August 1, 1994 - Part 8
August 1, 1994 - Part 8
(21:55:48) Ms. HANSON. If I could, on March 1, 1994, a call came in from John Podesta saying there was a concern about responses to Senator Bond's questions. As I've testified, we found the two Senator Bond questions and transcribed them off the tape. I went back to Mr. Altman's office and he was on the phone with Mr. Podesta and said-and he said, "I understand that there was a meeting at the White House on-I understand that you talked with Bernie Nussbaum about this," and I said, "Yes. I talked with him by phone." That was my initial recollection. "I talked with him by phone , " and be said-as he continued his conversation with John Podesta, be said, "Mr. Nussbaum remembers that it was a stayback after the Waco prebrief , " and I said, "That's right. Now that I remember that now that I've beard that I now remember that it wasn't a telephone conversation that I had with him," which was my initial recollection, It was, in fact, a stayback back after the Waco prebrief, So there we are. We have the two Senator Bond questions. They need to be addressed so I take a laptop computer home and, late at night, I start trying to recall, refresh my recollection as to what actually had happened 4 months earlier in specifics that I hadn't thought about since then. Senator FERRY. Well Ms. HANSON. There were certain things I remembered, as you look through here. There are certain things I remembered. There are other things I did not recall correctly. As I went through the process, over the course of the next several days, of trying to recall 175 what happened, I recall, as I focused on it specifically-this was my first cut. This was done in the middle of the night on March 1-2, 1994, as I was trying to remember what happened. But as I thought about it over the course of the next several days, it occurred to me, and I remember that I, in fact, did have a conversation about this with Mr. Altman. That is why I went to the White House. In fact, as I say, Mr. Nussbaum has testified that in my initial conversation with him, I told him which I don't recall, that Mr. Nussbaum-that I understood Mr. Altman had given him information about this, which I otherwise wouldn't have known if I hadn't spoken with Mr. Altman. Senator KERRY. I hear what you're saying, as do my colleagues, gin but I have to tell you I find it very ha to take at face value be-cause you are a lawyer. You are Counsel to the Treasury. It is ex-traordinary to me that Mr. Altman's answer was they were not no-tified by the RTC, to the best of my knowledge: Senator BOND: Nobody in your agency, to your knowledge, advised the White House? Mr. ALTMAN: Not to my knowledge. At that time, that wasn't true. You knew that wasn't true. Ms. HANSON. I didn't know that wasn't true. That was my recollection at the time I Senator KERRY. Your recollection at the time was, but you later learned that wasn't true. Ms. HANSON. I recalled, as I continued to think about these events over the course of the next several days, that, in fact, I had had a conversation with Mr. Altman. I just didn't recall it at the time that I first started trying to refresh my recollection on this issue. Senator KERRY. I understand. Ms. HANSON. I may, sir, be the General Counsel of the Treasury. I'm also human, and I don't recall everything with perfect recollection. Senator KERRY. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. I just want to say to you, I'm also human, we're all very sympathetic to you. I'm truly not trying to pick on you. I don't think we re trying to do that, but we have to test the reasonable standard, here, for a lawyer and counsel in an important position. We get a letter, one day after this, in which you have these denials, a letter from Mr. Altman, which you helped draft, and that letter says to us, in three separate paragraphs, things that are inaccurate. The letter never mentions the recusal that you knew, sitting there, was incorrect, and you said, "We couldn't change it then." Here was your opportunity to change it. In that letter, there was not only no change, but there were representations that fell more in line with this which we now know to be inaccurate.