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SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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Now, Mr. Ruff, on August 2, 1996, after repeated attempts to obtain cooperation and relevant evidence from your predecessor, Jack Quinn, the subcommittee sent a letter directly to the President, signed by all majority members of the subcommittee, requesting all documents and materials related to the White House data base known as WHoDB. The subcommittee had been led to believe that, the relevant documents pursuant to that request had in fact been produced.
Now, I have noted your letter of just last week conveying additional documents and that's what I want to talk about. Among these documents——
Mr. WAXMAN. Point of inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman will state his point of inquiry.
Mr. WAXMAN. Are we in the process of questions or are we now in a monologue? Are we getting to a question?
Mr. BURTON. The counsel has the time as requested and agreed to, and I'm sure it will result in questions. I think he is setting the stage for his questions.
The gentleman will proceed.
Mr. APPERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the screen is the pertinent portion of the request from the subcommittee.
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Mr. RUFF. Mr. Apperson, may I request what exhibit you are looking at? It's very difficult to read.
Mr. APPERSON. You have it right on the screen. It's in a separate notebook identified as White House data base information, and you will find that as exhibit No. 3, sir. The attachment to that request is very specific and sets forth: Requires response from the White House to furnish documents for all communications concerning the WHoDB, including and involving the White House, its employees, internal communications, notes, et cetera.
Now, produced along with your letter was a handwritten notation, and I will ask that that be put up now as C–64.
[Exhibits 155 and C–64 follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 63 TO 67 HERE
Mr. BARRETT. Parliamentary inquiry?
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry.
Mr. BARRETT. Before we get to the next one, again, I am having difficulty, and it may be that we do have the documents. I have here exhibit C–65, which is the prior screen, and it has obviously this material that's been taken out and highlighted. Everything else on the page, I'm unable to read.
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Mr. APPERSON. If I may, Mr. Chairman, it will be found in the Members' books as exhibit 147.
[Exhibits C–65 and 147 follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 68 TO 69 HERE
Mr. BARRETT. Could you refer to that when you have an exhibit up there?
Mr. APPERSON. I will attempt to do so.
Mr. BARRETT. Thank you.
Mr. FATTAH. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. Is this line of questioning related to our investigation of Chinese influence in the 1996 elections?
Mr. BURTON. It's related to the investigation by this full committee and the subcommittee chaired by Mr. McIntosh.
Mr. FATTAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.
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Mr. BURTON. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. MCINTOSH. The counsel's time is not being docked for all of the inquiries, is it?
Mr. BURTON. It is not. We are giving him the full time. Add an additional minute and a half or 2 minutes to that. Thank you.
Mr. APPERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ruff, with respect to that document—and I know you are familiar with it because it was one of a very few documents which were sent accompanying your letter, is a handwritten note, a single page that references and provides evidence that Harold Ickes, who was then Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, and Deborah DeLee, Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee, wanted to assure that the WHoDB, the White House data base, is integrated with the DNC data base so that each can share the information.
The handwritten notations further reflect that evidently POTUS, President of the United States, wants this done. It further talks about the desire on the part of Mr. Ickes for a meeting to take place to further this plan. And it talks further that Bobby Watson, Deborah DeLee's assistant at the DNC, is working on that very plan at their end, i.e., at the DNC. You can imagine that after a year, we were quite interested to receive this document.
Now, in your letter of October 28th, conveying the document—well over a year—you stated, quote, ''certain of these documents,'' accompanying your letter, ''are arguably not responsive.''
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Mr. Ruff, I am going to ask you directly with respect to this document, these handwritten notations which set forth a plan by persons in the highest level of the White House and at the DNC to share prohibited data from the White House data base, do you consider that relevant to the request from this subcommittee in August 1996?
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Apperson, I don't want to be impolite, but I will avoid, I think, trying to parse, line by line, the introduction to that question; because I disagree with at least many of the implications that it contained.
My view of this document is that it was clearly something that we should produce to the subcommittee as soon as we found it, which we did. We have taken the view in the months since Congressman McIntosh and I exchanged what seemed to be an endless number of letters—some before and some after I took office—and I told him that my view of this process was——
Mr. APPERSON. With all respect, Mr. Ruff, I appreciate your views of the process; my question is with respect to this document.
Mr. RUFF. I am attempting to answer your question, Mr. Apperson.
Mr. APPERSON. My question is, is this document responsive to the August 2 letter?
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Mr. RUFF. If you will permit me, I will try to make my answer shorter than the introduction.
Mr. BURTON. Just wait a second. We all want to hear what you have to say, and when beepers go off——
Mr. RUFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I didn't know that beepers could be controlled, but I appreciate it.
My view has been, since the early months of this year, and as reflected in my discussion, my correspondence with Chairman McIntosh, that we would break through the impasse that had developed previous to that. We have produced documents erring on the side of responsiveness without worrying, candidly, about fine questions about whether or not they fit exactly within a particular description. I will not, I think, venture to go back into even the modestly dim mists of history and make a judgment about where this document fit into the sequence of events.
I made the decision on production on October 28th because there was no question in my mind that it was directly relevant to the chairman's concerns, the committee's investigation, the subcommittee's investigation, and there was clearly no reluctance on our part to produce it at that time.
Mr. APPERSON. Well, Mr. Ruff, a year before, well over a year before, there was more than a reluctance on the part of someone in your office to make that exact decision. And my question to you is, who in 1996 in the White House Counsel's Office made the decision to withhold that document?
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Mr. RUFF. Mr. Apperson, obviously I was not there at the time so what I am about to tell you is a reconstruction of events that led up to my letter of October 28th to Chairman McIntosh.
As I understand the situation last fall, there were a number of lawyers working to collect documents responsive to the WHoDB request. Ultimately, as I understand it, the decisions about responsiveness were made by my predecessor, Mr. Quinn, who, as is my practice, reviews these close questions whenever they arise and makes the ultimate judgment about them.
[Exhibits 166, 162, and C–66 follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 70 TO 74 HERE
Mr. APPERSON. Are you testifying that Mr. Quinn made the decision——
Mr. RUFF. I cannot——
Mr. APPERSON. Excuse me—not to produce this document?
Mr. RUFF. I obviously cannot tell you as to each document, who made which decision, because I was not there.
Mr. APPERSON. Have you asked the people in the White House Counsel's Office the question I am asking you now?
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Mr. RUFF. No, I have not. But may I suggest——
Mr. FATTAH. Could we allow the witness to answer the question?
Mr. RUFF. May I suggest that my colleague's recollection, that since she was there at the time, she may be able to shed some light on that.
Mr. APPERSON. I appreciate it.
Ms. Mills, do you know about this?
Ms. MILLS. Yes. At that time——
Mr. APPERSON. Let me ask the question of you.
Who made the decision in the White House Counsel's Office in 1996 not to produce this document, which had been provided to you pursuant to the request of the committee for production? Who made the decision in 1996 not to give it to Congress?
Ms. MILLS. Well, setting aside your premise, because actually this was one of the materials that were found by the Counsel's Office in going through archived materials——
Mr. APPERSON. When?
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Ms. MILLS. Back in September.
Mr. APPERSON. Of what year?
Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, can we allow the witness to answer the question?
Mr. BURTON. Let her answer the question.
Ms. MILLS. Thank you.
Mr. APPERSON. What year?
Ms. MILLS. In 1996, as—I don't know if you were familiar with the data base production at that time, but Mr. McIntosh at that time was seeking seven itemized materials related to the data base; and in connection with that, we sent out a directive on September 12th.
On September 18th, when documents were to be returned, Mr. McIntosh determined that he needed those documents that day. We began production at that time. We completed production within 4 days of over 27,000 documents——
Mr. MCINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, the witness is not answering the question as to who made the decision.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, let her answer the question, please.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Could I ask unanimous consent for additional time if she is going to stonewall and not answer the question as to who made the decision?
Mr. WAXMAN. I object. I object.
Mr. FATTAH. I have no objection that he has the time, but we should allow the witness to answer the question if we want to know the truth.
Mr. MCINTOSH. And that's all I ask for is time.
Mr. BARRETT. I understand that Mr. McIntosh is upset that he can't control the witness's answer, but if she could be allowed to continue.
Mr. BURTON. That's enough. That's enough.
The gentlelady will be allowed the time to answer the question, and we will allow the continuance to get to the conclusion of this. We have 10 minutes. Go ahead.
Ms. MILLS. We reviewed all the materials at that time and produced them to you. At that time, this is a part of the materials that I reviewed and then reviewed with Mr. Quinn, and made the determination that these materials were not responsive to the seven enumerated items that you all had listed in the August 2nd directive.
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Mr. APPERSON. So your testimony is that you looked at this document, which reflected ''WHoDB'' in bold letters at the top line of that document, and reflects people at the highest levels of the White House and the DNC sharing data bases, and you determined it was not responsive to a request for WHoDB material?
