July 29, 1994 - Part 4
July 29, 1994 - Part 4
(16:05:45) Mr. ROLLA. Yes. Again, the transcript does not read so well. You are right, and obviously both sisters are family and other friends that arrived on that scene also. They had a legitimate reason to be there and grieve also. But the whole point I was making was there was too many people there for an ideal situation for us. And that was beyond our control and as far as Mr. Hubbell, yes, he stayed on a cellular phone most of the time, and obviously since Mr. Foster [Laughter.] was a high White House official, there were some calls to be made. Foster's senator BENNETT. OK. Now we're talking about on page 162, the Oster's documents, the ones that you were allowed to look at, and You were asked "Did the Park Police consider the diary to be evidence in the case?" 90 You answered: "No. Again, when we were finally told we could look, then Hamilton did not want us to look at the diary. He said it is personal and there was a little bit of a stink. He said we cannot look at this, and we said, we're going to look at it. All of it is possible evidence. Once we reviewed it, there was no evidence of anything of value." Mr. ROLLA, That is correct. Senator BENNETT. Do you recall that? Mr. ROLLA. That is correct. Senator BENNETT. Mr. Hamilton tried to prevent you, and you prevailed? Mr. ROLLA. Well, Mr. Hamilton asked us did we really have to look at it. It was personal, He did not see a need for us to look at it. And we told him, we need to look at it. We will decide whether we need to look at it, it is evidence. We're not here to embarrass anybody, but if there's evidentiary value in it, we're basically still investigating an apparent suicide, and that is what we're looking for. An thing to help with that or detract from that and lead us another direction. Senator BENNETT. On page 1-07, you were asked- "Was the police access to those papers unusual? Is that unusual for you in a case?" You say: "Everything was unusual. As I said, these papers came from his office in the White House, That is a high official of the Federal Government. To get those. papers, Park Police did not search that office, FBI did not search that office, Secret Service did not search that office. They were told to sit down while eight or nine attorneys searched that office. White House personnel searched that office and decided what would be OK to give to Mr. Hamilton to look at before he would give it to us to look at." Then you say, over on the next page, "In a normal case, that guy's files would have been in my trunk and I would 'nave taken them to my office to look at them." Mr. ROLLA. Actually, the last statement was, I attribute that to Detective Markland. He made that comment earlier on in the case when he was asked about it being a normal case, and it was not a normal case. Senator BENNETT. Oh, 1 see, Mr. ROLLA. He made that statement. The guy's files would be in my trunk. As far as the rest of the statement, yes; right, it is not a normal case. Senator BENNETT. OK, fine, Thank you. I will Just go through this in following on to what Senator Bond laid down to make it fairly clear that this was not handled as a normal case, I am not saying there's anything sinister about that, and I am, not saying there's anything improper in your behavior with respect to that, but I think we should face the obvious. When a high official in the White House, who happens to be a very close personnel, friend of both the President and the First Lady commits suicide, it is a fiction to try to say to the newspapers: Oh, the whole inves- tigation was handled in a routine fashion. It is impossible under,, those circumstances for it to be handled in a routine fashion. The very circumstances require that we recognize that people are going to be involved who would not normally be involved. 91 The only thing, Mr. Chairman, that concerns me out of all of these that I have laid down has been the final statement which we have zone over that takes, us into the White House and the report that the Park Police were not allowed access to those papers; the FBI was not allowed access to those papers; the Secret Service was not allowed access to those papers. Instead, eight or nine attorneys on the White House personnel went in ahead. That is the only thing that I find troublesome in this circumstance. Thank you,