August 1, 1994 - Part 5
August 1, 1994 - Part 5
(17:05:07) At the outset, I indicated that I only know one way to do things: With honesty, and consistent with, legal and ethical requirements. I testified extensively before the staff of this Committee, and this is the seventh day that I have given sworn testimony before a governmental investigative body. I have tried to give this Committee, albeit in abbreviated form today, my best recollection of what occurred and why. I am satisfied that I have given you my best recollection, as I have done on each prior occasion that I have testified and the numerous additional times that I have been interviewed. I have no doubt about the propriety of my actions, and I have no reason to doubt the propriety of anyone else's. I thank the Committee for the opportunity to make this statement and I welcome any questions that the Committee may have. The CHAIRMAN. Lees start if we may Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, can I ask-are there copies available of Ms. Hanson's opening statement? The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Sarbanes. No, we were not given copies. If I may--do you have copies or could we-if you'll let us have what you just read, we'll Xerox it, so we can circulate it to Members of the Committee. Ms. HANSON. We sent 120 copies at 9 a.m. The CHAIRMAN. Apparently, they haven't arrived. Until they're located, it would be helpful if we could just take your statement and make some copies. They're probably somewhere making their way here. In any event, we do want to have copies in front of us. I want to go to the testimony before this Committee on February 24, 1994, that you've made some reference to and which other witnesses today have talked about. As I understand it, there was very careful preparation done ahead of time for that meeting. Several hours were devoted on at least 3 or 4 different days leading up to that hearing. Material was put together, a group met, you were part of the group, Mr. Altman was part of the group, the questions were discussed, and all of this was gone through in some detail. Is that correct? Ms. HANsoN. That's correct. It was a massive amount of material. The CHAIRMAN. In any event, is it fair to say that Mr. Altman was well-briefed by the time that hearing started? It sounds to me as if everybody really focused on getting ready for that bearing. Is that a fair conclusion? Ms. HANsON. There was a focus on----clearly, there was a focus 01, preparing for the hearing. As I said, there was a massive 'mount of work to do, a tremendous scope of issues to be covered. Although we did our best, on many, many issues there was not as in-depth a review as we would have liked. The CHAIRMAN. But you testified today, and also in your deposi- on that, as you were listening to Mr. Altman answer questions 104 that day, questions you yourself have cited from Senator Bond Senator Gramm, that-and ve been careful as to how you put it, but that you were -- the answers in and of themselves were not complete, and in your mind, in effect, you thought, well, those can be amplified later. Is that a fair conclusion for me to draw from what you've just said? Ms. HANSON. Yes, I thought the entire testimony needed to be re- . viewed. The CHAIRMAN. On the recusal issue, it seemed to me, you also seemed to be saying you were somewhat surprised that, when Mr. Altman was asked to summarize anything that was of an consequence, he omitted any discussion of the recusal even though that was in the preparation document that you'd helped put together Were you surprised that he left that out? Ms. HANSON, Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Did you say something to him about it after you left the Committee room? Ms. HANSON. No. I didn't The CHAIRMAN. Why? Ms. HANSON. He left before I did and I didn't go back with him. The CHAIRMAN. How about in the days that followed, did you have any occasion to mention that to him. MS. HANSON. Not that specific issue. As I stated, I knew during the course of the testimony-the course of the hearing that there were a number of issues that needed to be followed up. I did not have a copy of the transcript until substantially later, and it was my intention to go through the transcript carefully and raise all of the issues with Mr. Altman at once. The CHAIRMAN. Didn't I hear you say in your prepared statement, though, that when you went over to the meeting at the White House, Mr. Altman went over with the idea in mind of saying be was going to recuse himself and then encountered some pressure, some resistance to that, and decided not to recuse himself? Didn't I hear you say this a minute ago? Ms. HANSON. I wouldn't characterize it as pressure. There was a discussion of the issue, and I understood Mr. Altman to have listened to the discussion and considered it, but I wouldn't have