Ms. MILLS. Actually, I think you probably are familiar with the directive that actually asked for seven enumerated things. It doesn't ask for all documents related to WHoDB.
But setting that aside, I can't go back and re-create for you at this time what information I had that led us to conclude that this material was not responsive to any of the seven enumerated items. But at that time we sat down, we looked at these documents, I reviewed them with Mr. Quinn, and ultimately made the determination that those materials did not fall within the scope of the materials that were requested.
As you likely—are probably aware, there were many documents of a similar type to this that we produced that are equally—provide the same information with respect to the desire by many of the staff members to ensure that there were supporters of the President included in the data base, so that they might have an opportunity to invite and include them in events. The President and First Lady also were obviously interested in ensuring that they could have a data base that would provide them with an opportunity to include supporters at events, and that is something that——
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
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The Chair will stand in recess, and when we return, the minority will have their half-hour.
Mr. BURTON. The committee will reconvene. The gentleman from California is recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In my opening statement——
Mr. BURTON. Excuse me. I agreed that Mr. Ruff would have 1 minute to respond to some comments that were made earlier so, Mr. Ruff, if you want to be recognized, we will go to Mr. Waxman.
Mr. RUFF. Excuse me, Mr. Waxman, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. In your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, you raise the question about the importance of communications with the leaders of the People's Republic of China concerning cooperation with this committee's and other investigations I just wanted to inform the Chair that indeed this very issue of cooperation in the investigation, of course, had been raised previously by both the Vice President and the Secretary of State during their visits to Beijing, but more importantly for today's purposes, this was an issue that is the importance of cooperation with your investigation and others, that was raised directly by the President, with the President of the People's Republic during his recent visit. The administration intends to continue to press for further cooperation by the Chinese Government in these matters, and I wanted to put that on the record.
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Mr. BURTON. Just for clarification, did the President specifically ask Charlie Trie be returned to the United States for questioning?
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Chairman, I am not familiar with the details of the conversation, but I am advised he did specifically raise and press for full cooperation in all aspects of your and other investigations.
Mr. BURTON. But you do not know about Charlie Trie.
Mr. RUFF. I do not, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. In my opening statement, I noted that this hearing, like the first and only other campaign finance hearing we have held, duplicates hearings already held in the Senate, and if this committee is going to investigate campaign finance issues, they should look into matters not previously investigated by the Senate, such as the activities of nonprofit groups like Triad Management.
I do not want my skepticism about this hearing to be construed as an endorsement of the White Houses actions. The Presidency is the highest office in our country. Those who serve in the White House should be held to high standards. It is reasonable to expect the White House to comply fully and promptly to all reasonable congressional requests for information, including requests for videotapes of political coffees.
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Mr. Ruff, you testified, and I want to quote, our efforts have been diligent and our compliance exemplary, end quote. I do not doubt that your efforts may have been diligent. You have a small staff of talented lawyers who have been working very hard, but I would not call the failure to discover the videotapes exemplary.
In fact, I was extremely disappointed when I learned it had taken the White House so many months to produce the videotapes. In a word, I think it is inexcusable.
In a sense, Mr. Madigan, the Senate counsel, captured some of my thoughts when he asked you about a series of questions about Starbucks. And if I may, I would like to replay a portion of that Senate hearing, and you can see it on the monitor in front of you.
It would be helpful if we had sound.
Mr. BURTON. Run it back to the beginning, please. This will not be counted against the gentleman's time. The only thing worse than this is when the Super Bowl goes silent. We have an hour, I have been informed.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank God they don't have the Super Bowl repeated as we have the hearings repeated.
Mr. BURTON. While we are waiting for the sound, I would like to make one brief response to my colleague from California. It is my understanding Ms. Mills did not testify before the Senate, so that is some new information for our investigation.
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Mr. WAXMAN. A new witness. I don't know about new information.
While we are waiting, just for the record, both Lanny Breuer and Mr. Ruff testified in the Senate and Ms. Mills gave them a deposition in the Senate, but did not testify.
Mr. BURTON. That is correct.
Would it be possible, Mr. Waxman, for you to come back to this part of your testimony or your statement?
Mr. WAXMAN. I can't understand why we can't master the technology to run a videotape. You turn it louder. You have got the video. It is running, so, therefore, the sound, audio, has to be turned up.
Mr. RUFF. I may remember what I said.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, have you hired lip readers?
Mr. BURTON. Let me think about that.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I would have liked everyone to have seen this videotape, because it encompassed some of the very same questions that have been asked already, and in that videotape, Mr. Ruff, it was the questioning of you.
Mr. RUFF. Yes.
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Mr. WAXMAN. You were asked whether you would go to the President or the CEO of a company if you were trying to get information to comply with the request for information. And as I understand your answer, you said you would not.
Mr. RUFF. I think the way it played out was this, Congressman Waxman. Mr. Madigan was pressing to learn how we go about checking to make sure we got everything that is responsive, and we, of course, had talked about sending the directive out to WHCA, and then he asked——
Mr. WAXMAN. WHCA is the White House.
Mr. RUFF. Communications Agency that did the taping and, of course, how we lost relevant pages, as we have often been told. He then asked, well, did you go to see the President, and I think my response was, something along the lines of, if you were conducting a document search in Starbucks, you wouldn't go talk to the CEO about where those documents were. I think that was the exchange to which you had reference.
Mr. WAXMAN. And with that kind of an answer, I presume that when you start a document search, you don't go to the President of the United States because you would be taking up his time at every request for information.
Mr. RUFF. I think that is a fair assessment, yes.
Mr. WAXMAN. What I don't fully understand is why you or your staff didn't talk with enough people close to the President to know the coffees had been videotaped. Can you explain why you didn't learn about the videotapes earlier?
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Mr. RUFF. Well, I think it is difficult to look back over the last several months and respond to that question, simply because the videotapes have taken on such an enormous aspect in the last month or so, and, quite rightly, they have.
When we send out a directive asking for information in all its forms, computerized and every other, and we get back a specific response from the agency involved, as we did in this case, as we do from all the people to whom we send this directive, and we get computerized information and photographs and e-mails, and everything else, we have no reason at that point to pick out the videotape process or the coffees as a special item for inquiry, and we didn't really have that until August when Mr. Imbroscio began his inquiry into the matter.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you send out a directive to the White House Communications Agency requesting information that would have included videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. We sent the directive of April 28 to all the key agencies, including the White House Military Office, which is the parent agency of the White House Communications Agency, and as you know from testimony, Congressman Waxman, they in turn sent that directive to WHCA, and one page didn't make it off the fax machine.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Ruff, I am going to tell you that I would have hoped you would have done more than this to find the tapes, and I wish that you had asked people who participated in the coffees what kind of information existed about those coffees, and perhaps if you had taken a more active approach, you would have learned about the videotapes earlier. This could have saved you, the President, and everybody, in general, a lot of embarrassment.
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Mr. RUFF. I will second your wish that I had done just that, if only to have avoided the last 5 weeks of turmoil.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, for the reasons I indicated to you, I wish you had done a better job of locating the videotapes, plus I am critical of your efforts.
Mr. RUFF. I understand.
Mr. WAXMAN. But there is a big difference between making a mistake and deliberately trying to obstruct a congressional investigation or deliberately tampering with the evidence. The chairman and other Republican members of the committee have gone much further in their criticism than I have. The chairman said on national television that he thought the tapes had been intentionally cutoff and altered.
This would have been a deliberate obstruction of justice. Other Republican Members have also raised allegations of obstruction of justice. In fact, Mr. Barr, a member of this committee, sent a letter to me and other Members of the House this week that said articles of impeachment should be filed against the President.
Now, these are very serious charges. If they are true, there should be serious consequences for the White House, but if they are false or unsubstantiated, they represent partisanship at its worst. Serious investigators don't throw around unsubstantiated charges, but those conducting a partisan witch hunt do.
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This issue of obstruction of justice was addressed in the Senate and we have another videotape and I want to see if the sound is working so we can show that videotape. That was an inquiry by Mr. Baron, the minority counsel, where I thought he cut right to the issue. Has anybody contacted Ms. Ros-Lehtinen to see if we can get the sound working, because she was very successful last week?
Mr. BURTON. We have a technician that is on his way to get to this. I apologize, once again, somebody must have kicked a wire loose or something.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, let me read from the testimony in the Senate.
Mr. BARON. Mr. Imbroscio, have you ever been told or has it ever been suggested to you directly or indirectly or in some implicit way to conceal a document or any other material from being produced?
Mr. IMBROSCIO. One-hundred percent, absolutely not.
Mr. BARON. Are you aware of anybody else within the White House attempting to conceal or fail to produce a document that was responsive to requests?
