August 1, 1994 - Part 8
August 1, 1994 - Part 8
(22:20:17) Ms. HANSON. The answer is I did not do that personally. I asked, repeatedly, for the transcript. Senator BOXER. If I just I might say---I mean, this point troubles me greatly, because you knew how just important it was you, yourself, knew how important it was that Mr. Altman didn't give the whole truth to the Committee and, the fact is, you wanted to fix this problem up. A day goes by, 2 days. goes by, count the weekends. Telling the truth to a Committee is important. This is about as important as it gets, in my opinion. Maybe it's because I happen to have been sitting there, but this goes to lots of other hearings, we've held where Members of the other party were a little bit on the defensive. The fact, that we must know the truth, is a bipartisan issue for us here. You wanted to correct the testimony and your big excuse, that I hear coming back to me over and over again, is I couldn't get the transcript. Ms. HANSON. There is no other way that I could correct thetestimony. There were 41/2 hours where 182 Senator BOXER. You are missing my point. I agree that you needed the transcript. What I cannot see-I'm putting myself in your shoes, the best I can, and I've been in a position of being in elected office, being a staffer for a Congressperson, being a press person all kinds of thin things. If you want to get a transcript and, as the Chief Counsel of the Treasury, you can't figure out a way to get it, I just have a real terrible problem with that. If your personal secretary couldn't get it, or your assistant couldn't get it, I think you 8 should have gotten a new one. I have a hard time coming to grips with that fact. So, I would just say this I think, again, that the hour's late, you're under a lot of stress and strain and I Ms. HANsON. I will tell you, Senator Boxer, in the future I will always make sure I personally it, that I get the transcript, 7 see to it, because that was clearly a problem here. As I stated Senator BOXER. You interrupted me in the middle of what I was trying to get to. My train of thought was that I know this has been very difficult for you, awfully 11 difficult for you. I would just, respectfully, suggest, at your level of expertise, intelligence, you are articulate, you are educated, you have great experience, that I still have a hard time understanding why, when you knew Mr. Altman didn't tell the full truth, you didn't get in a cab and get the dam transcript, if it was that important to you-and it should have been that important to you. Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to keep on going in this fashion. You can see how I feel about it. I am not satisfying with the fact that we did not get the corrections, we should have gotten, in a timely fashion. I'm sorry your lawyer told you not to be involved in it anymore, but I have a question about that, too, Mr. Chairman. Here is Mr. Altman, whose testimony was not complete, and now, all of a sudden, because of another situation, you're told to forget about it. You can't do anything about fixing up his testimony when you, and you alone, knew it. You went to the White House, you sat there with those folks, you wrote Mr. Altman a memo, although you didn't recall writing it, and you were the one who had the information. It's very odd to me, that your attorney would tell you, that you have no more responsibility to make sure that the Senate of the United States of America knows the whole truth. It's really-maybe it's perception, maybe it's the way you view the world, but I have a-I feel a little uncomfortable about all this. I don't feel anything happened to injure the people of the United States of America by what you did, or didn't do, but I just do not approve of the way this matter was handled in terms of giving us the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I also do not approve of using, as an excuse press leaks to discuss very confidential information which I think only fed into the whole cycle of more press leaks and more stories. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Boxer. Senator Bond. Ms. HANSON. Could I respond to that, please? The CHAIRMAN. If you do it briefly, you know-go ahead.