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WHITEWATER REVISITED
FEBRUARY 29, 1997
TRANSCRIPT
Kwame Holman reports on the Senate ethics committee debate over Whitewater, and on whether the special investigation is about to end.
KWAME HOLMAN: Recently, the Senate Whitewater hearings have been marked by the sudden discovery of long-missing White House documents that had been subpoenaed by the Committee.
SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO, Chairman, Senate Whitewater Committee: This packet of information from Mr. Gearan, January 29th. Here's another packet of information we get again from Mr. Gearan, February 7th.
KWAME HOLMAN: It happened against last week, angering Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato, who demanded a top Clinton aide explain why those documents had been missing for so long.
HAROLD ICKES, White House Deputy Chief of Staff: (February 22) We have turned over fourteen some thousand pages of documents, I'm told, to this committee alone. We have turned over fifty to sixty thousand documents in total to various committees and the independent counsel. We are not hiding anything.
KWAME HOLMAN: But D'Amato said the delay in getting documents left him not choice but to ask that the life of the Whitewater Committee be extended.
SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO: By gosh, you just can't withhold things, tell us that we're wasting time, that we're spending taxpayers' money inappropriately.
KWAME HOLMAN: And with the committee's authorization set to expire at midnight tonight, Chairman D'Amato went to the Senate floor this afternoon to urge his colleagues to support an open-ended extension of the committee's work.
SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO: That if we don't set a time line, it will occasion those who may be attempting to hold back, to get past that date, to be more forthcoming because they're going to know that these matters, whatever they are, whatever the testimony, whatever the documents, are going to come out, better to let the chips fall where they may now, as opposed to later. I suggest to you that we'll probably have a chance, a better chance of winding this up sooner, rather than later.
KWAME HOLMAN: But Minority Leader Tom Daschle stood to say enough is enough.
SEN. TOM DASCHLE, Senate Minority Leader: There has never in the history, to our knowledge, of the United States Senate been a request of this kind, never. It's unprecedented. No one has ever said we want a fishing license to allow us to go on for whatever length of time it takes. That's never been made before. We have never found ourselves in a situation like this in a Presidential year. Is it coincidental? Given all the problems we see now in the Republican Party, they conveniently need another six or seven months to take this into the Republican and Democratic Conventions? Is that what it's all about? This is unprecedented, and it's wrong.
KWAME HOLMAN: And Democrats say Sen. D'Amato's case was not helped by the disclosure today of a report to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation saying there's no basis to take legal action against the Rose Law Firm for Mrs. Clinton's Whitewater-related work.
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D) Connecticut: And I might point out and ask the Minority Leader whether or not he's aware of this, but the earlier report which this latest report supplements concludes that on page 78 of the report, "Therefore, pending the results of the criminal case, it is recommended that no further resources be expended on the Whitewater part of the investigation." Is the Minority Leader aware of that conclusion?
SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Well, I'd respond to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut that I was not aware until today that the report had been completed and made available and that it has such a resounding exoneration of the Clintons.
KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats say they would settle for giving the committee limited funding and extending hearings only through April 3rd.
SEN. PAUL SARBANES, (D) Maryland: Five weeks of additional hearings should be more than adequate to complete the so-called Arkansas phase of this investigation.
KWAME HOLMAN: But committee Republicans say that's unacceptable.
SEN. LAUCH FAIRCLOTH, (R) North Carolina: The other side of this aisle is saying, is that we should put a price on the integrity of the White House, and it's costing too much to establish whether there is integrity in the White House or not, and that we should cut off and let it go. We simply cannot afford to establish the integrity of the White House. But as to the length of the hearing, it's the length of a bull fight. It's who's ox is being gored. And right now, the way it is going, I don't see why anyone would not want the hearings to continue. In fact, to clear her pristine name, I would have thought the First Lady would have been down here saying, please go on with the hearings, I want this cloud removed from my law practice and what I have done in my life prior to being in Washington.
KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. D'Amato says he will try again next week to extend the life of the committee and the Republicans do have the votes to do so, but Democrats have the votes to keep debating and prevent the issue from coming up for a vote. Meanwhile, the special Whitewater Committee hearings have been discontinued.
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