July 29, 1994 - Part 3
July 29, 1994 - Part 3
(13:25:43) The CHAIRMAN. Let me just add a bit of clarification here, and then I want to move along, because I want our witnesses to be able to respond to questions. The understanding between the two leaders was that the various elements of this whole subject would be dealt with in the order in which Mr. Fiske finished his work, and he bad undertaken that issue, and the other two issues in our charter here now and he anticipated being finished with those. And so we were tracking behind him n a way to review without interfering with that work. The simple fact is-and we have not stressed this today-that as Mr. Fiske completes other aspects of his work in the future, Senator Mitchell has made it very clear in his statements that there will be additional efforts that will go on at a later time to answer other questions that may arise outside the scope of this resolution. So it should be clearly understood that this is, as I understand it, the first phase of an examination of these issues, that is done in a way as not to interfere with Mr. Fiske's work. That's why one of the three issues we were given to look at, we've bad to put aside temporarily because Mr. Fiske found out that be wasn't going to be finished on time, so we've respected that fact. Senator D'AMATO. Mr. Chairman, if I might. In the spirit of not coming so far that we all look Silly) I think the response-and rightfully so- from some of the members on our side was aimed at answering, at least, an innuendo that somehow this side was responsible for dredging up and dragging up this horrible situation that we were going to call upon the family. It's not our intent. We're all bound by the resolution. There's no one here in particular who said we have to start this first, The question is whether or not ordinary procedures were followed. I think that's where most of us were going, whether there were standard procedures that were interfered with. I know that that's where a number of our Members are going, and I think that's important, but I think it pales in comparison to the other areas that all of my colleagues on both sides have addressed. I don't think we do ourselves any good by going over and trying to say one side is ghoulish and the other side isn't. That's not the case. The CHAIRMAN. May I ask for guidance, Members who are here on both sides, bow many desire to pose questions to this panel? I just want- Senator Kerry, Senator Campbell, and Senator; Moseley-Braun does. On this side, Senator Bond has had a first. turn, wants a second turn, Senator Mack, Senator Faircloth, and Senator Domenici. Senator BENNETT. I might. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Senator Mack. Senator MACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to direct my first question to Mr. Monroe, and it has to do with the issue of the pager and the telephone calls, I want to understand how you know that someone, either Mr. Nussbaum or someone in his office, attempted to page or to call Vincent Foster. Mr. MONROE, I'll defer to Bill on that. Mr. COLOMBELL. Senator, I tried to anticipate questions that you would ask. That was one area that I did not 'Anticipate, but I do 59 know that there were attempts to page him from Mr. Nussbaum and either from someone in his office Senator MACK. You think that information came from somebody volunteering it. Mr. COLOMBELL. That information was developed during our investigation. Senator MACK. Would it have been helpful to you to have bad the pager? Mr. COLOMBELL. I'm sorry, Senator. I didn't hear you. Senator MACK. Would it have been helpful to you to have bad the pager? I understand that some of these pagers have a memory device. If you had bad that pager, would that have been helpful to you? Mr. COLOMBELL. Initially I thought it would have been, but again, I'm going from recollection. I looked into that aspect of the investigation with technical lab people, with the FBI and there was some question as to whether, if we tried to get the pager at this point in time, we could have retrieved any info. nNow' if we had it-I was not involved in this investigation back in