Whitewater Hearings August 1, 1994 - Part 1
Whitewater Hearings August 1, 1994 - Part 1
(11:25:23) Then, on page 20, they say: "Mr. Altman's friendship with the President is not a covered relationship that would necessarily trigger the recusal procedures in the relevant section of' the standards." They do say Mr. Altman's actions in this regard, "are somewhat confusing." The thing that further calls into question this report is that having established the clear principle that a leak to the press or a potential leak does not justify disclosure of nonpublic information, they then proceed to justify the discussions and disclosure between the Treasury and the RTC on the basis of the fact that there was an impending leak to the press. As I said, no disrespect to my friends from Pennsylvania, but this gives a Philadelphia lawyer a bad reputation. There are some specific questions I think we will address later on. On page 19, it assumes that Mr. Altman's disclosure bad been cleared in advance with an ethics official. I think the information we have will call that into question. You have already raised the critically questioned assumption on the basis of time of the completion of the RTC analysis, a question which Ms. Kulka has provided in her testimony. We have other testimony before us, I think it is noteworthy that the OGE exonerates Mr. Eugene Ludwig in regard to the responses to the President's questions and certainly it appears that Mr. Ludwig has done nothing improper. But it does not make any comment on the President's action in inquiring. It further raises questions about the calls to Mr. Stephens, but finds that responding to those calls was in no way improper. It seems to me if we are to accept the analysis of the OGE, then no communication of nonpublic information by the head of a regulatory agency to the President, which may be of great personal interest to the President, could violate the ethics or conflict of interest standards. That may be good enough for the Office of Government Ethics, but I submit that I, for one, do not believe that that kind of standard is adequate, nor do I think it should limit the inquiries of this Committee or the questions we pose to the witnesses. I thank the Chairman, The CHAIRMAN. Senator Sasser. OPENING COMMENTS OF SENATOR JIM SASSER Senator SASSER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Kulka, as General Counsel for the Resolution Trust Corporation, you had the responsibility of retaining various attorneys and law firms around the country to try to effect collections from failed S&L's and failed S&L officers and others that would flow back into the RTC, did you not? Ms. KuLKA. Yes. Senator SASSER. Now, Ms. Kulka, let me ask you, in the case of the hiring of the Jay Stephens law firm, who began the process that ultimately resulted in the hiring of Jay Stephens to represent 17 the Resolution Trust Corporation in the question of civil charges against Madison? I ask that question for this reason. Mr. Jay Stephens was a former U.S. Attorney appointed by, I believe, the Administration of President Bush, and was viewed by some in this area to be a fairly partisan prosecutor. I'm not saying he was or he wasn't. That was just the way he was viewed by some in the Washington area. Who began the process of hiring Yr. Jay Stephens? Ms. KULKA. There was a discussion amongst the staff working on the matter that, very early on, we needed to have outside counsel. The process by which outside counsel was identified was begun by the Senior Counsel on this matter, pursuant to normal RTC procedures. Senator SASSER. And I understand-so Mr. Stephens was hired just in the ordinary course of business there and in the ordinary way that attorneys and law firms are retained by the Resolution Trust Corporation. Ms. KULKA. May I expand on that a little bit, Mr. Sasser? Senator SASSER. Yes, please.