August 2, 1994 - Part 11
August 2, 1994 - Part 11
(01:20:19) Senator SARBANES. So when was the meeting set up with Mr. McLarty? Mr. ALTMAN. I believe it was the day before. senator SARBANES. And you set that up by calling him and talkin with him? Mr. ALTMAN. Yes, sir. Senator SARBANES. And at that time your intention was to talk about the procedural aspects on this Mr. ALTMAN. Yes, sir. That's what I told him. Senator SARBANES. The talking points, I'm just trying to be clear because we get a lot of staff work too. I take it these were prepared and given to you as you were going off to the meeting. It wasn't Mr. ALTMAN. Essential] es, Senator. The CHAIRMAN. Could I follow up on that? I've not taken a turn for a while here. Senator SARBANES. I'm happy to give you time, The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for yielding. Do you recall whether or not the briefing sheet was something that Ms. Hanson or anybody else reviewed with you before you went over to the meeting?. Mr. ALTMAN. I don't believe so. I think I saw it as I left the office or on the way over. That's my best recollection. The CHAIRMAN. But you would have bad it, I assume. Did you have it with you? Mr. ALTMAN. When I arrived at the meeting? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. ALTMAN. Yes, Senator, I did. The CHAIRMAN. On this question you just stated a minute ago that the day before you were still up in the air on the recusal, you'd stopped in to see Secretary Bentsen to get his advice. I take it that sometime then, in a sense, between that meeting and the meeting in the White House on the 2nd, you actually had come to a judg- ment that you were going to go ahead and recuse ourself. And yourself when you got into the meeting you gave that indication and that's when Mr. Vussbaum reacted vigorously to the contrary; is thatdo I have that right? Mr. ALTMAN. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. So sometime then in that 24-hour period you made the decision to go ahead and recuse yourself Now, when you were here before us, in the exchanges that we looked at on television and talked about here today, why don't you just take a look at page 63, if you have it there, of the Committee record, This gets into the exchange. This is Senator D'Amato asking this question at the top of page 63. And he says, and I' just going to read here, "I have to say to Mr. Altman that I would like to go back to a question that Senator Gramm brought up as it relates to any meetings with White House Staff or Counsel." Mr. Altman, I think you said that you and an official from Treasury sought out Mr. Nussbaum; is that correct? "Yes, I did." I assume this refers to the February 2 meeting. Then Senator D'Amato says , "Could you tell us why? In other words, I have difficulty understanding why it is you felt compelled to seek out the White House Counsel. You start to respond, you say "solely to insure," and then Senator D'Amato stops you there and says, "solely to" with a question mark. Then you respond "solely to be sure that he understood the legal and procedural framework within which the RTC was working. And then you go ahead and elaborate on this question of that procedural framework. Now someone could read and infer from that when you say, "solely to be sure," that that may have addressed what your initial purpose was, but sometime in the 24-hour period before that meeting, you reached the decision to recuse yourself and you raised that in the meeting and having raised it in a meeting, I think one could ask why wouldn't that then have been mentioned here? In other words this is after the fact, you are reviewing the meeting, I think it's fair to say you could be expected to have a recollection of it because there was this tension about the issue. Mr. Nussbaum, you know, reacts strongly to it and then, in fact, having reached that judgment you decide over the next 24 hours basically not to go ahead with the recusal and to put that issue, in a formal sense, in abeyance for about the next- oh, 21/2 weeks or so. So couldn't someone draw the conclusion here that that answer here, "solely to be sure," that he understood now coming after the fact, would look as if you were leaving out mention of the recusal study. I mean "solely" makes it sound as if that was all that was talked about and obviously it wasn't, so one way or another I think we' we've got to clear something like that up here.