August 3, 1994 - Part 7
August 3, 1994 - Part 7
(18:50:24) Mr. EGGLESTON. Yes, sir. When I talked a out the question from Senator Bond, I think that the question was, when did the White House first learn about the criminal referrals or when did the RTC first tell about the criminal referrals? I think Senator Bond's question was tied to the criminal referrals. I was not on the call with Mr. Altman, and my recollection of what Mr. Podesta said to me afterwards is not real strong, but I have some recollection that he said something like that Mr. Altman--I want to be careful because I don't want to mischaracterize it, but that Mr. Altman said that he didn't know about them, didn't want to know about them, and Mr. Podesta had said, well, you should talk to Ms. Hanson about them. That's my recollection. Senator DOMENICI. There is no doubt in your mind that recusal was brought to his attention and that criminal referrals were at least brought to his attention? Mr. EGGLESTON. Sir, I know that in the meeting right before the call we raised it. I know that Mr. Podesta is an honorable man, and I think that afterwards he told me that he had raised it. So my sense-that's how I think it was raised, but I obviously don't have any personal knowledge of the call between Mr. Podesta and Mr. Altman. Senator DOMENICI. I said a while ago that I was very pleased with the forthright answers you have given, all of you. I'm refer-. ring specifically to yours because you were asked why Mr. Nussbaum was concerned about recusal, and you ticked off a whole bunch of reasons; the politics of the situation, the press was concerned. You see, Mr. Altman-Roger Altman-Roger doesn't even do that. We ask him that question and we can't get an answer. Now, having said that, I wonder if you would just quickly look at both of those letters. I think you looked at the one that was,: given to you dated March 2nd. Would you look at the other one? It's a little longer. Am I correct that neither of these letters tells' 135 the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking that there were two issues, namely recusal and criminal referral, that were not referred to in his testimony as the subject matter of meetings? Mr. EGGLESTON. I think they're not referenced in either of these letters. senator DOMENICI. As you read it, isn't there an effort to tell us there were two meetings? Would you see if you can find it, on the second one in particular? Mr. EGGLESTON. Well, the March 3rd one appears to be about the February 2nd meeting, if I'm reading that correctly. The March 2nd one indicates that there had been meetings between the Treasury staff and the White House staff that relate to the handling of press inquiries. Senator DOMENICI. OK. Now, you're a very forthright person and you could just as well be sitting back here where one of us sitsand maybe going through your mind is that you might do a lot better than some of us. That's probably true. But it seems to me in the March 2nd letter, there's almost an effort to try to tell us that a meeting occurred, but not to tell us what the subject was. It says in my information is that both related to the handling of press inquiries." Now, I just want to ask you, do you think anybody on this Committee or our staff reviewing this because he's correcting the record would know anything about those meetings if he said "handling of press inquiries"? What does that mean to you, "handling of press inquiries"? Would you guess that they were about criminal referrals? I wouldn't think so. Mr. EGGLESTON. Well, I don't see that there's a reference to criminal referral. I do want to say one thing, though, which is that I do think that the October 14th meeting related to the handling of press inquiries regarding the criminal referral-I'm sorry, Senator Domenici, I was talking when-I think that the October 14th meeting that I attended-I did not attend the September 29th meeting, and I don't know, but the October 14th meeting that I attended, my recollection is that it covered the handling of press inquiries related to the criminal referral. The letter still didn't say anything about criminal referral, but the meeting did relate to the handling of press inquiries related to the criminal referral.