Whitewater Hearings August 1, 1994 - Part 1
Whitewater Hearings August 1, 1994 - Part 1
(11:20:35) The CHAIRMAN. Very good, Senator Dodd. Senator Bond. OPENING COMNTNTS OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER S. BOND Senator BOND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Since my colleague from Connecticut has brought into the record this report of the Secretary of the Treasury from the Office of Government Ethics, dated July 31, 1994, 1 thought just for the record, 15 I would give you what my very brief analysis of that is. We've only had a few hours to look at it. I'll have to say that, first, this is not an investigation by the OGE. It is an analysis of some of the information now before us that was presented to it by the Treasury, It clearly does not have all of the information we have, and they expressly state that they have not interviewed members of the White House staff, employees, or the President. It expressly excludes any comment on White House officials' ethics. It relies on some technicalities and some debatable assumptions which we will get into later on. It does say, as my friend from Connecticut pointed out, that: "The standards of conduct are not a yardstick by which all Government actions can be measured, and conduct that some may perceive as unethical does not violate the standards of conduct." They say on page 3: "Many of the contacts detailed in the report are troubling." I think that troubling nature is something that we have to address here. The report did apparently conclude that there were some unethical activities by a former employee of the RTC on pages 15 and 16, but says that: "Since he was no longer employed, it was not within their scope of examination," I do find it very helpful, in light of some of the testimony that was presented before the House, that the OGE spent some time examining the proposition that a leak, a press inquiry, or a potential press inquiry would justify disclosure of confidential information. And on page 6, this letter says: "Documents containing information about referrals to the Department of Justice are generally exempt from public disclosure by virtue of Exemption B(7) of FOIA." The fact that-and I'm skipping some of the verbiage-the fact that information has been leaked would not cause an agency to consider the information to have lost its nonpublic character. A waiver of the FOIA exemption has not occurred because of an unauthorized disclosure, citing cases. This proposition regarding the nonpublic nature of information that has been leaked would bold true as well under a relevant section of the standards of conduct. Now, at the bottom of page 6, they go on to say: "The RTC's disclosure policy may have been violated in the case of information regarding a criminal referral being discussed without the necessary authorization." They. raise a question whether such an authorization would comport with the RTC's disclosure policy. The analysis goes on to suggest that Ms. Hanson is not covered because she does not have a personal friendship or nongovernmental affiliation with the President or Mrs. Clinton. Reading that, one immediately calls into question whether there is such a relationship between her supervisor, Mr. Altman, who gave those instructions. Later on ' I found that there is probably no way that, under the view of the OGE, Mr. Altman could violate the standards of ethics with respect to the President. They say on page 11, they don't know what Mr. Altman's role in the disclosure of September 29, 1993, may have been, but "there's insufficient information to en- 16 able us to provide you with any further analysis of Mr. Altman's participation in this disclosure."