United States might question it, but I do not 
question his decision to do that. That is something for him to defend 
to the voters of North Carolina.

  When my Governor in the State of Illinois decided 2 weeks ago to 
visit with the dictator leader in Cuba, Fidel Castro, again it was his 
right. In fact, I supported his visit. I thought it was important.
  So to bring up this red herring of a visit to Nigeria while she 
served in the Senate is to hold Carol Moseley-Braun to a different 
standard than we hold our own colleagues and other leaders across the 
Nation. I don't think that is fair.
  Second, on the talk about campaign finances and whether she misspent 
them, the record of the committee tells the story. When an auditor came 
from the FEC and looked at detailed records from the Carol Moseley-
Braun campaign in 1992 and went through the $8 million in expenditures 
in that campaign, they were able to identify $311 unaccounted for.
  Mr. President, I make a great effort to try to have a full 
accounting, as required by law. I am sure every Senator does. But $311 
out of $8 million? To make of that some sort of a disgrace or scandal 
is to exaggerate it beyond recognition. Those are the charges flung 
again at Senator Carol Moseley-Braun on the Senate floor.
  That is a sad occurrence and one which I wish had not occurred. 
Frankly, I hope the Members of the Senate, before we adjourn today, 
have a chance to vote on giving our colleague a chance to serve because 
we are not only sending an able representative to represent the United 
States with one of our great allies, New Zealand, we are sending to New 
Zealand evidence the American dream is still alive because

[[Page S14372]]

Carol Moseley-Braun--and I will readily concede she is not only my 
former colleague but my friend--and her public life are a testament to 
what America stands for. Born in a segregated hospital facility in 
Chicago, her mother, a medical technician in the same place, her father 
a Chicago policeman, she worked her way through college to not only 
earn a degree but earn a law degree from the University of Chicago, to 
serve for 5 years as an assistant U.S. attorney and prosecutor, to 
become the first African American woman to ever serve as a member of 
the leadership in the Illinois General Assembly, to become the first 
African American woman ever elected countywide in Cook County, and the 
first African American woman in this century to be elected to the 
Senate.

  Time and time again, every step of her life has crushed down another 
barrier so that those who follow her will have a better opportunity.
  Now she joins some four other African American women who serve as our 
Ambassadors should the Senate decide to give her that chance. As she 
journeys to New Zealand--and I hope she will soon--she will bring with 
her not only a wealth of public service but a story about how the 
American dream can be realized if you believe in yourself and if you 
believe that equality is more than just a word--it is a principle which 
guides this great country.
  I stand in strong support of Carol Moseley-Braun. I believe she will 
be an excellent Ambassador, and I believe the vote that comes out of 
this Chamber will be strong and bipartisan and put to rest, once and 
for all, many of the charges and rumors which have been swirling around 
her nomination over the past several weeks.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor to my colleague, the Senator from 
New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

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