Advanced Search
Totem Pole & sand dunes
ON PREVIEW# 210153 Totem Pole & sand dunes
Double arch, ect.
Double arch, ect.
Navajo women & babiesBlue sky & cloudsTotem...
ON PREVIEW# 201176 Navajo women & babiesBlue sky & cloudsTotem pole, ect.
August 3, 1994 - Part 6
(17:50:42) Senator BENNETT. I accept that. I think you're right as a general rule and I think that's proper, I don't think that was the circumstance here. As I say, I think Mr. Altman clearly should have and virtually everyone who has looked at it in hindsight has come to the same conclusion including, from his testimony last night, Mr. Altman. May I just ask one purely informational quick question? How many of you are there, how big is the President-is the Office of the Counsel to the President? How many Associate Counsels, et cetera, are there? Mr. KLEIN. There is a Counsel to the President which is now in effect, I hate to say de facto, but it is Mr. Cutler, Deputy Counsel to the President, 7 Associate Counsels on the staff and 3 Assistant Counsels. So that's 12 full-time lawyers. We have in addition some detailees who are assisting us in the hearing, sir. Senator BENNETT. I can remember when there was only one. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bryan. Senator BRYAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate myself with an observation of Senator Kerry made just a moment ago. I have been enormously impressed and very pleased with the candor of the witnesses today in responding to questions. I have to say, it has been in the course of 4 days of hearings but those of you who have had the chance to respond to this panel and one may not agree with your responses, but they have been direct and to the point. And frankly, I've had a sense of frustration in talking to some of our witnesses previously. The thing that I find most troublesome is the testimony of Mr. Altman on February 24th. I think by any standard, given its most charitable interpretation, it was incomplete, and misleading and notwithstanding an opportunity to correct that testimony, it took a series of some four letters subsequent to his testimony, I think that you have served the President well by sensing immediately, as you did, Mr. Eggleston, from your testimony, literally leaving the hearing, as I understood it, and saying wait a minute, we may have a problem here. That, I don't believe is complete. Mr. Klein, you've indicated that although you weren't privy to the meetings that you from what you had been told, also shared a concern. So I think that both your instincts and your judgment were quite correct and I applaud and compliment you for that. Help me to understand, not notwithstanding the good advice-and essentially from your presentation here today both of you are extremely articulate and persuasive men in advocating your causehow did it come to be, as you understand it, that this testimony 125 was not clarified on the March 2nd or at least the letter that followed that. I believe that would have been on the March 11th, I believe-March 3rd, excuse me. March 3rd, I'm greatly troubled by that and somewhat perplexed because you were on top of it. You recognized it. Mr. Eggleston, you called the day before to say, look, is Mr. Altman prepared to answer that. Please share with me what you know from your own knowledge and what you have learned since. Mr. EGGLESTON. Sir, from my own knowledge, I really know "about the activities in the White House starting on the 24th and then through the call that Mr. Podesta made on March 1st. I will tell you that there was a lot of discussion about that call, how to make it. We recognized that the fact that the White House was calling Mr. Altman about his testimony was, in and of itself, a newsworthy event, that that was an event of consequence for the White House to call a Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and suggest that there were aspects of his testimony that he might want to supplement. And in some sense that's a reason it took us a while. We wanted to be careful about how we did it. We wanted to be deliberate about how we did it, but I think we did it fairly quickly, actually, under the circumstances. That call was made, but I just can't help you much [beyond that]. Mr. Altman did not-as far as I know, and maybe he did through others, but as far as I know, he did not consult back with us. I don't think he then sent us the March 2nd letter for our review and say to us, you're the ones who called us. This is what we're going to send back. Is this now OK? I don't recall that he ever communicated back to us to ask whether we thought that he had covered all the issues that we had concern about.
Sand Dunes and Totem Poles, ect.
Sand Dunes and Totem Poles, ect.
Navajo & sheep (action)
Navajo & sheep (action)
East Face Rainbow Bridge
East Face Rainbow Bridge
Rainbow bridgeEast face
Rainbow bridgeEast face
Scratch and digs.