Mr. IMBROSCIO. Certainly not, and if I were, I would probably go immediately to Mr. Ruff.
Mr. BARON. With regard to the videotapes, are you aware of anybody attempting to conceal, alter, or in any way hinder the production of the videotapes?
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Mr. IMBROSCIO. Certainly not.
Those were the statements given, under oath, before the Senate Committee. Mr. Ruff, I would like to ask you the same questions Mr. Baron asked one of your lawyers.
First, have you ever been told or has it ever been suggested to you directly or indirectly or in some implicit way to conceal a document or any other material from being produced?
Mr. RUFF. I can't say it better than Mike Imbroscio did, 100 percent, absolutely not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Are you aware of anybody else in the White House attempting to conceal or fail to produce a document that was responsive to a request?
Mr. RUFF. Absolutely not.
Mr. WAXMAN. With regard to the videotapes, are you aware of anybody attempting to conceal, alter, or in any way hinder the production of the videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. I am not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Ruff, are you aware that this committee has taken the deposition of Colonel Joseph Simmons, the commander of the White House Communications Agency, Colonel Alan Simmons, who heads the White House Military Office, which oversees the White House Communications Agency and Steven Smith, Chief of Operations of the White House Communications Agency?
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Mr. RUFF. I am aware their depositions were taken, yes, sir.
Mr. WAXMAN. Each of these witnesses are nonpartisan White House employees. They have distinguished military records. They are all in the chain of command responsible for those videotapes. Each of them was asked whether they were aware of any evidence of tampering or altering those tapes, and do you know what they told this committee?
Mr. RUFF. I know only in summary that they absolutely deny any knowledge of such tampering.
Mr. WAXMAN. They all testified under oath that there was no alteration of those videotapes. Mr. Chairman, I wrote to you a letter last week asking you to substantiate your accusations of tampering, and I said you should either come forward with evidence supporting these allegations or you should apologize to the President, Mr. Ruff, and to everyone else responsible for the tapes at the White House.
Unfortunately, you didn't respond to that letter, but in light of the testimony in the Senate, given under oath by people who are not even partisans, who work at the White House, and the testimony received today, I would like to yield to you if you want to retract that accusation.
Mr. BURTON. If the gentleman would yield, the Justice Department, the Senate committee and our committee are going to be examining the tapes if it hasn't been done already by expert technicians to make sure that the tapes were intact and were not at all altered in any way. What I said on national television, I believe it was on Face the Nation, is I thought there was a real possibility that they may have been altered. I made no categorical statement they were altered.
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Mr. WAXMAN. On what basis did you think there was a real possibility?
Mr. BURTON. I will be glad to restate what I said on Face the Nation.
Mr. WAXMAN. I heard what you said. In fact, we even have the videotape, but we wouldn't get the sound from that one either.
Mr. BURTON. I can get you sound.
Mr. WAXMAN. You said there may be alteration of those tapes. You made the statement. Do you have any basis for it?
Mr. BURTON. The basis we have is there were interruptions, there were tapes that had no sound, there were tapes that were broken in the middle and have information that may have been relevant was left out and we are trying to find out if that was a deliberate attempt to keep information from the committee or if it wasn't. The fact of the matter is, we are investigating that right now, and if we find no attempt to alter the tapes, then we will so state.
Mr. WAXMAN. The only thing I can say is Mr. Ginsberg also testified in the Senate who said there was no alteration of the tapes.
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Mr. BURTON. If the gentleman will yield, I believe they said to the best of their knowledge.
Mr. WAXMAN. I am reclaiming my time. To the best of your knowledge, Mr. Chairman, you had no evidence. You were making a guess, and when you make a guess, and you are the man leading the investigation, that is what ends up in the headline the next day, and often the truth never catches up with the accusation, and I think that that is not a responsible way for an investigative committee to be proceeding.
Now, we have additional time and I want to yield to members of the committee, and I promised that I would yield to—well, Mr. Sanders, I know I promised, let me yield to him a minute or two and see if we have time for others.
Mr. SANDERS. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I will get into greater discussion later on. It seems to me one of the problems we have had in the whole hearing is that the focus of attention has only been on the White House.
Now, I think we should probe as deeply as we can, all of the problems, and there are many associated with the President's fund-raising, no argument from me, but I think that the reason that these hearings have not captured the interest of the American people is there is nobody in America, maybe with the exception of a few people on that side of the aisle, who think campaign finance problems are limited to the White House.
Let me quote, if I might, it doesn't have to go very far, today's newspaper. USA Today, quote, ''National Republican organizations sank $5 million into their sweep of Tuesday's elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, more than five times what Democrats invested.''
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Next article, today's paper, Wall Street Journal, quote, After months of intraparty second guessing, Tuesday's elections became a triumph to gladden Republican hearts and perhaps also to stiffen their spines against the prospect of sweeping campaign finance overall, end of quote. In other words, they raised five times more money, they won the elections and they are saying, hey, who needs campaign finance reform.
Mr. Chairman, I would hope very much that we might hold some hearings on that issue. And the second point I would like to make with that regard is an article in Roll Call, October 30, just last week. The thrust of the articles are Democrats are very upset, because corporate America, the largest corporations in this country, are contributing more money to the Republican party than they are to the Democratic party, it is a great concern to the Democrats. AT&T, American International Group, Anheuser-Busch, are putting millions of dollars in soft money, and the Democrats are upset the Republicans are getting more.
I would hope very much that we can have a hearing which I think really would capture the attention of the American people if we brought corporate America in here and asked them why they are contributing millions of dollars to both political parties, and what they expect to get from that. It is no secret that the rich get richer, the middle class is shrinking, working people have seen a decline in their standard of living, and I think the American people understand that that is directly related to the role that corporate America and big money have on campaign finance.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Sanders. I want to yield to some of the other Members. I thought you had some good points.
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Mr. Lantos, 2 minutes.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first commend Mr. Ruff and Ms. Mills for an outstanding job conducted in a most professional manner. We don't know each other. This is the first in my life I have seen you, but on behalf of the committee, I want to express our apologies to you, because you have been harassed, incessantly, and in an utterly irresponsible fashion and there as one member of this committee, I want you to know how sorry I am and how fully you do not deserve this.
Now, I want to bring a bit of reality check to this hearing because to call this trivial pursuit is an insult to other trivial pursuits. This is much worse than that. This is a reckless and irresponsible and hypocritical attempt to create an impression that highly professional and dedicated public servants, who have been doing their jobs, have somehow, illegally, attempted to confuse and cloud and obfuscate an issue.
I would like to remind our Members that 10 years ago, this week, in November 1987, at the conclusion of the Iran-Contra hearings, some of the most respected Members of this body, some of them no longer alive, future Speaker of the House, Tom Foley; future Secretary of Defense at that time, Les Aspin; chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the Iran-Contra hearings, Peter Rodino, issued a report concerning the Reagan White House's noncompliance with requests.
I want to read just one paragraph. Because of President Reagan's personal promise that the executive branch would fully cooperate with the committees in their investigation, the committees did not issue subpoenas to any person or agency of the executive branch. However, the White House and a number of executive agencies, either belatedly produced or withheld information requested by the committees. This delayed production, nonproduction, and noncompliance with committee requests, made witness interviews difficult, made it necessary that some witnesses be reinterviewed, and complicated the committee's preparation for public hearings.
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Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that this report be made a part of the record.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 106 TO 108 HERE
Mr. LANTOS. Now, it is important for us, who are so self-absorbed in our own importance in this particular trivial pursuit, to recognize that there is a whole world out there. Southeast-Asian economies are crumbling, Iraq is preparing weapons of mass destruction, there is a new palace revolution within the Kremlin, and as we speak, 6 million political prisoners in China are suffering fate that most people in this country cannot even comprehend.
So I would like to call on you, Mr. Chairman, to follow the example of Senator Thompson, who recognized that there is nothing there, throw in the towel and call off the investigation. What we are witnessing is an irresponsible and reckless partisan political theater of the absurd, with self righteousness oozing, oozing from the pours of this committee, at a time when the country is, in fact, in need of dealing with serious domestic and international issues.
Last night, as we were here until past 11 voting, some of us went into the Cloakroom and watched Ken Burns' Masterpiece, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and it sort of restored one's faith in both the past and future of this country. But, frankly, I couldn't care less whether these breathless movies showing Sweet 'N Low being put into a coffee at a White House gathering, whether it is released Tuesday or Wednesday or next Friday afternoon, and this pathetic attempt to make it appear that we are dealing with issues of major import, matters of deep concern for the United States, when military officers are testifying that nobody altered these films, that mistakes were made in releasing them late, never having made a mistake in my life, I really have no sympathy for people who make mistakes in the White House or elsewhere, but I just think it is important to wake up and realize that there are real issues to be dealt with, and this trivial pursuit needs to come to an end.
