August 3, 1994 - Part 7
August 3, 1994 - Part 7
(18:45:34) Senator BOXER. What about the notion of having a private attor- ney deal with a matter that occurred before the President was President? Does that have any merit to you? Can you see where that might be better, to the press talk to the private attorney? Mr. SLOAN. There is absolutely a legitimate role with respect to private attorneys with respect to private legal matters but what was very much the context of these conversations was a govern- mental function, a legitimate governmental function about respond- ing to press inquiries. And that's not Senator BOXER. Because the press inquiry excuse me was dealing with how the agencies were handling this. Is that why you feel it was appropriate? Mr. SLOAN. And because the White House gets questions about the Clintons. If the Clintons were named in a criminal referral, if that was a news story, the White House would get questions about that. And as the Office of Government Ethics report relates, it's well established that that's a legitimate White House function to respond to those questions. So it seems to me for that kind of gov- ernmental function, it is entirely appropriate for White House per- sonnel to be involved. Senator BOXER. I see that my time is up and I will hold for an- other round. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Boxer. Senator Domenici. Senator DOMENICI. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman. I wonder, Mr. Eggleston, if I could give you the letters of March 2nd and March 3rd, Do you happen to have those? Mr. EGGLESTON. Sir, I can't remember. I think Senator Mack gave me a letter of March 2nd. I do not have the letter of March 3rd. Senator DOMENICI Could you put the two in front of you. First, let me say to all four of you, I don't think we would be agonizing until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning if we had received answers like you've given us today. I want to tell you that I very much appre- ciate the fact that when you know something, you tell us. When "You don't, you tell us you don't. You've been very, very forthright. Mr. Eggleston, the important subject matter for me-and I'll only take one subject-is my concern about the testimony before this Committee; the way the answers were given by the acting head of the RTC and what he did afterwards. Could I just review with you? I' don't know why you did this, but I'm impressed with the fact that the White House seemed much more aware that we were not get- ting the whole story from Roger Altman than he was. And as I un- derstand it, before either of those letters was mailed, if they were mailed on the dates stated, a meeting occurred in the White House. You were part of that. Mr. Podesta headed that team up. Could you just tell me briefly---I know this is repetitious-but what was the I principal concern about the Roger Altman testimony before us? 134 Mr. EGGLESTON. By that time, we had actually identified three issues, and they are as follows: the first was the failure in response to a question from Senator Bond, actually, to identify the two meetings in the fall of 1993. The second issue was in the questioning from Senator Gramm' describing the February 2nd meeting, the failure to mention that one of the subjects that had been covered was the issue of recusal. The third issue, which I think we never raised with Mr. Altman, the third issue was the issue of how the meeting of February' 2 had gotten set up. He testified the meeting had gotten set up through Mr. Nussbaum. Mr. Nussbaum said it was not set up through him, and that he had, in fact, had only learned of the meeting just before it took place. I think that's an issue that we decided was not of a sufficient level of magnitude. I don't thin that Mr. Podesta raised the third issue with Mr. Altman. I think he raised the first two. Senator DOMENICI. My recollection from somebody's testimony under oath that we have available is that Mr. Podesta also raised the subject of the criminal referrals and that he got a response from Roger Altman indicating that Roger Altman didn't want to talk about that, or it wasn't appropriate that he talk about it then. Do you recall that?