August 2, 1994 - Part 8
August 2, 1994 - Part 8
(19:35:10) Mr. Altman, I know you fairly well and I heard your opening re- marks where you said I've been convicted and sentenced. I want you to know that I don't believe that's the case, at least not from this Senator's standpoint. As a matter of fact, on two different occa- sions in press interviews, one rather major one, I said, Roger Alt. man deserves an opportunity to come and speak to us and tell us his side. Now, Mr. Altman, you've done that and I've got to tell you that I'm searching my mind for some excuses for you. Maybe you bad too much to do. Maybe those two hats were too big. Maybe those two hats plus trying to manage Health Care and go to all those meetings was too much for someone even as competent as you. But I'm going to tell you today that I don't believe you did a' very good job on this. I don't think your short time as acting head of the RTC bodes very well for you in terms of your past performance in Government. I think it's much, much less than normally one ex- pects from you. Now having said that, I want to tell you that there are at least 3 things that bother me very much. Senator DAmato went to great ends to ask his questions to you on that important date when you appeared before our Committee and I could refer to his questions, but I'm going to refer to my own questions. We know tonight about the meeting that took place with Mr. Nussbaum and others from the White House. You went for the Health Care meeting. Where you met with them on February 3. Mr. Altman, I believe that's enough unless you want to claim that your memory totally disappeared, and I don't believe that. I mean you are doing very, very well with meticulous details here. I believe that when I asked you that question, well, I assume we're not arguing there-you are not arguing there that you had-you than one, are you, and your are not suggesting that you had more answer was pretty unequivocal. More than one meeting, correct, and the answer was no. Now, frankly, I don't know that I'm going to give you a lot of time to answer that one, but I just want to tell you that I believe that's very, very close to not telling us the whole truth that day. You may categorize it as something different, and again I'm trying desperately to say, well, maybe Mr. Altman was too busy, maybe he had too much on his plate, But then, Mr. Altman, I understand that literally more than a score of people helped you get ready for that meeting. 481 And it wasn't I day for that hearing. It was over a period of 4 or 5 days, and frankly, I don't believe it's possible. I mean I don't believe you should expect me to believe that you just plumb forgot about the second meeting and I want to tell you precisely why. Because I believe that the other part that you have not yet convinced me of at all is that you had not already made up your mind before you went to the February 2 meeting with the host of White House people headed by Mr. Nussbaum. You have not convinced me at all that you bad not already made up your mind to recuse yourself then and there. The reason I think you should have remembered the next day was because the next day you were going to tell them you agree with them, that even though you went to the previous meeting on the 2nd clearly to re-recuse yourself, you went to the next meeting the very next day with some of the very same people. You said, OK, in my opinion, my humble opinion, using my words, you said, OK I'll go along with you. Now those are pretty, pretty significant situations from my standpoint about the way you were running things. Now, Mr. Altman, you continue to say you didn't affect any decisions; after all, you had told everybody that you weren't even going to make the decision. Now, I almost said Roger, but I'm going to say Mr. Altman, because normally when we're great buddies and shaking hands I call you Roger, but I'm not your buddy right now, I'll tell you. Mr. ALTMAN. I can tell, Senator DOMENICI. You got it. The truth of the matter is--the truth of the matter is that you keep saying you didn't make any decisions of any consequence. Did it ever dawn on you that some people in the White House, including your very good friends in the White House, may not have understood that and wanted you to stay where you were? Frankly, I see that as the absolute situation Mr. ALTMAN. Well, Senator d