Time: Sun Dec 14 17:20:52 1997
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Opening Statement By Chairman Dan Burton] (fwd)
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<snip>
>
> OPENING STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN DAN BURTON
> Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Dec. 9, 1997
>
>
>Good morning. I have called this hearing today because of the
>unique and unfortunate situation in which we find ourselves. This
>is the first time in my memory that the Attorney General of the
>United States and the Director of the FBI have disagreed so
>publicly about such an important case. The campaign finance
>investigation involves the President and the Vice President of
>the United States. It involves their top aides. It involves their
>major fundraisers.
>
>When our nation's two top law enforcement officers have such a
>serious disagreement about a case involving our country's highest
>elected officials, Congress is compelled to step in and examine
>the facts.
>
>Last week, Attorney General Reno said that there will be no
>independent counsel for this investigation. We are led to believe
>through press accounts that Director Freeh objected vigorously.
>The Director wrote a detailed memo to the Attorney General
>explaining why an independent counsel is necessary. Despite a
>subpoena from this Committee, we still have not seen this memo.
>However, the Wall Street Journal reports that Director Freeh's
>memo lays out the case that the diversion of soft money into hard
>money by the DNC and other related campaign finance law
>violations may have constituted a conspiracy that reaches into
>the White House.
>
>According to the New York Times, Mr. Freeh's memo argues that the
>conflicts of interest for the Justice Department are so great
>that the Department cannot credibly investigate the campaign
>finance issue.
>
>I must ask, how are Members of Congress and the public supposed
>to react when they pick up the newspaper and this is what they
>read?
>
>THE TASK FORCE INVESTIGATION
>
>Several articles in the Washington Post in October, for instance,
>spelled out some of the deep divisions between the FBI and
>Justice Department lawyers on the task force. FBI officials said
>that they were being restrained from investigating key people --
>especially high-level Clinton Administration officials.
>
>If that is the way the investigation has been operating, the need
>for an independent counsel couldn't be more clear. The Justice
>Department investigation has been underway for more than a year.
>We have heard reports that, in that time, they have not even
>attempted to contact John Huang or get his testimony. He is one
>of the central figures in this case. Why? We have heard reports
>that the task force develops new leads mainly when it reads about
>them in the newspaper. It was widely reported that the Justice
>Department had documents in its possession that showed that the
>DNC was converting soft money to hard money. Unfortunately, the
>prosecutors learned about it by reading the Washington Post. Why?
>They had the documents and didn't look at them.
>
>One of the Attorney General's primary advisors on this
>investigation has been the head of the Public Integrity Section
>-- Lee Radek (Ray-Dick). Mr. Radek has publicly called the
>Independent Counsel Act "an insult." Is this the person that
>should be advising the Attorney General on whether to seek an
>independent counsel?
>
>In July, Senator Thompson said in his opening statement that
>there was a Communist Chinese government plot to infiltrate our
>political system. He then received a public letter from Andrew
>Fois at the Justice Department contradicting his statement.
>
>Now, within the last month, Bob Woodward has reported in the
>Washington Post that the Justice Department had other information
>in its files that supported Senator Thompson's statement. The
>files, which were only revealed to us in November, were reported
>to shed more light on the Chinese government plan. This
>information has apparently been in Justice Department files going
>back to 1991, and yet the Justice Department was writing to
>Senator Thompson saying that he was misstating the facts. I think
>that is terrible.
>
>What is worse, the Attorney General was informed about this
>information on November 5. We were not given this information
>until November 14 -- ten days later. This is absolutely
>unacceptable conduct.
>
>THE LAW
>
>The Attorney General has stated that her refusal to seek an
>independent counsel is based on the law and the facts. She is
>wrong on both counts. Section 592 of the Independent Counsel Act
>clearly authorizes the Attorney General to request an independent
>counsel whenever the Department of Justice has a "personal,
>financial or political conflict of interest." Section 592
>recognizes that sometimes the Attorney General simply has an
>unavoidable conflict of interest in investigating other
>government officials.
>
>The President is the Attorney General's boss. She serves at his
>pleasure. She cannot conduct an impartial investigation of the
>President and his political allies. Listen to the Attorney
>General's own words when she testified in 1993:
>
>(Play video) "The reason that I support the concept of an
>independent counsel with statutory independence is that there is
>an inherent conflict whenever senior Executive Branch officials
>are to be investigated by the Department and its appointed head,
>the Attorney General."
>
>How have investigations of the White House been handled by
>Attorneys General in the past? Just look at Iran/Contra. Within a
>month of the Iran/Contra story breaking in 1986, Attorney General
>Ed Meese requested an independent counsel. President Reagan
>publicly called on him to do so. Mr. Meese said it was in the
>public interest. Oliver North was not a "covered person." Mr.
>Meese used the same "conflict of interest" section of the bill
>that we are today asking Attorney General Reno to use.
