July 29, 1994 - Part 1
July 29, 1994 - Part 1
(10:16:38) OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ALFONSE M. DAMATO Senator D'AMATO Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, 2 years ago, the American people first heard of an Arkansas company called Whitewater; of an Arkansas savings and loan called Madison; and of the mysterious web of relationships surrounding Arkansas Governor Bill I Clinton. When Mr. Clinton came to the White House, the Whitewater cloud trailed behind him. Now, regrettably the White House has sacrificed the proper administration of justice on the altar of Whitewater. This Committee has learned, and the American people will see, that the White House has concealed, disguised, and distorted the truth, all in the service of politics and the President's self-preservation. To these ends, this Presidency has taken advantage of confidential agency information, To these ends, this Presidency has fought to keep control of an investigation affecting the President personally. To these ends, high officials of this Presidency have deceived this very Committee, or have countenanced that deception. The New York Times observed earlier this week, the central question for these hearings is a question posed by the Senate 20 years ago: "Whether people in positions of public trust manipulated the machinery of Government to deflect the truth." Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to say that even now the Committee has not been given the necessary authority and latitude to examine the facts of Whitewater and Madison Savings & Loan-the facts that some have worked so desperately to bide. But we have learned some important things. We know that the RTC was examining Madison Savings & Loan in 1992, and made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice in the fall of that year. We know that in the fall of 1993, the RTC sent nine more Madison criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. And we know that the RTC was investigating whether to bring a civil case involving Madison, Whitewater, and the Clintons. Most important, in mid-February of this year, we knew that the statute of limitations on the civil case against Madison was scheduled to run out on February 28, 1994. Had the limitations period expired as scheduled, the Clintons and their partners in Madison would have been home free--beyond the reach of the civil law. Mr. Chairman, I first requested Committee hearings into the RTC's investigation of Madison last December. Each day closer to February 28 was a day the Clintons were closer to escaping an RTC case against Madison. Then at the last minute, to the complete surprise of the White House, Congress voted overwhelmingly to extend the statute of limitations. The White House strategy was thwarted. What will these hearings show? As early as the spring of 1993, Roger Altman, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and acting head of the RTC, was keenly focused on the issue of Madison and Whitewater. As soon as Mr. Altman was informed in September that the RTC criminal referrals might be forwarded to the Justice Department, he directed his subordinate, Treasury General Counsel Jean Hanson, to disclose that fact to the White House Counsel Bernie Nussbaum. White House Counsel Nussbaum and Treasury Counsel Hanson agreed to create a channel through which multiple further communications on Whitewater would flow. The information Altman and Hanson revealed to Nussbaum, and through him to the rest of the White House in September 1993, was highly confidential and involved criminal referrals that bad not yet even reached the Department of Justice. This was sensitive information which may not be revealed under the RTCs own rules, because of the danger that such a disclosure may alert possible subjects or witnesses and frustrate a criminal case. What's the justification offered for this gross breach of trust? Time and time again, the American people will bear witnesses try to excuse this behavior by claiming that they thought press leaks might occur in the future. Nonsense. Mr. Chairman, there's no "spin control" exception to the RTC rules of secrecy. Mr. Cutler told the House Banking Committee earlier this week that there was no ethical breach in the disclosure of the confidential criminal referrals to the White House, because as far as he could determine, no White House official took improper action based on tills nonpublic information. It is absurd to say that we must rely oil White House assurances that this confidential information was not misused by the White House itself. In January 1994, the Clinton Administration was dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing to having Attorney General Reno appoint a Special Prosecutor, Now we know, through Roger Altman's diary, the Administration was frustrated because they couldn't arm-twist the Attorney General to limit the scope of that prosecutor's investigation. In the words of Mrs. Clinton's own Chief of Staff, the First Lady "doesn't want the Counsel poking into 20 years of public life in Arkansas." Why were they so afraid? What did they want to hide?