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Campaign fund-raising reform is long overdue, the Republicans are as guilty as the Democrats of historic mistakes and we better move on to some real issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.
Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much. Just as a point, I think we have all seen it in Pennsylvania. We call it Monday morning quarterbacking, and, of course, we can all outguess Joe Paterno, particularly if he loses. It seems to me we have had a perfect example here today where even the simplest of modern technology goofs up on three occasions.
We are incapable of providing just the sound to evidential documents that we wanted to be presented to the witnesses and the committee. And I have not heard a cry for an investigation of miscarriage of justice or an attempt to avoid proper pursuits of the same. I think that Mr. Lantos has adequately summed up what we are all about, or should be about. But Mr. Ruff, I would like to follow through, particularly on this question of the tapes.
As I understand it, and I want to make sure the American people that are watching this, the explanation is that there was not a protocol until April 10 of this year in which any documents were supplied by the White House to this committee; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. There were some documents supplied before that time, but not really in any flow until we had that arrangement with the committee; that is correct.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. And the protocol we would be talking about for the average American out there is the system or process under which it would operate.
Mr. RUFF. That is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. There was an understanding for protection and security, that those documents would not be misused, abused or inadvertently leaked or intentionally leaked; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. That is correct, sir.
Mr. KANJORSKI. We are dealing with a period that moves from April, when the documents were begun to be released. As I understand it, the White House encompasses about 19 offices in the Executive Office of the White House; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. Actually, more offices than that, depending on how you count. In the neighborhood of 40.
Mr. KANJORSKI. What now is the breakdown? I think when I was Chair of the committee that had jurisdiction over the White House, we have about 22 or 23 offices now.
Mr. RUFF. More than that, actually.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. And as I understand it, there are more than 2,500 employees in the White House engaged in various pursuits.
Mr. RUFF. That is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. And as I understand it, and I am being facetious, you were given $6 million in the Counsel's Office to respond. We appropriated that money, did we not?
Mr. RUFF. I have been searching for the $6 million. I am sure it is there somewhere.
Mr. KANJORSKI. In reality, you have in the President Counsel Office, yourself, a deputy and several assistants, four or five assistants?
Mr. RUFF. We have a total of 17 lawyers, about half of whom work on noninvestigative matters, the real business of the office.
Mr. KANJORSKI. And the Congress has not seen fit to give you additional appropriations so you could increase that staff, even though you have three intensive examinations going on, one by the Senate, one by the House committee we are at now, and one by the Justice Department; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. That is correct, sir.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. And in the course of this period of time, is it correct that you have had over 300 subpoenas to which to respond?
Mr. RUFF. We have had 300 requests or so from this committee alone, plus about the same from the Senate, and several hundred from other bodies.
Mr. KANJORSKI. OK. So we are talking about a receipt of maybe seven to eight subpoenas per working day, since April.
Mr. RUFF. Well, I haven't tried the division, but certainly if you divide the 1,100 or so requests we have got into the intervening days, certainly on work days; that is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. I understand in this committee alone you provided us with more than 110,000 documents.
Mr. RUFF. That is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. All of which had to be found, read, and determined whether or not they violated national security or were subject to executive privilege?
Mr. RUFF. That is correct, Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Kanjorski, will you yield to me just to make one point?
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Mr. KANJORSKI. Certainly, Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. You have 17 people.
Mr. RUFF. We have 17 lawyers total, Congressman Waxman. Ms. Mills, myself and Mr. Lindsey, are the three headquarters lawyers, and then we have about a—half our lawyers work on investigations, about seven, and another seven to work on noninvestigative matters.
Mr. WAXMAN. In this committee alone, we have 60 people investigating you.
Mr. RUFF. I would have guessed more, given their presence, but I will take your word for it.
Mr. WAXMAN. Sometimes they ask the same questions over again. And I must say, 60 people working on the investigation in this committee, it hasn't been a model of efficiency.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Let us attack just that. This committee has already issued six subpoenas to misidentified Americans that had nothing to do or were not intended to be subpoenaed. We brought the bank records in of people, examined their bank records, when they had absolutely no relationship to it, so with our 60 employees and all our lawyers, and all the coordination between the House and the Senate side and whoever else, I think there are probably some nonprofit organizations out there that are even providing soft support, they have made significant errors, it could border, if you were not fair-minded, to say men make mistakes and sometimes things don't pursue a degree of incompetence. As a matter of fact, as I recall, about 2 months ago, there was a chief counsel on the majority side, who resigned because of incompetence and political activity on the part of the majority.
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Have you had any of your attorneys at the White House resign because they felt you were politicizing the office or that the office was acting in an incompetent manner?
Mr. RUFF. No, sir.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Kanjorski, I am going to yield some time to Mr. Fattah, who has been here as well, and we will have more time to go back and forth.
Mr. Fattah.
Mr. FATTAH. Let me thank the ranking member.
I guess I want to get at two issues as quickly as I can and as concisely as I can. The President is at, on one hand, the most successful politician of his generation, and the most successful Democrat, in at least two, maybe three decades, having won the White House twice. So on one hand we have a very successful politician, and on the other hand, as best as I can determine it, between Whitewater and Filegate and Travelgate and now the campaign finance investigation, he is also—somewhere around 55 million or so being spent on investigating his activities, the most investigated person, ever in the history of this country.
Would that be a correct statement, Mr. Ruff?
Mr. RUFF. I am not sure that my history is good enough, but certainly there are more investigations than one would care to contemplate.
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Mr. FATTAH. What I mean is by most investigated, I mean that no one has ever had that much resources spent analyzing, investigating his every activity, meetings, phone calls, his wife's activities, even down to Socks the cat, I think there have been allegations of some type of wrongdoing. And through it all, there has not been anything that has come of these investigations, and the Senate, after spending millions of dollars, has concluded its campaign finance investigation, and today we spent a long time talking about videotapes, the suggestion being there was an obstruction of justice and the reality is there is nothing on the videotapes that is incriminating in any way, shape or form, as best I have been able to determine.
Do you have some contrary determination about that?
Mr. RUFF. I think, quite so, Congressman Fattah, the videotapes of the coffees are entirely consistent with the descriptions previously given of those events and certainly reveal no improper activity.
Mr. FATTAH. So you have been brought over here with your deputy to be questioned about obstructing the delivery of incriminating evidence, supposedly, which is not incriminating at all.
Mr. RUFF. I think that is fair.
Mr. FATTAH. Now there was an election that took place in 1996 and one that took place in 1992, and I think that maybe the biggest offense of Bill Clinton is that he beat the Republicans, but there is another point I would like to make about those elections, is that there was some similarities between the two campaigns, the Republican party's campaign and Democratic party campaign. Both campaigns used soft money for issue advocacy and other purposes, and both campaigns received foreign contributions that they had to return in the millions of dollars, and there are some differences in the two campaigns. The Dole campaign is the only one of the two in which there have now been two successful criminal prosecutions, one of a campaign chair, who was fined some $6 or $8 million, I can't recall, and put under house arrest for laundering money through a Hong Kong bank, and we now have a Pennsylvania company that has pled guilty to a conduit of hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Republican campaign coffers.
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Have there been, to your knowledge, any successful prosecution of any official in the Clinton campaign having to do with conduit payments?
Mr. RUFF. No, sir.
Mr. FATTAH. Have there been any charges made, specific criminal charges, to your knowledge, of the President or anyone else, being involved in criminal activity, conduit campaign contributions?
Mr. RUFF. Not to my knowledge, Congressman.
Mr. FATTAH. So there is a distinction between the two campaigns, in that one has been burdened by successful prosecutions of illegalities, and the other, at best, what we have had is a Senate investigation, which has concluded with nothing but thin air. And I think that it is important, as we deal with this issue, that we try to put this in its own perspective because I assume your office has other responsibilities, as the counsel to the White House.
Mr. RUFF. I would like to think so, Congressman, yes.
Mr. FATTAH. I have no idea, since I am not a lawyer and I never worked in the White House Counsel's Office, would you in a bullet form tell us about some of the other responsibilities that you have as counsel to the White House?
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Mr. RUFF. Well, my principal responsibility, of course, is to try to advise the President on a whole range of legal matters arising out of legislation, the work of this body, and others. We are responsible for advising the President concerning the selection of judges, certainly one of the most important functions the President has; we serve as ethics counsel to all White House employees.
Mr. FATTAH. I would assume there are some national security issues that you have to deal with?
Mr. RUFF. We, together with the National Security Council legal advisors, work on a number of those matters.