>
>What a marked contrast with the Clinton Administration. It has
>been fourteen months since this foreign fundraising scandal
>became public. The Attorney General is still resisting an
>independent counsel. Unlike President Reagan, President Clinton
>has not called for an independent counsel. He has remained
>silent. This has all the appearances of an Attorney General
>protecting the President.
>
>By focusing on the narrow issue of phone calls from the White
>House, Ms. Reno guaranteed the result of her preliminary inquiry.
>By apparently avoiding key witnesses and stifling attempts by FBI
>agents to interview key people, the Attorney General continues to
>allow her investigation to drag on with few results.
>
>Ever since the Independent Counsel law was enacted in 1979, every
>other President and Attorney General, when faced with such large,
>politically sensitive cases, has turned them over to an
>Independent Counsel. (I would refer you to the chart on the
>screen which identified 19 Independent Counsels which have been
>appointed over the years).
>
>While the Attorney General has cited her previous appointments of
>Independent Counsels as evidence of her impartiality, she omits
>that in the one case which touched upon the President -- the
>Whitewater investigation -- she initially opposed appointing an
>outside counsel and only did so after months of opposing it and
>at the direction of the President.
>
>BIPARTISAN CALLS FOR AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL
>
>Many of my Democrat colleagues here today will say that this is a
>partisan Republican attack against the Attorney General. We will
>hear this repeated throughout the day. Fortunately, it isn't
>true.
>
>The need for an Independent Counsel to investigate the White
>House has been obvious to many objective Democrats:
>
>Former President Jimmy Carter has called for an independent
>counsel. So have Senator Moynihan, Senator Feingold, and Senator
>Wellstone. Even Henry Waxman called for an independent counsel
>last February.
>
>It doesn't stop there. Groups like Common Cause have been very
>critical of Attorney General Reno. If that's not enough, just
>pick up the New York Times. The Times is hardly an organ of the
>Republican Party. Yet 15 times in the last year, the Times has
>called for an independent counsel.
>
>
>Former Justice Department officials also see the need. Phillip
>Heymann (Hi - mon), Ms. Reno's former Deputy Attorney General who
>also served in the same position in the Carter Administration,
>supports the appointment of an Independent Counsel. He has said:
>"I served in seven administrations and I've never seen the
>[Justice] department so dominated in the policy realm by the
>White House."
>
>Mr. Heymann has also stated: "I think the law requires her to
>appoint an independent counsel....I think the career people are
>telling her the law hasn't been broken and I think they're
>wrong."
>
>FOCUS OF THE INVESTIGATION
>
>Ms. Reno would have us believe that she can thoroughly and
>impartially investigate people such as:
>
>* Webster Hubbell -- her former Associate Attorney General. He
>was convicted and sent to jail. In the summer of 1994, while he
>was under investigation, Webster Hubbell was paid $100,000 by the
>Riady family's Lippo Group. Ms. Reno defended Webster Hubbell and
>called him her friend. Can she conduct an impartial investigation
>and question Mr. Hubbell about his dealings with the Riadys? This
>would certainly appear to pose a conflict.
>
>* JOHN HUANG the President's "longtime friend" -- to use the
>President's own words -- has anyone at the task force asked him
>for a full accounting? We were surprised to learn from his
>attorney last Spring that he had not been contacted. Indeed, Mr.
>Huang's attorney was surprised he had not been contacted. And we
>continue to hear there has been almost no contact.
>
>* CHARLIE TRIE, another longtime friend of the President's --
>have there been any attempts to bring him to Justice? Charlie
>Trie's sister testified before this Committee that when she met
>the President at a fundraiser, President Clinton told her that
>her brother had been his close friend for two decades.
>
>Trie is someone who knew the President for years, and gave
>hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign and the
>President's Legal Defense Fund. At virtually the same time, he
>was awarded a coveted Trade Commission slot. Before he was
>appointed, the First Lady and Harold Ickes were warned of Trie's
>suspicious contributions to the Legal Defense Fund, which were
>all returned.
>
>Conveniently, Charlie Trie has fled the country and bragged to
>NBC's Tom Brokaw that he can stay lost in China for 10 years.
>When China's President Jiang Zemin visited Washington in October,
>I asked the President to seek the return of Charlie Trie for
>questioning. The President has promised to cooperate with this
>investigation. However, he apparently made no effort to raise
>this subject with President Jiang.
>
>* BRUCE BABBITT presents a remarkable situation. We have the
>Attorney General withholding documents under Executive Privilege
>claims in this matter in a civil lawsuit. At the same time, the
>Attorney General is supposed to "thoroughly and impartially"
>investigate allegations of wrongdoing by her Cabinet colleague
>and his aides as well as senior White House officials in a
>criminal investigation. The non-partisan Congressional Research
>Service Legal Division has found no basis for the White House and
>DOJ's privilege claims in these documents. (I will submit that
>CRS opinion and correspondence to the Attorney General on this
>matter for the record).
