August 2, 1994 - Part 9
August 2, 1994 - Part 9
(22:55:24) Mr. ALTMAN. Yes. Well, of course, one of the things we could have done would have been to leave it vacant until Congress con firmed a permanent nominee. We could have done that and per A haps we should have. We did go forth pretty promptly and nomi- nate our candidate and that candidate's nomination did not succeed and at the end of the year be withdrew. So one option would have been just leave it vacant until a permanent Chairperson is confirmed for that precise job. Senator DODD. Let me ask you this: I kept on asking this yester- day. Ms. Hanson said she was basically a detailee, of the RTC even 510 though she was General Counsel for the Treasury. It was clear to me when she got that job as a detailee. Did you at some point say to her when I'm talking to you the RTC, you're General Counsel for the RTC. I mean, at what point did she know she was RTC or she was Treasury? It se to me she was never clear what job she was operating in. Mr. ALTMAN. Senator, I just asked her to help me out. There no formal designation. I didn't go through the process one through, the formal process, to actually detail someone fro place to another. I just asked her to help me out. Senator DODD. Is there statutory authority somehow? She was talking about statutory authority that gave her the right to do RTC functions. Mr. ALTMAN. I believe that FIRREA, the law FIRREA permits, in this case, the Treasury to-it says here, "the RTC is authorized to utilize the employees of the FDIC or, on consent, the personnel of any other Executive Department or Agency. As interim CEO of the RTC, Mr. Altman exercised all of the powers of the RTC and thus was authorized to use the time of Treasury personnel on RTC matters." Senator DODD. So that's the authority? Mr. ALTMAN. Yes, sir. Senator DODD. I might just ask you at some point here to submit to us, to this Committee a more formal set of recommendations on how we avoid this kind of mess in the future. Mr. ALTMAN, Yes, sir. Senator DODD. I yield back my time. Senator DOMENICI. Senator Dodd, do you have a couple of seconds? Could I just clarify something and ask you if you knew this: A lot of comments have been made about the Office of Government Ethics and their report. It's my understanding that they only spoke to employees of the Treasury Department. Now that's a very big difference because this whole dispute is a dispute between what Treasury Department people say and what White House people say. So with reference to that, it does seem to me that the conclusion (22:58:18)(tape #10073 ends)