Mr. FATTAH. Let me just conclude because I know the ranking member has a limited amount of time, but the real crime that may have been committed is that this White House, this administration, notwithstanding its political success, has been burdened, as you have already illustrated, by a whole range of investigations. My colleague, Mr. Kanjorski, said we have one investigation here in the House. There are other committees in the House that are issuing subpoenas and making requests around other matters, and I remember the Speaker saying that once the Republicans took over they were going to have every committee of the Congress be an investigatory committee and they will have subpoenas flying all over the place. I think that one possibility is that the biggest crime that has been committed here is that this administration is, even though it is elected by the people of the country twice now, is being impeded from carrying out its policy objectives by this continuing assault, within, after all of it, after tens of millions of dollars being spent, no one has even come close to being able to bring any type of a criminal activity or improper activity upon the President or saying that he had any knowledge thereof. So I want to thank you for your appearance here and I want to thank the ranking member for yielding to me.
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Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. I would like to just make a couple of clarifying comments before I yield to Mr. McIntosh for his 10 minutes.
First of all, Senator Thompson wanted more time. In fact, I think he said when he concluded his hearings that, in effect, the White House had run out the clock and he thought setting time constraints on him was probably, in retrospect, the wrong thing to do because they had more they had to look into.
Second, it was two and not six people to whom we sent erroneous subpoenas. Those records that we received were returned without us reviewing them. Obviously, when you send out 300 or 400 subpoenas, sometimes there is a mistake made, but we made sure they were not violated in any way because those records were returned without review.
Finally, there are 62-plus people that we have been investigating and asking for information on the Democrat side who have taken the fifth amendment or fled the country, none on the Republican side. That is the reason why the preponderance of effort in the investigation has been on the Democrat side. That is not to say that we are not going to investigate Republican alleged illegal activity. We are. When you have 62 people taking the fifth amendment or fleeing the country, you have to look into that.
Finally, I want to ask Mr. Ruff one quick question. Has anybody on my staff, on the majority side, harassed you in any way?
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Chairman, we are engaged, I believe, in good, hard fought occasionally, professional dealings with you and your staff. As I indicated at the beginning of my comments today, I have always appreciated the candor with which you and I have dealt with each other, and I appreciate the candor with which Mr. Bennett and I deal with each other. We do not always agree, almost never agree, but I have always felt our relationships to be professional. I feel burdened because you have asked for a lot of stuff from us, but our relations, as I said, I viewed as professional, occasionally contentious but professional.
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Mr. BURTON. But not harassed?
Mr. RUFF. No, sir.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. McIntosh.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, let me start with an inquiry. Do you want to stop for the vote, first?
Mr. BURTON. If you would like, Mr. McIntosh, we can break for the vote and come back and then you can start when we come back.
Mr. MCINTOSH. We have 10 minutes. I am happy to do it.
Mr. BURTON. We have the time.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Good afternoon, Mr. Ruff and Ms. Mills. Let me pick up where we left off on the WhoDB question. And, Ms. Mills, in addition to you and Mr. Quinn, were there any other individuals who were involved in the decision to withhold the handwritten notes and the other documents in the fall of 1996.
Ms. MILLS. In the fall of 1996, given the short timeframe in which we had to review the materials, we went about asking those members of our office who had time that weekend to come in to help go through all the different materials that had been collected. I couldn't tell you how many of those different people might have had occasion to review this document, but what we did try and do, once we got to this particular document and some others, is review them carefully and make a determination based on the criteria you outlined that you were looking for and make a determination regarding its responsiveness.
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Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. And do you recall which weekend that was?
Ms. MILLS. I believe, actually, we sent out our request on the 12th. I believe on the 18th is when we had our directive return date for the documents, so we had a very quick turnaround for the return date. I believe it was on the 18th or 19th that you sought the materials from us and we started producing them around that time. That is my best recollection.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Was that decision ever revisited?
Ms. MILLS. The decision to produce documents to you?
Mr. MCINTOSH. The particular ones that we were talking about earlier, the handwritten memo and the other documents that Mr. Ruff said?
Ms. MILLS. They were placed in a file and at the time when I concluded handling this matter I transferred them to another attorney who was handling them. I don't believe she had occasion to re-review those materials until sometime recently in response to additional requests that you have been posing.
Mr. MCINTOSH. You and Mr. Quinn didn't revisit that decision?
Ms. MILLS. At that time we didn't revisit because we didn't have any new requests from you; that is correct.
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Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, let me point out we had an outstanding request for all of the documents. Let me ask you about some individuals to see if you remember whether they were involved in that initial decision. There was Mr. Quinn. Were any of the individuals listed in the handwritten document, there is Erskine, which I presume is Erskine Bowles, was he consulted about the document?
Ms. MILLS. No, these are—these were internal notes of a particular staff member so he was not consulted with regard to this document, this was somebody's notes.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Mr. Bowles was not consulted?
Ms. MILLS. Correct.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Do you know whose notes these were?
Ms. MILLS. It is my understanding they are Brian Bailey's notes.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Was Mr. Bailey consulted?
Ms. MILLS. I don't know if he was consulted at that time or not.
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Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. Do you know—Harold is listed. Was Harold Ickes consulted?
Ms. MILLS. I don't believe he would have been. These would have been Mr. Bailey's internal notes, so I don't believe we would have consulted him, but I am doing my best to recall from over a year ago.
Mr. MCINTOSH. I understand. How about Deborah DeLee, would she have been consulted?
Ms. MILLS. No.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Or Bobby Watson?
Ms. MILLS. No.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. And then the other one, I have to ask, was the POTUS consulted?
Ms. MILLS. No.
Mr. MCINTOSH. The President?
Ms. MILLS. No.
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Mr. MCINTOSH. Who is Brian Bailey again?
Ms. MILLS. Brian Bailey was at that time serving in, I believe, the Deputy Chief of Staff 's Office. He was an assistant in that office.
Mr. MCINTOSH. So he was the deputy to which deputy?
Ms. MILLS. I don't know that he was a deputy to a deputy.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK.
Ms. MILLS. I actually don't know what his official title was. He was one of the staff members in the Deputy Chief of Staff 's Office.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Forgive me if I forget the organizational chart. Was Mr. Ickes and Mr. Bowles, both of them were deputies? Did he work with one or the other?
Ms. MILLS. I believe both of them were deputies at the time Mr. Bailey was working in the White House, I believe that is correct. I believe at that time he was working with Mr. Bowles, but that is my best understanding.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. Thank you. Let me ask you this. To get the sequence correct, on that weekend when the documents were reviewed, Mr. Ruff indicated in his letter they were then put in the folder. That was your job, to put them in the folder and then keep custody of the documents?
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Ms. MILLS. Yes, at the end of what I was doing is I created a working file, a file of other materials that might need to be reviewed or issues that needed to be handled in that file. When I was transferring the matter, that file was transferred.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. And who was the attorney to whom the documents were then transferred?
Ms. MILLS. Miss Sally Paxton.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Miss Paxton. Did you review with her at that time the contents of the folder of documents that you had deemed were not relevant?
Ms. MILLS. I don't believe I reviewed the contents of the folder. I believe I might have reviewed my working file with her, in other words, the different files that were in my working file, but I don't believe or at least I don't recall as I sit here right now going through those documents with her.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. Approximately when did you give Miss Paxton the files?
Ms. MILLS. I believe it would have been sometime in December.
Mr. MCINTOSH. December.
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Ms. MILLS. Of 1996.
Mr. MCINTOSH. And, again, you gave them to her because you were being reassigned to different duties, or what was the reason you gave them.
Ms. MILLS. There were a lot of different matters I was also starting to handle, and so we were transitioning different matters to different people. This was one of the matters that Miss Paxton had the fortune to be transferred to her.
Mr. MCINTOSH. We have enjoyed working with her, too, actually.
We are talking about the WHoDB matter generally, or—just to be clear, the matter that was being transferred to her was the WHoDB investigation and the responses to our subcommittee?
Ms. MILLS. Correct.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. Let me ask you, Mr. Ruff, could you tell me, and I want to point everybody's attention to a letter that you wrote to me on May 20, and it is tab 9 in the book of documents about the WHoDB investigation, and for my colleagues, it is in the green folder, the May 22 letter, from Mr. Ruff to me.
You indicate there, and we disagreed at the time, but in fairness to you, you stated there was no evidence that in this memorandum or anywhere else that WHoDB was planned to be used for political purposes.
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Now we have new evidence that you tell me in your October 28 letter was newly—you became newly aware of. It strikes me that this new evidence, whether or not it is dispositive, is evidence that a discussion of an illegal activity, using a Government data base to share information with a political campaign is now before us.
Do you disagree with that, and I don't want to hold you to the May 22nd letter?