>
>The Attorney General clearly has inherent conflicts with these
>close friends of the President and many other key people in this
>investigation. But the problems don't stop there. The Justice
>Department has sided with the White House in almost every
>politically sensitive matter of recent note:
>
>* They sided with the White House and opposed Independent Counsel
>Kenneth Starr when he sought Whitewater related notes. They lost.
>
>* The Attorney General and the Justice Department also sided with
>the President and argued before the Supreme Court that he was
>immune from a civil suit arising out of events that occurred
>before the President took office. They lost.
>
>* Justice Department lawyers also opposed Independent Counsel
>Donald Smaltz's attempt to prosecute a top Agriculture Department
>official. Again, they lost.
>
>Mr. Smaltz has been leading the investigation into former
>Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. He has obtained 10 indictments,
>5 convictions and 6 guilty pleas. He will testify later today or
>tomorrow about the roadblocks thrown up by the Justice Department
>that have hampered his important work.
>
>THE FREEH MEMO
>
>The Attorney General's decision not to appoint an independent
>counsel is one of the most important decisions she has made
>during her tenure. It is, to say the least, a controversial one.
>The American people and Congress have a right to know both how
>and why she arrived at her decision. Clearly there was a serious
>disagreement between the Attorney General and the FBI Director.
>
>We have gone out of our way to address the concerns about grand
>jury material in the memo. We have indicated that grand jury
>material could be redacted. However, there was no attempt on the
>Attorney General's part to meet us half-way. Ms. Reno said on
>television on Sunday that there have been ongoing discussions
>between her staff and our Committee. Unfortunately, this has not
>been the case. We have had almost no contact from the Justice
>Department since last Friday.
>
>There is clear precedent for Congress receiving such documents.
>(I am submitting for the record the correspondence we have had
>back and forth with the Justice Department on Director Freeh's
>memo as well as a review of the Congressional Research Service
>regarding precedents for turning over such material).
>
>Congress has an obligation to make sure that the Justice
>Department is enforcing the law in a fair and even-handed manner.
>If half of the news reports we are reading about the Justice
>Department are true, we have cause for concern.
>
>Those concerns are compounded when we learn that our two top law
>enforcement officers have such a fundamental disagreement over
>the need for an independent counsel. With a case of this
>magnitude, Congress cannot sit idly by. We have an obligation to
>pursue Director Freeh's memo and hope the Justice Department will
>commit to working with us.
>
>DIRECTOR FREEH AND THE WHITE HOUSE
>
>The Director of the FBI serves a 10-year term. Congress provided
>the FBI Director with this 10-year term after Watergate so he
>would have the independence that is necessary to enforce the law
>free from political pressure. This is particularly important when
>investigations involve the White House and high level political
>officials. The Attorney General does not have the same security.
>She is a Member of the President's cabinet. The Attorney General
>comes and goes with the President who appoints her.
>
>Director Freeh has served this country as a federal prosecutor, a
>Federal judge, and now as the nation's top investigator. He
>arrived at the independent judgment that the credibility of this
>investigation would best be served by appointing an independent
>counsel.
>
>In response, the Director has been the target of a steady stream
>of attacks from the White House.
>
>This constant sniping at the Director of the FBI from the White
>House is the clearest sign we have of where the President stands.
>The Clinton White House has an instinct to attack anytime it
>feels threatened. Mr. McCurry's comments about the Director were
>disgraceful. I think the President should issue a public apology
>to Mr. Freeh.
>
>As the chief law enforcement officer in the nation, Director
>Freeh's duty is to the law -- that duty should not be
>subordinated to anybody -- including the President. It is
>interesting that the President's people think the FBI should be
>LOYAL subordinates.
>
>Before I finish, I would like to address one last topic. I
>understand that my friends on the Democratic side are going to
>make an issue of my involvement in this hearing. According to
>Roll Call, they are going to ask for an independent counsel for
>these bogus charges that have been raised against me.
>
>Let me say this to my good friends. I have no problem with that.
>I believe that we need an independent counsel for the entire task
>force investigation. If the Attorney General wants to include my
>case under an independent counsel -- I say fine. You know as well
>as I do that these are politically timed, politically motivated
>charges made by a former White House staffer and leader of the
>Democratic National Committee. They are nothing more than part of
>a smear campaign.
>
>I have nothing to fear from an independent counsel. It is
>apparent that the President does not feel the same way. If the
>Attorney General is willing to request an independent counsel for
>this entire campaign finance investigation, I have absolutely no
>problem with having my case being included with the others.
>
>The American people must have confidence in our Justice
>Department. Many have noted that both Republican allegations and
>Democrat allegations must be pursued. I agree. An Independent
>Counsel is the best way for the Justice Department to proceed
>with its responsibilities. In Congress, we will continue our
>public review of these important matters so that the American
>people are not kept in the dark.
>
>
>
>
> Published in the Dec. 15, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
> Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
> Reposting permitted with this message intact
>
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