July 29, 1994 - Part 1
July 29, 1994 - Part 1
(10:54:43) OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER S. BOND Senator BOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As most of the Nation knows, Madison Guaranty was a Little Rock savings and loan which went belly up, at a cost of nearly $50 million to the U.S. taxpayers. It was owned by James McDougal, the business partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater real estate deal. Madison Guaranty was the classic S&L story of insider dealing, reckless loan policies, and ultimate failure, with the U.S. taxpayers picking up the tab. This Committee has followed closely the $105 billion cost of the S&L debacle and in that way this is a story repeated in many communities around the country. But one part of this case has made it famous. Many of its borrowers, directors, and Counsel were prominent figures in Arkansas politics and government. The tangled web of Madison, Jim McDougal , and the Clintons has led to two sets of criminal referrals, an ongoing civil liability investigation by the RTC, a potential conflict of interest for the First Lady's former law firm, a conviction of a Little Rock judge who improperly loaned Small Business Administration money to the McDougals and to Whitewater, and a range of subpoenas of top level White House and Treasury officials. I have said over and over that the American people have a right to know what happened to the millions of dollars we lost. We in Congress must fulfill our obligations to get the facts out in the open. To carry out this duty, on February 24, 1 asked Clinton Administration officials during the RTC oversight board bearings whether there bad been improper or illegal tip-offs of confidential material, whether the Clintons received special treatment or whether there had been interference or obstruction of ongoing investigations, In doing so, I asked Roger Altman, a friend of the President, who then was running the S&L bailout agency in charge of investigating Madison Guaranty, a series of basic questions. I asked Mr. Altman if there are any special measures taken when high- profile people are involved. On February 24, 1994, Mr. Altman assured me, the Senate, and the American people that his agency was treating the Madison case in an identical manner to other cases. And that his staff was directed to treat the criminal referral "in the exact same fashion" with "no deviation whatsoever, 16 I also asked about the criminal referral: "How was the White House notified of the referral?" Mr. Alt-man replied, "They were not notified by the RTC to the best of my knowledge." Mr. Chairman, we heard just 5 months ago these repeated assurances that the RTC did not treat the Madison case differently from any other case, that the head of the RTC bad instructed his people, from the moment that they were aware of Madison's new criminal referral, to treat the case no differently than any others, and it was not his people who had divulged confidential information to the White House and subsequently to the President. But we now know this is simply not true, from contemporaneous documents and sworn depositions secured by our investigative staff, in the course of next week, we will show that not only did Mr. Altman not tell the Senate the truth, but even after the White House had a several hour meeting over what White House press spokesman, Dee Dee Myers, called "Altman's misleading statements," that no effort has been made to get the full truth out. Based on the evidence we've gathered, we will show that Mr. Altman, as well as the White House, knew that Mr. Altman's testimony to the Senate, not only was untrue but it also violated the so-called high ethical standards that President Clinton had set for his Administration. In fact, it violated the ethical standards that any Administration must set in order to preserve and retain the confidence of the American people. At the same time, the White House should have called on Mr. Altman to resign immediately. It did not. It should have insured that the truth of the meetings, tipoffs, and efforts to influence should be exposed. It did not. Instead, even today, the White House continues to defend its actions. Mr. Cutler, in his testimony before the House, stated that Mr. Altman has been a very effective Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and that be "personally hopes be continues in that job."