Scratch and digs.
Tree
Tree
Agathla
Agathla
West faceRambon Prudee
West face Rambon Prudee
Mostly white sky
Mostly white sky
"gateway"Rock "Slabs" & man
"gateway"Rock "Slabs" & man
Misc
Misc
Windows
Windows
East FaceRainbow Bridge
East FaceRainbow Bridge
August 3, 1994 - Part 6
(17:55:34) And frankly, sir-I know at some level, it's not much of an excuse-but on the afternoon of March 4th, the grand jury subpoenas showed up from Mr. Fiske and it really-and actually even the day before, I think, Mr. McLarty-I think that is right, Mr, McLarty, the day or so before, had issued an edict that there will be no more communication with the Treasury Department, that we had gotten in far enough, and we were going to drop a curtain and we just weren't going to do this anymore. And so, first, I think with Mr. McLarty on the 3rd and with the arrival of the Grand Jury subpoenas on the 4th, the White House was 'then really completely out of it. So I really can't-and the series of letters sort of after the first one even the first one, I just can't tell you how they came to be. Senator BRYAN. Am 1 correct that, in effect, as you alerted the White House to this problem that you saw, the ball then gets lateraled to Mr. Podesta; is that correct? Mr. EGGLESTON. Yes, Mr. Podesta is an Assistant to the President. I'm an Associate Counsel to the President. Mr. Podesta was essentially the person who was the point person and he was the one who was leading the discussion and the person who made the Phone call. Senator BRYAN. Mr. Klein, you actually called Ms. Nolan, as I understand, to inquire, essentially of what the ethical obligation 126 was in terms of correcting the record. That's my understanding. If I'm mischaracterizing it, please correct me. Mr. KLEIN. I don't think that is correct. I would have been well advised to call her about that but I don't think I did, Senator BRYAN. You did not call Ms. Nolan. Was there any conversation at all with Ms. Nolan? I thought somebody had called Mr. KLEIN. I did have a conversation with Ms. Nolan, that is one of the questions that I-when we were talking about sort of the White House response and how many meetings or nonmeetings or conversations. I had recalled a staff meeting that Ms. Nolan referred to in her testimony or that she had made a call to the Treasury, and I called her to ask her about that. Senator BRYAN. "About that." Let me just be a bit more precise, Mr, Klein , because I've obviously misunderstood some part of it, Did this not deal with the testimony of Mr. Altman on the 24th? Mr. KLEIN. It came in response to the testimony because the question was, Senator, how many White House contacts there were with Treasury. And as I recall, Ms. Nolan had brought up at a morning staff meeting this question that she discussed in her testimony about a contact with Dennis Foreman, and so I had called Ms. Nolan to ask her about that because one of the questions I be- lieve, was how many contacts had occurred. That's the context, sir. Ms. NOLAN. Senator Senator BRYAN. Could I-and I want to give you a chance, but let me just indicate the highlight of the deposition indicates that on February 28th, you, Mr. Klein, "called Ms. Nolan and raised concerns and wanted to discuss with me"- that's you speaking now-"whether the White House had an obligation to correct Mr. Altman's testimony that he gave on the 24th." Let me, with that, lead in. And if I've mischaracterized your testimony, I apologize, but that seems, at least as Ms. Nolan understood it-let me defer to you to respond to that, Ms. Nolan. Ms. NOLAN. Yes, that was my testimony, and Mr. Klein may have forgotten this because he was in several conversations, as I understand his testimony, about the matter and I was only in one, so I might remember it more explicitly. But he did call me, and I went over to his office; it was, as I understood it, early in the discussions of whether there would be some obligation to correct the testimony. Senator BRYAN. Is it fair to say that the question, as you understood it, was the context of ethical obligation because you served that function, or were they just asking you as another lawyer what your view was? Ms. NOLAN. As I understood it, he was looking for my judgment on the matter, but I don't know that we were precise about that. Senator BRYAN. But your responsibility within the White House deals with questions of ethics; (17:59:31)(tape #10081 ends)
Bridges - (Golden Gate, etc.)
Unknown