[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 7 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S79-S80]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FAREWELL TO A TRUE PUBLIC SERVANT

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I address the Senate because of a very 
trusted and longtime staffer of mine, Kris Kolesnik, who is leaving my 
staff to work in the private sector and to continue some very good 
work. He served the taxpayers effectively for 18 years and has moved to 
the private sector, where I think he will not only do the work of the 
association with which he works, but he is also going to be working to 
save the taxpayers money, which is something he did very well for me 
during that 18-year period of time.
  Kris started in January of 1982. He began as a budget analyst working 
for me on the Budget Committee. That year, I proposed what would become 
the first of several yearly across-the-board budget freezes of the 
Federal budget. Kris worked on those proposals for me.
  Among my Republican colleagues, the freeze proved popular because it 
would make a big impact on slowing down the Federal deficits which, at 
that time, were about $100 billion as far as the eye could see.
  The only problem was, Republicans wanted to exempt defense spending 
from that freeze. All other programs were appropriate to freeze, they 
said, and at that time the defense budget under President Reagan was 
increasing by double digits even after inflation was calculated. My 
reaction was that even if one program--even the defense program--were 
exempt, that would defeat the purpose of an across-the-board freeze 
which had the purpose of fairness and shared sacrifice.
  Today, after 4 years of paying down the national debt, we might 
forget that maybe a freeze was not something that did much in 
particular. But if you looked at that particular time, we were in the 
middle of what was going to be 28 years of unbalanced Federal budgets 
before we finally got our house in order. An across-the-board freeze 
might not have seemed like much, but it was really revolutionary for 
that particular time. So that year I didn't receive much support among 
my Republican colleagues on this freeze. They all said the defense 
budget could not be frozen and that even one penny would cause our 
defense plan to fall apart.
  At the end of the year, I asked Kris Kolesnik to spend the winter 
determining whether a case could be made for freezing the defense 
budget while not harming national security. If it could not, then I 
needed to know because I would have to abandon my attempts to freeze 
across the board. When I returned to the Senate in January of 1983, I 
asked Kris what progress had been made during that 3-week interim. He 
said he had discussions with advocates on both sides of the issue and 
he determined that those in favor of a defense freeze were more 
persuasive.
  Those against a freeze seemed to rely on an argument of ``just trust 
us.'' As a first step in unraveling the truth of the defense budget, 
Kris suggested that I call up then-Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger 
and ask to speak to a relatively obscure Pentagon budget analyst by the 
name of Franklin Chuck Spinney. The rumor was that Chuck Spinney had an 
explosive new report that showed the defense budget was bloated with 
new programs which far exceeded the already huge projected costs. 
Fitting all those programs and their costs within even President 
Reagan's growing defense budget would eventually mean skyrocketing 
costs, plummeting defense capability, or perhaps both. Only a freeze in 
defense spending, coupled with management reforms, could save the 
defense plan from imploding.

  Kris predicted Pentagon officials would not let me talk to Chuck 
Spinney.
  So, I picked up the phone right away and called Cap Weinberger. It 
was a Thursday evening. He told me there was no problem, that I could 
have Spinney come over to my office the following Monday at 2 p.m. I 
left that night for Iowa, expecting a full briefing by Spinney in 4 
days.
  Beginning Friday, however, Kris began to get phone calls from the 
Pentagon saying that Spinney would not be available to brief me, that 
they would send someone named Dr. Chu instead. It turned out that Dr. 
David Chu was Spinney's boss, and a political appointee.
  My reaction was, it's okay to send Dr. Chu, but I want Spinney there 
as well. It didn't happen. I had an inkling that I had to go see Chuck 
Spinney in his office if I wanted to talk to him. I told Kris to go 
warm up my orange Chevette, that we were going to the Pentagon to find 
out why Cap Weinberger had reneged on his promise to me.
  It's not every day that a United States Senator shows up at the 
Pentagon unannounced and in a disturbed mood. Cap Weinberger was at the 
White House, and Dr. Chu was called to persuade me that Spinney's 
briefing was just a bunch of chicken scratches on pieces of paper. My 
suspicions were really heightened. We left the Pentagon unsatisfied but 
resolved. My last words to Dr. Chu were, one way or another, I will get 
that briefing.
  When I got back to my office, I got a phone call from Cap Weinberger. 
It is hard to remember 18 years later just exactly what that 
conversation was, but it was something to the effect that if we 
Republicans could not trust the civil servants that we ought to listen 
to the political appointees of the Reagan administration; that it might 
be good in some instances--but it didn't satisfy me--that Chuck Spinney 
was a civil servant; that he was somebody to whom I should listen.
  Six weeks later, Mr. Spinney appeared before a joint hearing of the 
Senate Budget and Armed Services Committees in the ornate Russell 
Caucus Room, with a dozen TV cameras, a room full of reporters, and 
standing room only for the public. Instead of a briefing in the privacy 
of my office, Spinney briefed the entire country maybe for the good of 
the country. That was on a Friday afternoon. On Monday, he was on the 
cover of TIME magazine. Kris and his underground allies had 
orchestrated the whole thing.

