August 1, 1994 - Part 7
August 1, 1994 - Part 7
(19:40:43) MS. HANSON. Sir I disagree that it dominated it for the entire day. It certainly did not. Mr, Altman--Mr. Altman's prepared ques- 140 tion and answer only related to his contacts, and that's what he re-sponded to. His prepared answer didn't relate to contacts by everyone else on the staff. He was not prepared to answer that. In fact, as I sat there and listened to your question, I realized that he was responding only with respect to his contacts, because that was what his prepared response was. I didn't realize, in prepa- ration for the oversight board hearing, that the Committee would want information -with detail on every single contact between anyone in the White House and anyone in Treasury on any-no matter bow trivial or insignificant. If that was what was-if that is what the Committee wanted, that answer was not prepared, and would have had to have been' prepared in response to reviewing the transcript and the follow--up questions. The CHAiRmAN. Senator Gramm, excuse me, just for a minute'. because we're well over and I want to give you all the time you, need, as I said I would. But, I think we do have to rotate within the general bounds Senator GRAMM. Could I make one final point? The CHAIRMAN. Yes, of course. The witness has asked if she could have a brief pause and I think she's entitled to one. Then' we'll continue. Why don't you go ahead and make your last point, then we'll recess for 5 minutes or so. Senator GRAmm. I'm not trying to badger. I'm trying to get the facts. But I don't think you can say-and I want to go back and look at this 54- page briefing paper to see what, actually, he had been prepared to answer, and we can do that while we're on our recess-but I don't think you can expect us to accept the assertions' as to why he didn't answer our questions. In light of the questions' that we asked, what he said was not true, but we cannot be expected to accept that he was answering different questions than the ones we were asking. I mean Ms. HANsON. That's not what I've testified, sir. What I've said, is Chat he responded to a part of your question. He was not prepared to respond to all of your question, because your question was much broader than his prepared response was and, frankly, based on what you're saying now, what I even would have prepared for him Senator GRAmm. But he knew about these conversations Ms. HANSON. ---or what everyone else prepared for him. Senator GRAmm. He was part of them. Why did he have to be prepared for that? The CHAIRMAN. Why don't we do this. We're going to continue a long as we need to. The witness has indicated that she would like a brief pause, and we'll take a 5-minute pause here. When we re- sume, Senator Sarbanes. will start on our side, and we'll continue., Why don't we recess for 5 minutes and then we'll resume. (19:44:02) [Recess.] (19:44:05) Commentary of hearings hosts NINA TOTENBERG and KEN BODE from tv studio