August 1, 1994 - Part 5
August 1, 1994 - Part 5
(17:10:07) The CHAIRMAN. Let's leave the pressure part out. The point is, he heard a contrary point of view and it caused him, in a sense, to revisit his decision. Is that a fair summary? Ms. HANSON. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. The fact that occurred, and it was significant enough that you just described it here to us in your prepared statement, it seems to me, when that was omitted when he was asked a question that clearly was designed to encompass such things as that, at some point, either right then or shortly thereafter, you know you had some obligation to remind him of the fact that, for whatever reason, that had been left out. You say you didn't do that. Ms. HANsON. Sir, as I stated, this issue, the recusal issue has assumed a tremendous-much more importance than it had at that particular time. At that particular time, there were a lot--tbere were a number of issues that I knew needed to be followed up. I fully expected that this would all be handled in the ordinary course. What happened was that, with the appearance of The 105 Washington Post article and the service of the Grand Jury subpoenas, the orderly process of responding to questions and supplementing and reviewing the transcript terminated, at least my participation in it terminated. The CHAIRMAN. But other things did happen, and you also made reference to this in your statement. We began to get clarifying letters from Mr. Altman, as you know, shortly after the hearing. We got a series of letters. The first one came on March 2, 1994. The next letter came on March 3, 1994. The next letter came on March 11, 1994 and the next on March 21, 1994. What I'm struck by, among other things, is that, for example, in the first letter that came, you might have thought, if the recusal issue had been forgotten or overlooked even though it was in the briefing, it's in your briefing sheet, and was discussed, that in the case of his reflecting after the Committee hearing to the point he was going to prepare a memo and send it to us, which he did, that the recusal issue would occur to him and would go in that memo. But it didn't, did it? Ms. HANSON. If I might, sir. I was unaware of the last two of those letters until Grand Jury testimony. The letter of March until my 2, 1994, was prepared hastily for a specific purpose, which was to put you and the Committee on notice of the two fall meetings prior to learning about it in the press. The CHAIRMAN. Right. Ms. HANSON. It was not intended, by any stretch of the imagination, to completely supplement or correct the record. The CHAIRMAN. How about the second letter, then, on March 3, 1994? Ms. HANSON. The second letter on March 3, 19941 1 understood, was prepared by Mr. Altman, and I understood that he prepared it in response following a conversation that he had with you. I didn't know exactly what it was that Mr. Altman was intending to respond to at that time. and my-as I stated, I did not expect it, by any stretch of the imagination, to be a full correction and review of the transcript, which, to my recollection, I did not even have. I reviewed that letter solely to make sure that there was nothing in it that was affirmatively wrong. The CHAIRMAN. I think it's the issue of what's missing, as opposed to what's affirmatively wrong, that's the problem with the testimony before the Committee. My time is up, so I'll just make my point and then yield. My point is that, I think as a professional-and you clearly are that and I respect your professionalism and we've cited that here today-when the hearing was underway and pointed questions were being asked and were being followed up by follow-up questions, there was a requirement there on his part, and yours, to make sure that the answer was complete and responsive to what the question was. I think you, in effect, have said today that you had some concern about that-you phrased it carefully, but you said you were listening and you knew some things were not being said that, presumably, needed to be part of an answer. But then, you say he used words at the end that-what were the words that he used at the end of his statement Senator MACK. "That's the whole conversation." 106 The CHAMMAN. "That's the whole conversation," in other words,, I he used a very declarative summary comment. In your deposition, you say that, in your mind, when be said that was the whole con-' versation, in effect, he closed the door on you being able to lean forward to him and say, "By the way, you've left out recusal." Ms. HANSON. Sir, he bad an answer in front of him that had been gone over and he had reviewed that had the recusal issue ' in"' it. I did not know, as I sat there, why it was that he didn't include that in the discussion, but, as I sat there, I thought that I could give him a note and remind him about the recusal issue. I recall realizing that 1 had lost that opportunity