[[Page S80]]

  That episode marked the beginning of the end for the Reagan defense 
budget buildup. In just two short years, in large part due to Kris' 
leadership as a staffer, the defense budget was frozen, and remained so 
until 2 years ago--a span of 14 years.
  We had a vote. It was 50-49 on the floor of the Senate when we 
adopted that as part of the budget of 1985.
  During those 2 years, Kris helped uncover the infamous over-priced 
spare parts, such as a $500 hammer and a $7,600 coffee maker purchased 
by the military. He did so by working with whistleblowers throughout 
the defense community, such as Ernie Fitzgerald, Tom Amlie, Colin 
Parfitt, and many others. Their work exposed tens of billions of 
dollars of waste and mismanagement of the taxpayers' defense dollars.
  Through the inspector general community, Kris discovered that the 
Justice Department rarely prosecuted defense contractors. By 1986, 
eight out of the top ten defense contractors were under criminal 
indictment or criminal investigation for contract fraud. In that year, 
he was named in Esquire magazine as one of the top eight staffers in 
Washington to watch.
  In the late 1980's and early 1990's Kris investigated the POW/MIA 
issue. His work, which uncovered many unanswered questions about 
missing soldiers from the Vietnam War, went toward establishing a 
Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. I was a member of that 
Committee, and Kris staffed it for me. The Committee was able to find 
answers for many of the families who, up until then, had none. And 
millions of pages of POW/MIA records were declassified for the public 
to see.
  In 1995, after Republicans took control of the Congress, House and 
Senate Republican leaders asked Kris and a small group of staffers to 
share their oversight skills with the new majority staff. Having 
performed oversight over the Defense and Justice Departments for a 
dozen years, Kris with his colleagues, now began to apply their 
oversight experience to the rest of the federal government. The result 
has been increased and systematic oversight by Congress across the 
board.
  During that time, Kris focused on overseeing the FBI. Such systematic 
oversight of the FBI, on a committee that has always been reluctant to 
investigate the bureau, has not been successfully done in recent times 
in the Senate. Because of Kris' staff work, much has been done to help 
restore the public's confidence in federal law enforcement.
  Among the celebrated cases Kris investigated or helped investigate 
were: the FBI crime lab scandal; the FBI's poor investigation of the 
TWA Flight 800 crash; the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge; Chinese 
espionage cases, including the FBI's botched case against Wen Ho Lee; 
and the campaign finance scandals of the 1996 election.
  Kris's legacies will be the tens of billions of dollars he helped to 
save the taxpayers through his work, as well as his work on behalf of 
whistleblowers. After all, without the whistleblowers, there would be 
no savings. He depended on them, from the staff level, for information. 
And so he fiercely defended their right, through legislation he helped 
draft on my behalf, to share information with Congress. He assisted in 
the drafting and/or passing of major whistleblower statutes including: 
the False Claims Act Amendments of 1986; the Whistleblower Protection 
Act; and, the yearly-passed anti-gag appropriations rider for federal 
employees.
  Appropriately, Kris is leaving Capitol Hill to become the executive 
director of the National Whistleblower Center, an organization that 
supports and protects whistleblowers throughout government. There, he 
can continue his work on behalf of the taxpayers, and fighting for 
those who dare to speak the truth and risk their jobs.
  The taxpayers will indeed be missing a trusted ally with Kris's 
departure. But the impact of his accomplishments will be with us a long 
time. He'll still work to save the taxpayers money, but he won't be on 
the public payroll. That's the principled crusader he is!
  One additional thought that just came to my mind as I was going 
through what I prepared today about Kris: Going back to the budget 
freeze of 1980 and the fact that the spending on defense needed to be 
ramped up, it was ramped up to fast. There was a lot of money wasted.
  We are going to spend money on defense because we have to. But we 
ought to learn from the lessons of the 1980's, and hopefully our new 
President, President Bush, will move fairly slowly in that area so that 
the money will be invested wisely and spent wisely and so we don't have 
a situation such as we had in 1982 where one assistant Defense 
Department secretary said we put the money bags on the steps of the 
Pentagon and said come and get it. We want to keep our hands on those 
money bags that we set before the Pentagon as we spend money on 
defense.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  (The remarks of Ms. Collins on the introduction of S. 27 are printed 
in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint 
Resolutions.'')
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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