August 4, 1994 - Part 2
August 4, 1994 - Part 2
(10:55:42) He heard the testimony and he was sufficiently concerned about it. He had enough of those facts in his mind that the first moment that he had, he got up, went out into the hallway, this is his testi- mony, got on his mobile phone to call the White House, to say we have got a problem here, or whatever words he used, that the testi- mony was not complete and therefore presumably would be mis- leading because it was not full and complete. I do not know if you do that all the time or not. That sounds to me like a rather unusual procedure. Does that happen a lot? Mr. McLARTY. You mean in terms of the White House The CHAIRMAN. Having somebody from the Legal Counsel's Office coming to a hearing to listen and, in turn, have an immediate re- sponse capability if a problem of this sort arises? Mr. McLARTY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think it would not be un- usual for someone from the White House to be in attendance at a Congressional hearing. That would not be an unusual situation. The CHAIRMAN. Well let me press you on that. I am talking about the Legal Counsel's Office. He was not up there at the table testifying. Ile was not part of Altman's team. They were up in the front row and so forth. He was somewhere back in the audience. Just as a matter of record, does the Legal Counsel's Office in the course of a week or a month of hearings, would they be up here all the time, some of the time, or on rare occasion? Mr. McLARTY. I really, Mr. Chairman, would think on some occa- sions but certainly not all of the time. The CHAIRMAN. It strikes me that it would be unusual for that to happen, It might happen on occasion, but I have to impute from 304 this that there was enough concern and sensitivity about this hearing that somebody from the Counsel's Office was detailed to be here in that hearing as a watchbird and as somebody to listen and be able to get back in a hurry. Isn't that a fair conclusion to draw from this? Mr. McLARTY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I understand your reasoning. This hearing, as I understood it or understand it, was on the RTC matters. I think it is understandable why the White House Counsel's office would be involved in that particular matter. And Mr. Eggleston has already given testimony to your Committee, as Senator Bryan and others have commented. The CHAIRMAN. I guess one of the things we will have to try to pin down is why when the alert went out Mr. Eggleston was here, did his job, and realized the testimony was not sufficient. He went:' out into the hallway. He phoned Mr. Podesta, and that set in motion a whole chain of events. The one event that did not get triggered was somebody coming to us promptly and saying: By the way, you just got something less than full and accurate testimony. So then what happens is that quite a long period of time ensues. We get four clarifying letters that come on different dates thereafter, none of which, as it turns out, are complete and full. In fact, it was not until these hearings took place that we got in a sense a full accounting insofar as one can be reconstructed, of the number of contacts and activities that would fit within the scope of the questions that were asked that day. That is troubling. I think it is troubling as a system, as a work system. I would hope that if an alert goes out like that and goes back to the White House that there would at least be two channels that it then goes down. One channel would be to say that within 24 hours we want that testimony corrected fully in every degree, and we want to make sure that that happens. I want somebody to come back-this is a hypothetical person in charge in the White House saying this, the Chief of Staff or somebody designated by you-and that I want to know that we are not going to leave a situation like that sort of hanging out there for days, or weeks, or in this case as it