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 75 TO 76 HERE
Mr. RUFF. First of all, I disagree with your characterization. I would not now and hope never to hold myself out as an expert on the intricacies of WHoDB and all its many iterations, but as I understand the situation, there is a distinction, and I cannot tell what is reflected in this memorandum, because I have not discussed it with anybody, between making data bases compatible so that information can be used and making federally funded assets available for political purposes. Now we may disagree about where on that spectrum this note or any other piece of evidence falls, but I know of nothing to suggest a misuse of Government assets for political purposes.
Mr. MCINTOSH. I must say, Mr. Ruff, when the notion of sharing data comes up, that that is a nongovernmental function of a Government asset and so a distinction that doesn't carry the difference.
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I am deeply concerned by this and will want to continue to ask all of you about questions on custody of this document, but for now let me yield back the balance of my time to the chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time.
The Chair will stand in recess. We have three votes on the floor, on H.R. 188. We will return just as quickly as possible.
[The prepared statement of Hon. David M. McIntosh follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 77 HERE
Mr. BURTON. The committee will come to order.
Mr. Waxman, your side is recognized for 10 minutes for whomever you designate.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Barrett.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Barrett is recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. BARRETT. I don't really want to use a lot of time. I just have a couple of observations and then a couple of questions.
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One of the observations I had was, earlier the chairman—you referred to the number of witnesses who had given testimony who have not come forth to testify and pointed out, quite correctly, that all those who have not testified are associated with the Democrats. You said that there was zero on the Republican side, which I assume is pretty accurate, given the fact that you haven't asked any Republicans to testify.
Mr. WAXMAN. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BARRETT. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. WAXMAN. I can't quite hear you. I don't think the sound system is working.
Mr. BARRETT. I will try this. Is that a little better?
Mr. WAXMAN. I can hear you because I can hear your voice, but it sounds like the sound system——
Mr. BARRETT. I will speak a little louder into the microphone, too.
But I think it is accurate to say that if no subpoenas are given to the Republican side, you are not going to have any Republicans refuse to testify. You can turn that around and say that not a single Republican has agreed to come forth to testify, which would also be factually accurate. So I think we have to sort of keep a perspective of what we are doing here.
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Mr. Ruff, I have what has been labeled as exhibit 64. I don't know if you can grab that document, but it is the handwritten notes that we saw on the television screen here.
Mr. RUFF. Is this what we were discussing with Congressman McIntosh?
Mr. BARRETT. No—I think Mr. McIntosh did have that on the screen, yes. I don't know whose notes they are, but they are handwritten notes.
My question—and maybe you don't even have to look at it—when you produced this document, is it accurate to say that the White House produced this document?
Mr. RUFF. Yes. If we are discussing the notes relating to WhoDB, when we found the document—I guess it was last week; I have lost track of my weeks—I sent it along with some others to Chairman McIntosh, explaining the circumstances under which it had been discovered.
Mr. BARRETT. OK. So it was not something that was refused? It may have been late, it may not have come as quickly as they wanted, but this is something that was produced by the White House; is that right?
Mr. RUFF. The subcommittee now has it, that's correct.
Mr. BARRETT. Again, this may be material that's already been gone over here, but it would be helpful for me. To date, roughly how many documents have been produced by the White House?
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Mr. RUFF. I am not sure I can break it into documents, but we are somewhere north of 110,000 pages of stuff.
Mr. BARRETT. 110,000 pages of stuff?
Mr. WAXMAN. Would the gentleman yield for a second?
This PA system doesn't seem to be working. Mine does. This one—not either.
Mr. RUFF. Yours is breaking up, too.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, it is your committee.
Mr. RUFF. Can we call the White House staff?
Mr. WAXMAN. Your television doesn't produce sound. Your sound system produces staccato. Is this a plot or what are we to make of it?
Mr. BURTON. I think the sound——
Mr. WAXMAN. The Senate system worked.
Mr. BURTON. I think that we have got static here. We need to change that. Have we called anybody over here to take a look at this system?
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The VCR is now fixed. So now we can hear on the TV, but we can't hear each other.
Mr. KANJORSKI. The Otis elevator technician has been in.
Mr. BURTON. Call and get a technician over here as quickly as possible and find out what is wrong with the microphones.
Mr. BARRETT. Do you want me to proceed, Mr. Chairman, or shall we wait?
Mr. BURTON. I think that we can figure out what you are saying, and if you want to proceed, we can do that.
Mr. BARRETT. I would be more than happy to proceed.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you.
Mr. BARRETT. I don't have a lot.
Again, 110,000 pages have been produced. Do you have a feel for exactly how many pages we are fighting over that have not been produced or that mistakes were made on out of those 110,000?
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Mr. RUFF. I am not sure. I think it is fair to say, Congressman, that with very few and very minor remaining exceptions, all of which the committee staff is aware of, we are in essence in compliance with the outstanding subpoenas and requests.
Mr. BARRETT. Of the 110,000 pages, how many mistakes were made? What percentage would you attribute to mistakes?
Mr. RUFF. Well, of course, there is no question that the videotape issue is—looms largest as our single biggest failure to find what we could have found. I think, other than that, what we have done is, by and large, to have found bits and pieces from time to time that should have been found earlier; but the vast bulk of what has been produced has been produced in a regular and, I believe, timely fashion.
Mr. BARRETT. From your perspective, has the videotape issue been pretty much resolved?
Mr. RUFF. I certainly hope it has, Congressman. I think the record is so clear at this point about the circumstances under which it was first not found and then found, I hope there is very little dispute there. We are in the process even now of talking with the committee about any other tapes they may be interested in looking at, but I certainly hope the general issue is close to being put to rest.
Mr. BARRETT. OK. Thank you. The reason I raise the 110,000 pages and the percentage of pages that were either erroneously or maliciously, if one wants to argue that, mistaken, is because of the issue that was raised a little earlier, that I think is important to raise again, and that is the woman who lives in Congressman Moran's district who received a subpoena for her bank records.
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This is the woman, as this committee knows, who was applying for American citizenship. Her sin apparently, according to this committee, is that she has an Asian American background, and for that reason her bank records were subpoenaed.
That was a mistake. The Republican party recognizes it was a mistake. I think that they have apologized, rightly so. But I think, as a percentage—and again my understanding is the chairman mentioned that there were maybe 600 subpoenas issued and there were 2 subpoenas that were erroneously issued—6 subpoenas that were erroneously issued. That's a 1 percent error rate.
If we are talking about 110,000 pages of documents that are produced—that have been produced, if we are looking at a 1 percent error rate, you have got about 1,100 pages you can screw up before I think we are on equal ground with the Republicans in this.
And again, I look at what happened to that woman, a woman who is waiting for American citizenship and is served with a subpoena to look at her bank records, and what is her reaction? If it were me, my reaction would be to freak out, wondering what in God's name have I done wrong?
As it turns out, she was not from a politically active family. In fact, her husband's last contribution was in 1986 when he gave $50. I think he was a Republican at that time.
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But she is not from a politically active family. But she is a victim, she is a victim of this investigation for the simple reason that she has an Asian-American last name.
And I think that if we are going to point fingers, I think that we should be pointing them equally. And I think that there was a mistake that was made, and I will grant the majority party that there are going to be mistakes made. But I think that there is a two-way street here, and it seems somewhat ironic to me that when the White House makes a mistake, and you have made a mistake—you should have produced those documents earlier.
When there is a mistake made by the Democratic administration, what do we do? We have 2 days of hearings. When there is a mistake made by the Republican side, oops.
No further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. We have additional time. Do any other members on this side of the aisle wish to ask questions?
Mr. FATTAH. Yes.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Fattah.
Mr. FATTAH. Thank you very much.
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One of the allegations that has been bandied about in terms of the President's efforts at fund-raising in the last election was that he hosted supporters of his in the White House, which is the subject of the discussion about the videotapes.
Now, we know that he is not the only President that has done this. In fact, we have seen, at least on videotape, President Reagan hosting them. The videotapes that were supplied by the White House, there are other videotapes that the Senate Democrats wanted to receive from the Bush Library and from the Reagan Library, and neither wanted to comply.
As White House counsel, could you tell me whether or not in the archives of the White House Communications Agency copies of those tapes would be available to this committee if we wanted to request them?
Mr. RUFF. I don't believe so, but let me check with my—I believe that they are then transferred to the individual Presidential libraries. We do have, I understand, but I have not seen it—nor has anyone else, I believe, in my office—logs, computer records of what used to be in the archives, but I believe everything has now gone to the individual Presidential library.
Mr. FATTAH. So the only way that this committee could get those is if we requested them from those Presidential libraries?
Mr. RUFF. From the libraries, I believe that's correct.
Mr. FATTAH. Which are taxpayer-supported libraries?
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Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. FATTAH. OK. Because it may be helpful to put this in some perspective, that President Clinton is among a number of Presidents who have, as part of their practice, hosted supporters of the White House in some form or fashion, financial supporters, and in some varying degrees thanked them, encouraged them in some way to be supportive of the political activity of the party. So the President doesn't do it alone in that respect.
