August 3, 1994 - Part 2
August 3, 1994 - Part 2
(11:35:50) Secretary BENTSEN. No, he did not. Senator FAIRCLOTH. Do you know of any evidence that Robert Fiske investigated to determine whether Roger Altman withheld information from Congress? Secretary BENTSEN. Senator Faircloth, I do not have that detailed information. Senator FAIRCLOTH. So the point being, so when Robert Fiske said evidence does not justify criminal prosecution of any Federal statute, have no reason to believe that he even investigated the possibility of criminal withholding information from Congress. So if he did not talk to you, he did not. That is all. I yield the rest of my time. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. What I am going to do also, I have had a couple of Members ask me, unrelated to you, Senator Faircloth, it would be helpful to them because they get absorbed in a line of questioning, and they do not see the timing clock. If they could receive a note from a staff member as their time has expired, so they will know that so they can then stop in an orderly way themselves, rather than have to be interrupted, and I ,would prefer that as well. So we will endeavor to do that and pass a note to Members as the clock expires so they know that and that they can manage the time accordingly. Senator Kerry. OPENING COMMENTS OF SENATOR KERRY Senator KERRY. Thank you very much, Mr, Chairman. Mr. Secretary, welcome, and thank you for taking time to be with US. What was the date that the freeze was put into place when you began to collect Secretary BENTSEN. What? Senator KERRY. What was the date that you began to collect the information, a freeze on computers and documents was put in place? Do you recall approximately when that was? Secretary BENTSEN. I would say it was in March. I cannot give you the exact date. Senator KERRY. Early March, I think. I just wanted to take a moment to commend you for that. I think that our colleagues and the country ought to be aware of the meas- 33 ure, the full measure of compliance that has taken place here, even the safeguarding of documents. The reason we have a Josh Steiner diary, the reason we have these contradictory documents from people is because you saw your duty and understood that this was serious and that the Treasury Department was going to be beyond reproach with respect to that. I might say it is in direct contrast to prior experience up here. I think you and the Department are to be commended for that, and the Administration is to be commended. Last night, we received a document that had been previously redacted. The White House gave it to us. Pages of document outside of the scope but they unredacted it and made it available. I just want to commend you for it, Secretary BENTSEN. Thank you, sir. Senator KERRY. I want to ask you a few questions if I can in a couple of areas that I think are very important to the Committee, as we try to struggle to reconcile different recollections here and testimony. I also want to try to understand the standards we are dealing with. You and others have cited the report to you from the Office of Government Ethics and appropriately, you in your opening said, from this report, that there are many contacts that are troubling. You did not gloss over that, you mentioned it. There are also citations about problems between Treasury and RTC and you have mentioned those today. What still disturbs me is, I think it is a good report as far as it goes. I have read the analysis, I agree with most of the analysis, but it is a very strictly legal document, making judgments about the specific worst case scenarios of the Federal law as they apply. Let me give you an example. One of the areas they examined was the principle that employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. I would assume you would agree that an employee of the Treasury Department should act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any public organization or individual where that individual might be affected by actions. Secretary BENTSEN. I think when you get into a situation that I cited earlier with the White House where, under certain conditions, it would be quite proper to give non-public information in order that their responsibilities can be discharged.