"NO REGRETS" October 8, 1997 NewsHour Transcript

A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: October 8, 1997: A background report on Harold Ickes' testimony. October 7, 1997: After a contentious beginning, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes began his testimony before the Senate. September 19, 1997: A Florida businessman discusses his interaction with Harold Ickes and the White House during the 1996 campaign. September 18, 1997: Roger Tamraz testifies before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee about his contributions. September 17, 1997: The Senate hears testimony on pressure to allow controversial DNC donor Roger Tamraz to meet with the President over the objections of members of the National Security Council. September 11, 1997: The highest ranking Clinton administration official, National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, testifies on White House screening procedures for donors and guests. September 9, 1997: Former DNC Chair Don Fowler defends the actions of the Democrats during the last election. July 24, 1997: Former RNC Chair Haley Barbour testifies before the committee about the fund-raising done by the GOP in 1996. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the campaign finance investigation. OUTSIDE LINKS Senate Governmental Affairs Committee

Delayed tapes: "If it’s deliberate, it’s an obstruction of justice."

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, (R) Pennsylvania: We’re waiting for a logical explanation. The great difficulty is that it is one step among many where the White House has not turned over documents under subpoena until witnesses have finished obstructing our work. It follows the same line; we found a few weeks ago where the FBI had in its files, the Department of Justice had it in its files for two years without turning over to the committee information that a major foreign contributor had a direct connection with the government of China in its effort to influence the 1996 federal election. And they said at that time they didn’t know about it, raising a tremendous question of competency or the alternative of whether it was deliberate, so that when you have the tapes that the President talked about this morning in combination with so many other things, you just have to wonder if it’s deliberate. And if it’s deliberate, it’s an obstruction of justice.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see it, Sen. Torricelli?

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI, (D) New Jersey: Well, I think the President’s obviously in a difficult position that he has been ill served by his staff, the videotapes should have been produced on a timely basis. When they were found, they should have been given to the Justice Department immediately. All of us are very displeased by it. At the same time I think it’s important to put it context. Over the course of this investigation the White House has produced a hundred thousand pages of documents provided for depositions--all members of the senior staff who have been requested--indeed, so much material that I don’t know that the committee staff has even been able to review all of it. So while distressed by the failure to produce these videotapes, nevertheless, I think the record of the White House compared with those of the Republican National Committee, or all these affiliated organizations, has been actually quite good.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Sen. Specter, turning now to Mr. Ickes’ testimony, he said repeatedly there was nothing illegal that the White House, the President, the Vice President did in raising all of this money, and as we just heard Sen. Lieberman repeat, that essentially they played by the rules. From what you’ve heard, did they?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: I think not. One of the items that I questioned Mr. Ickes about was a story just today. We really have a shoe dropping every day. We’re dealing really with a centipede here, and the LA Times story this morning detailed about how five men were in the White House in the Oval Office, which is not living quarters, for coffee, where a Democratic National Committee representative said that they were $100,000 contributors and that two days later four of the five paid contributions of $100,000. Now that goes far beyond the so-called telephones. When you have the issue that the attorney general says the President may use his living quarters to entertain his friends, I agree with that. But when you have the Lincoln Bedroom booked by the Democratic National Committee repeatedly for people who then contemporaneously give $100,000 in contributions, where you have a pattern, and I know that there have been problems with Republicans in the past--and what I have said and agreed with Bob Torricelli--there is fault on all sides.

In my questioning Mr. Ickes today I tried to move to where we go from here, reform and try to bring some confidence in the American people about the terrible conflicts. We’re not acquitting ourselves in the Senate. But when you come down to the hard facts, I think the Clinton administration carried these activities to a new level and it is not legal to have four people in the Oval Office for purposes of contribution, which all the surrounding facts show.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Torricelli, how--what’s your view on whether what the White House crossed the line into illegality?

"... we have 20 years of a continuously downward spiral in what is permissible and acceptable in the national political culture."