The other issue has been—the principal issue has been focused on foreign money, and both parties have received foreign money and returned it. And the chairman mentioned earlier, he was emphasizing that there were grand jury investigations of certain activities, but neglected to put on the record, and I want to put on the record, that it has also been reported that Chairman Haley Barbour has been called before what I assume should be a secret grand jury proceeding, but one in a similar manner. But he testified before the Senate that he went to a foreign land and requested and received over $2 million of foreign money, which eventually helped facilitate the election of the Republican Members of Congress.
The circumstances surrounding that are very different from the circumstances surrounding the allegations of conduit payments in the Clinton campaign, and I want to see if I can draw that distinction for the record. One is that conduit payments are really kind of a fairly common violation of Federal election law.
There have been hundreds of cases in which people who seek to make contributions in someone else's name—it happened in the congressional campaign and seemingly it may have happened in the Clinton campaign. In all of those cases, to the best of my recollection, with one exception having to do with a member of the Congress, it has been the position of the Justice Department that neither Bob Dole knew nor any of these other parties knew that these illegal contributions were being made to their campaign.
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Mr. BURTON. Mr. Fattah.
Mr. FATTAH. Yes.
Mr. BURTON. The lights aren't working. We have a technician there. He is going to be one of the most popular fellows in the place.
But your time has expired. We will have to keep time with a watch for our next round of questioning.
Mr. Cox.
Mr. COX. Thank you. We are sitting sufficiently close together that even if this doesn't work, I am sure we will be able to hear each other.
Mr. RUFF. Yes, sir.
Mr. COX. As you know from our earlier meetings, I used to work in the White House Counsel's Office. My job was, Ms. Mills, roughly equivalent to yours, and I empathize with what you are going through.
I understand that you produced 110,000 pages worth of documents.
Because one of my colleagues from California earlier raised the Iran-Contra example, I would point to it as an example of what Congress typically does in an investigation of this sort, and just read briefly from the Iran-Contra report. At that time, the Democrats controlled the Congress. The chairman of the Senate committee was Daniel Inouye; the vice chairman was Warren Rudman.
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We wish to recognize the cooperation that we received from the White House throughout this inquiry. Once our investigation commenced, the White House rose above partisan considerations in cooperating with our far-reaching requests and ensuring the cooperation of other agencies and departments of the executive branch. In compliance with our requests, over 250,000 documents were produced by the White House alone.
I would point out that is more than twice the number of documents that we are talking about here in less than half the time.
Additional large quantities of material were produced by other executive branch agencies and departments. Relevant personnel and officials, et cetera, were made available for interviews, depositions, discussions and assistance in facilitating our work. All of our requests to the White House and the executive branch were fulfilled. The White House pledged to cooperate with this investigation, and it did.
That's not a report that this committee is likely to issue because we have been meeting with you about compliance with subpoenas that have been outstanding for months. And the one of them, we are talking about here today, one of several that we are talking about here today, was issued on March 4th.
It is my understanding that the White House Counsel's Office did not even contact agencies within the White House to return information about the subpoena for some time after that. There was a March 24th return date on that subpoena, and a month after the return date on the subpoena had expired, on April 28th, there was a memorandum sent to the Executive Office of the President covering these videotapes that went to the Military Office and to WHCA.
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Is my date correct? Was it April 28th that you sent that memo?
Mr. RUFF. That directive was sent out on April 28th. It was not, however, the only step that was taken with respect to the production of documents to this committee.
Mr. COX. Did you send a memo to WHCA prior to April 28, 1997?
Mr. RUFF. No, I did not.
Mr. COX. Thank you.
About 4 months later, 4 months after you sent that memo to WHCA, on August 19, 1997, the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs asked the White House, did WHCA make any videotapes? It is a reasonably plain-English letter, and it says, ''please advise immediately whether any video or audio record exists and whether it will be produced pursuant to the outstanding subpoena.'' And the understanding expressed in the letter is that the videotapes were made by the White House Communications Agency, WHCA, and that that information would be responsive to the subpoena. The letter is only one page long.
Did you send a copy of that letter to WHCA, ever?
Mr. RUFF. No, but it wasn't necessary to do so, Congressman Cox, because Mr. Imbroscio was already fully engaged in the process of dealing with Mr. Bucklin's questions about WHCA.
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Mr. COX. Now, if you didn't send a copy of the letter which asked for the videotapes, did you send your own memo to WHCA asking for videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. First of all——
Mr. COX. In response to this letter of August 19, 1997?
Mr. RUFF. First of all, Congressman, I don't have the August 19th letter with me, but my recollection of the first paragraph is not exactly as you have recited it.
Second——
Mr. COX. I am sorry. In what respect does your recollection differ?
Mr. RUFF. Can we be provided with a copy?
Mr. COX. I would be happy to have you read the first paragraph, whatever it says.
Can we suspend the time while the witness is given a copy of this letter? It is very short. It is only three paragraphs.
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Mr. RUFF. Yes. I have it now.
Mr. COX. In what respect does your recollection of this letter differ from what we are discussing here?
Mr. RUFF. It doesn't. I just wanted to be clear that what this paragraph says is—and it might be useful for me just to put it on the record, so that we all have——
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 78 HERE
Mr. COX. Please don't read the letter. I have got a copy of it as well.
Mr. RUFF. Well, I think it is important to understand what this letter is, because it frames what the question was.
Mr. COX. With all respect, I understand exactly what the letter is. It is a request for videotapes from WHCA, is what it says it is; and my understanding is that you did not send a copy of this letter to WHCA. Neither did you send your own memo in plain English, saying, we have been contacted by the U.S. Senate, and they have said that their outstanding subpoena expressly includes WHCA tapes, and we would like you to make those WHCA tapes available to us.
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No such memo went, my understanding is, from the White House Counsel's Office to WHCA at any date after August 19, 1997. Tell me if I am wrong and there was such a memo or whether you sent a copy.
Mr. RUFF. You are not wrong, but I believe your question and last statement is misleading, Congressman, because as the record very clearly reflects, Mr. Imbroscio within, I believe, 10 days of this letter was personally speaking with WHCA about the very issues posed in the initial conversation with Mr. Bucklin, and—in this letter, as well as the broader request made in the April 28th directive.
Mr. COX. You are aware, I am sure, that WHCA's testimony is that they were not properly asked for this information. That's why I would expect a lawyer's office to ask for documents in response to subpoenas, which are much more serious than simply document requests in writing.
When I worked in the White House Counsel's Office, that's the way it was done.
Now, I want to ask some additional questions.
Mr. RUFF. If I may, Congressman, because your question, I think, is once again not entirely an accurate reflection of the record, the WHCA personnel did not testify that they were not properly asked.
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The testimony was, I believe, quite clearly, that the directive of April 28th was sent from the White House Military Office to WHCA; that one page, the critical page referring to coffees, in some fashion didn't make it through the fax machine or from the fax machine to the relevant people. They testified that if they had received——
Mr. COX. I am sorry, Counsel, but I am going to have to interrupt you, because you are talking now about the original document request.
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. COX. That antedates by months the letter we got from the U.S. Senate to the White House.
What I have been able to establish, in response to the questions I have just put to you, is that—I think I asked the question clearly, and you responded in a straightforward fashion that you neither sent a copy of the letter that the Senate sent to the White House, expressly asking for WHCA to turn over videotapes, nor did you restate that in your own language and send it WHCA.
There was simply no correspondence, no writing on this document requesting documents from the White House to WHCA.
Now I want to ask you a different question. Do you remember this headline from the New York Times, which reads ''Reno in Letter to Congress''—it was page 1—''Rejects Most Allegations That Clinton Violated Law''?
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Do you remember the date that happened? It was a Saturday morning.
Mr. RUFF. I don't remember the particular document, but I take your word for the fact that it is in the New York Times.
Mr. COX. Do you remember that it was front page news in newspapers across America when Janet Reno issued her letter on Friday, October 3rd?
Mr. RUFF. I surely do.
Mr. COX. Were you surprised that that was front page news in the newspapers across America?
Mr. RUFF. No, I wasn't surprised.
Mr. COX. Why weren't you surprised?
Mr. RUFF. Because I would think that any time the Attorney General speaks to issues, particularly in the form of a response to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, that bear on her assessment of violations of law by senior official, that that would be front page news.
Mr. COX. Would another reason that you were not surprised be that you knew in advance that October 3rd was the date that she was due to make that decision to respond to Henry Hyde's letter to us?
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Mr. RUFF. Indeed, I did.
Mr. COX. Or from us to you, I should say.
Mr. RUFF. Indeed, I did.
Mr. COX. And that was a deadline that was pretty well known across the country; isn't that right?
