August 4, 1994 - Part 5
August 4, 1994 - Part 5
(13:20:42) Senator GRAMM. If the gentlelady would yield Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. No, no, sir. Senator GRAMM [continuing]. We have two sworn statements or, that. September the 29th he made a decision to pass those criminal referrals and the reference to the President on to the White House., Two people under oath have said that. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. At the time that these witnesses that the conversation that we're discussing today were involved, the recusal decision related to the civil cases. Senator GRAMM. No, but he had dealt with the criminal cases on September 29th, which occurred before. That's all I'm saying. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. That's not correct, sir, and the record will indicate that. Senator GRAMM. Two people said under oath that was correct. senator BOXER. Mr. Chairman, can we The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Illinois does not have to yield. Senator KERRY. The Senator is allowed to draw a conclusion. The Senator is allowed to draw a conclusion as to the 29th, but there is no fact, I mean, two people may have testified, it doesn't make it a fact. The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Illinois has the time. Senator GRAMM. They said it under oath. That's all I'm saying. Senator KERRY. Somebody else said under oath that wasn't true, so you are left drawing the conclusion. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. That's all I wanted to point out, that the editorializing, I think, may confuse the message that we're giving here in terms of the scope of the testimony, the substance of the testimony from these witnesses and I just want to narrow the focus back to the limited context that these witnesses had and what they have to share with this Committee. And in that vein, I think there is a second misconception that kind of Came Out in the conversation here with regard to the diary entries about, regarding your conversation, Ms. Williams, concerning the First Lady's state of mind. Based on your testimony what we have are two different stories. To use again the Senator from Texas' words, he said there are two stories here. Well, there are two stories about a third person 's state of mind. And the only regard in which it would be material in any event would be to the extent that it might have suggested that Mr. Altman's perception was affected in terms of his decision about whether or not to recuse himself. That's kind of long and tortured, but I think it's important to show where the connections are here because we, we have again and it kind of blurs the waters and a lot of editorializing going on an allows for the possibility at least of misconception ion. And I believe I've heard both of these witnesses say that neither of them had any direct role in pressuring or otherwise suggesting to Mr- Altman what he should do. And that is correct, is it not? Ms. WILLIAMS. That is generally correct, although I would just once more like to volunteer that I suggested to Mr. Altman, with respect to whether or not he should recuse himself that since he was going to use what I thought to be excellent judgment defer- 339 ring to the staff, being a staff person, I thought it made a lot of sense for him not to recuse. I asked him why he would recuse. Senator MOSELEY-BRAUN. OK. Now, again to put this matter in context, the Madison situation involved a failed S&L that in terms of dollar amounts, Mr. Chairman, and we've gone over this. Senator Kerry was particularly good at trying to put this whole thing in the context of the savings and loan debacle that this country witnessed. Madison came out in terms of dollar losses, although it was a lot of money in whole dollars to ordinary folks, it was still 5/10,000 of 1 percent of the total savings and loan losses. And the only question, there is no question in anyone's mind that the reason that we are all here is, again, the connection as witnesses or again the connection, however tangential it might be, between the President and the First Lady. But at the time getting again being specific to the issues before this panel today, at the time of the recusal decision specifically, at the time that Mr. McLarty describes, in his statement as a period from the end of September to the beginning of March, which would have been roughly the period in which you were involved, I don't know if the question has been asked, I don't think it has, but if you could quickly describe for the panel the context in which all of this happened in terms of your typical day, how many phone calls did you have in a day, how many meetings did you have in a day, how many hours did you work in a day. If you could just very briefly do that because I have a question I'd like to wrap this up with and I don't want to lose much of my time. Mr. McLarty and then Ms. Williams.