July 29, 1994 - Part 1
July 29, 1994 - Part 1
(10:41:34) OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PHIL GRAMM Senator GRAMM, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. On February 24, Roger Altman in his capacity as the acting bead of the RTC, appeared before' this Committee. I asked him about contacts between him or his staff and the White House with regard to Whitewater and Madison. I asked him about the nature of those contacts, the number of contacts, and I asked him about what be or they were asked to do by the White House. Mr. Altman responded that there had been one substantive contact, it had occurred on February 2, and that the sole subject matter of that contact was procedural concerning the statute of limitations. He repeated that statement not once, but three times. When be continued to use this evasive term "substantive" be was asked point-blank the following question: "You are not suggesting you 12 had more than one?" To which be responded: "No, I'm just saying that if you run into someone in the ball, if you see that thing in the paper this morning, I'm not including that." We now know that when Roger Altman testified before this Committee, be did not tell us the truth concerning the number of contacts between him and his staff and the White House. We now know that Roger Altman did not tell us the truth concerning the nature of those contacts, We now know that there were somewhere between 20 and 40 contacts. We now know that in the meeting to which be referred before the Committee on February 24, the February 2 meeting at the White House, that the subject matter of that meeting, at least in part, was about Roger Altman and whether he should recuse himself. We now know that the day before that February 24 hearing, Roger Altman and many members of his staff spent, for all practical purposes, the entire day communicating back and forth with the White House on this whole issue of whether Roger Alt-man should take himself out of dealing with the Whitewater affair. And yet, one day later, he did not see that day of activity as substantive, nor did be tell us anything about the subject matter that it contained. In fact, I think it's very interesting, Mr. Chairman, when you look at this diary of Josh Steiner. He writes about our hearing on the 24th, and here's what be said: At the hearing, the recusal amazingly did not come up. The GOP did hammer away at whether Roger Altman had had any meetings with the White House, Ile admitted to having bad one to brief them on the statute deadline. They also asked if staff had met but Roger Altman gracefully ducked the question and did not refer to phone calls he had had. We now know, Mr. Chairman, that the White House staff contacted Roger Altman about omission of the fall meeting from his testimony. We now know that Mr. Altman was contacted by the White House on March 1, and that on March 1, they told him they were concerned about omissions in his testimony concerning the subject matter of February 2 and also concerning two meetings in the fall which they clearly thought be knew about. We now have sworn statements that he did know about at least one of the meetings in the fall. We now have a memo, given to him by one of his staff members, about those meetings. Now, Mr. Chairman, you have said that you set standards of testimony before this Committee. Those standards, you say, are that testimony should be accurate, complete, and fully responsive. I would submit that based on what we know, the testimony of Roger Altman was neither accurate, nor complete, nor fully responsive. But there is another standard that I think we must keep in mind during this hearing. That is the standard for Robert C. McFarland when he pled guilty to lying to Congress, in that lie "willfully and knowingly did make default.'' By refusing and failing to answer fully and completely despite four efforts to clarify his testimony, Roger Altman has yet to provide any degree of explanation as to why there are so many inconsistencies between what he said in his testimony on February 24 and what we now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, occurred, 13 based on the testimony of others, based on the sworn statements of others, based on diary entries by Mr. Altman himself and others. It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, if we do nothing else in this hearing, that it is vitally important that we are absolutely certain that when people testify before our Committee, they tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I think Roger Altrnan bears a heavy burden of trying to explain to us all these inconsistencies between what he said on February 24, and what he has done and said, and what others have done and said. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAiRmAN. Senator Dodd.