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: I think, Margaret, Sen. Lieberman actually said it best, and you presented it a moment ago to your own audience, we have 20 years of a continuously downward spiral in what is permissible and acceptable in the national political culture. The Clinton campaign did engage in using soft money for party advertising; so did Sen. Dole. The campaign did have money go through state parties; so did the Republicans. The White House was clearly used, if not for fund-raising, for a series of political activities. Well, as we demonstrated, so did President Bush and President Reagan. That does not make it right. What it does indicate is that the rules are continually not only changing but deteriorating. And so I think if the committee has done anything--and I think we have served a useful purpose--it is to provide a backdrop for campaign finance reform. These are laws that are over 20 years old. They were a reaction to Watergate. They are no longer adequate and as Mr. Ickes said, if these are the permissible rules, campaigns are going to play to them. The culture no longer is willing to accept it. And so I think the challenge here to the Congress and Senate, in particular, at the moment is very clear. We need campaign finance reform. And I think the McCain-Feingold bill is the best answer yet.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Specter, you’re saying, are you not, that they didn’t play by the rules? Aside from the coffees, what else did you hear today that led--leads you to believe that?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Well, there is a great deal in what we have seen on foreign contributions which we have not really connected to the White House. That is still many dotted lines, which we haven’t put together. I believe that the coordinated efforts on the soft money really crosses the line of illegality and I believe that for this reason--

MARGARET WARNER: Let me just explain. You’re talking about the coordination talked about today between the DNC and the White House--

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Yes.

Were ads created with DNC money legal?

MARGARET WARNER: --over say ads created by the DNC with soft money.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Yes. Because they really are advocacy advertisements. If you take a look at them, and the Republicans did the same thing, the advertisements extol the virtues of President Clinton. They deprecate Sen. Dole. They stop short of saying vote for President Clinton, but there’s no doubt about them. We have the testimony of Leon Panetta or the statements of Leon Panetta, as well as Dick Morris, that the President edited, really wrote those commercials, and I believe that constitutes coordination. And it just doesn’t even fit within the loophole. So I think there are very serious matters here, which is why I think you really need independent counsel to move ahead, get to the bottom of it, and make a legal analysis, and take appropriate action.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Torricelli, Harold Ickes said today that coordination was perfectly legal and in all the FEC guidelines. How do you see it?

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: Well, I think it’s extremely bad public policy. I think it’s a very poor way to govern the national elections, but it almost certainly is not illegal. The use of the soft money for party advocacy advertisements has become the rule and no longer the exception. Lawyers for both campaigns recognized it, allowed these ads to be placed. We watched an advertisement today placed by the Democratic National Committee. There was a clear advocacy of President Clinton, although it was paid for by corporate money to the party. A moment later we watched an almost identical strategy paid for by the Republican National Committee for Sen. Dole. And all of us in the Congress are familiar with what is no longer a loophole. This is the way we’re governing national elections. The Republican Senatorial committee last year in my own race in New Jersey for the United States Senate combined with other Republican organizations spent $4 1/2 million in negative advertising against me in a coordinated campaign. I’m not here to tell you it was illegal. I’m just here to tell you that it’s wrong. And the challenge to us is the law should be changed. This should not be permissible. But rather than complaining about the President doing it, what we need is to get Sen. Lott to get us to vote to get a bill on the floor to end it.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Margaret--

MARGARET WARNER: And Senators, I’m sorry. I have to leave it there.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Have you got 20 seconds?

MARGARET WARNER: Twenty seconds.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Okay. When Sen. Torricelli says it’s an advocacy ad, that makes it illegal. You can’t have a coordination with the DNC money if it’s an advocacy ad. They slip around it by saying it’s an issue ad. But once you have the concession that it’s advocacy it’s illegal.

MARGARET WARNER: Thanks, Senator. We really have to leave it there. Bye-bye.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Thank you.

REGIONS TOPICS RECENT PROGRAMS ABOUT US FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS:

Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.