Mr. RUFF. Absolutely.
Mr. COX. All right. Because the question was, will there be an Independent Counsel investigation taken one step further with respect to the President and the Vice President? That's a pretty serious matter.
Now, that was October 3rd. You met with the Attorney General the day before, didn't you?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. COX. You met with her about 3 in the afternoon?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
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Mr. COX. Did you do something unusual that morning before you met with her?
Mr. RUFF. Congressman, no, actually, I didn't. But if you are—if you are——
Mr. COX. Did you look at videotapes of the President at these White House coffees that morning?
Mr. RUFF. If your question is, was I aware of the videotapes earlier that day, it was either late morning or early afternoon——
Mr. COX. That was not the question. The question is, did you look at those videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. I did. I have so testified. I have so stated publicly.
Mr. COX. All right. Now, that's not unusual?
Mr. RUFF. Of course it is unusual. But I am trying to be as responsive to your questions as I can.
Mr. COX. Yes. And that is why I asked you whether it was an unusual morning, because believe me, when I worked at the White House Counsel's Office, if we were in the middle of an investigation of this magnitude—and particularly you, knowing what meaning tapes have in an investigation like this because of the Watergate days, I am sure—we are sitting on a bombshell, you understood that, because that also made national news.
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You stated earlier in your testimony here today that this has taken on a life of its own and it has occupied the media's attention for a month. But you knew this, and the rest of the world didn't know it that morning. And in fact—how long did it take you to watch the videotapes that morning?
Mr. RUFF. Perhaps 5 minutes.
Mr. COX. You watched them for 5 minutes. And what is the name of the member of the Counsel's Office that first informed you about it that morning?
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Imbroscio.
Mr. COX. And how long did you talk to Mr. Imbroscio about those tapes?
Mr. RUFF. He came in, said that he had found evidence in the computer data base that these tapes existed, that he had——
Mr. COX. How long did it take him?
Mr. RUFF. I am just trying to give you a sense of it. He showed me—told me that he had a sample of them; I believe there were three, perhaps four—showed them to me, and I told him to take whatever steps were necessary to find them.
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Mr. COX. Did you talk to anybody about it on the phone that day before you met with the Attorney General?
Mr. RUFF. No, I didn't.
Mr. COX. Did you talk to the President about it that day?
Mr. RUFF. No, I didn't.
Mr. COX. Did you talk to the Chief of Staff of the White House about it that day?
Mr. RUFF. No, I didn't.
Mr. COX. Did you talk to Mike McCurry about it?
Mr. RUFF. No.
Mr. COX. So you kind of kept it to yourself?
Mr. RUFF. Other than my conversation with Mr. Imbroscio, that's correct.
Mr. COX. And then you met with the Attorney General later that day?
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Mr. RUFF. Uh-huh.
Mr. COX. And when you met with her, were you aware that the Justice Department had an outstanding request for those very documents?
Mr. RUFF. I think it is fair to say I was aware. I so testified.
Mr. COX. And you were also aware that the next day was the day that she was going to make national news, one way or the other, you weren't sure which way, on the question of whether an Independent Counsel should look into these things?
Mr. RUFF. Indeed. As I have stated publicly.
Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, has my time expired?
Mr. BURTON. I think the gentleman has a few more seconds, but——
Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I am informed that the responses of the witness are not getting on television at all. In all fairness, it seems to me we ought to make sure this high tech system of ours really works.
Mr. BURTON. If you like——
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Mr. KANJORSKI. You have got the example of the White House.
Mr. BURTON. If you like, I hate to inconvenience the witnesses, but what we could do is recess until tomorrow morning at 10.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman——
Mr. BURTON. This is important for the American people as well, and the television stations that are here can't pick this up because of the annoying interference. So since we can't get this fixed, I don't think it would be of long duration tomorrow, but would it be possible for you to come back so we can conclude this in a short period of time tomorrow?
Mr. RUFF. Of course we are at the committee's disposal, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. I think what we will do is just recess until 10 a.m. I will make sure that this is fixed. Thank you.
The committee stands in recess until 10 a.m. tomorrow.
[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Friday, November 7, 1997.]
WHITE HOUSE COMPLIANCE WITH COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1997
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Cox, Horn, Mica, McIntosh, Shadegg, Sununu, Sessions, Snowbarger, Barr, Portman, Waxman, Lantos, Kanjorski, Condit, Maloney, Fattah, Cummings, Kucinich, Blagojevich, Davis of Illinois, and Ford.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Richard Bennett, chief counsel; Barbara Comstock, chief investigative counsel; Judith McCoy, chief clerk; Teresa Austin, assistant clerk/calendar clerk; William Moschella, deputy counsel and parliamentarian; Robin Butler, office manager; Dan Moll, deputy staff director; Will Dwyer, director of communications; Ashley Williams, deputy director of communications; Dave Bossie, oversight coordinator; Robert Rohrbaugh, James C. Wilson, Uttam Dhillon, and Tim Griffin, senior investigative counsels; Phil Larsen, investigative consultant; Kristi Remington and Bill Hanka, investigative counsels; Jason Foster, investigator; Carolyn Pritts, investigative staff; David Jones and John Mastranadi, investigative staff assistants; Jay Apperson, special counsel, and J. Keith Ausbrook, senior counsel, Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs; Phil Schiliro, minority staff director; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kenneth Ballen, minority chief investigative counsel; Agnieszka Fryszman, Elizabeth Mundinger, Kristin Amerling, Christopher Lu, Andrew McLaughlin, David Sadkin, and Michael Yang, minority counsels; Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk; Becky Claster, minority staff assistant; and Sheridan Pauker, minority research assistant.
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Mr. BURTON. The committee will reconvene.
I want to thank our guests for coming back this morning. I hope you had a good night's sleep. You have heard of Murphy's law, Mr. Ruff and Ms. Mills. I went out to the parking lot, and I am not sure if you had anything to do with it or not, but I had a flat tire. And I didn't get home till 1 o'clock in the morning. And I really believe the White House had something to do with it. I am going to check this out.
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Chairman, you and I will have to talk about it a little bit later, but I think I can explain it to you.
Mr. BURTON. You are a very inventive fellow, Mr. Ruff.
In any event, we have two more individuals that we need to have sworn in this morning. And we thought in accordance with your request, Mr. Ruff, we would have all four of you up there at the same time to try to complete this in an expeditious way.
Mr. RUFF. I appreciate this, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Breuer and Mr. Nionakis, would you please stand up?
[Witnesses sworn.]
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Mr. BURTON. Thank you.
I want you to know how well the sound system is working today. It is kind of a miraculous thing. Because of the glitch in the sound system yesterday, what we have decided to do is to go back to where the system really got out of control, because I think the person that was doing the transcribing as well as people who were watching this hearing on television were having a difficult time of it. So we are going to go back and give the minority 10 minutes. Then we are going to come back to Mr. Cox and give him 10 minutes. Then we will have 10 and 10. And then we will get back to the regular order. So we will——
Mr. WAXMAN. Let's see if we understand this right. You are going to give—we agreed we would have three segments of 10 each side.
Mr. BURTON. That is correct.
Mr. WAXMAN. We are on the second round of 10 minutes. Mr. Cox went yesterday for 10 minutes. He was the second questioner for 10 minutes. Now it is our turn. Will there be another round of 10 minutes on your side and another round here of 10 minutes?
Mr. BURTON. That is correct. You will have the same number of 10 minute rounds as the majority.
Mr. WAXMAN. We are fine on this.
Mr. BURTON. OK. So Mr. Waxman, to whomever you designate.
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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Waxman.
Mr. Ruff, when I ended up yesterday in some of my examination, we were moving through the process of how many people you had in the Counsel's Office and how many documents you have delivered. And, we were just about to get into the idea of the videotapes.
Now, although the tapes are an old story in this town and has a story of itself, as you have pointed out in testimony, because we are talking of videotapes and because we are talking of the White House, and because we are talking of subpoenas, to the American people there still is that idea that there must be something sinister involved. Or, of course, why else would the black helicopters in the White House do what they are doing? So in order to try and extract that idea, maybe we could walk through your experience and my experience with videotaping in the White House.
First and foremost, as I understand it, this White House Communications Agency is not a politically appointed office or even a civilian office in the White House. It is something long-standing. It is commanded by a major or a colonel who is a professional military officer of the U.S. Government. And that regardless who is President of the United States or what party wins the election, this office goes on in continuity with the same personnel serving either administration in a very professional capacity. Is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. That's my understanding.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. And that it is not something new, relatively new as black helicopters, it has actually been around the White House for more than a quarter of a century I am sure.
Mr. RUFF. Yes.
Mr. KANJORSKI. And we are not even quite sure where these tapes are located, but unlike the famous Watergate tapes, there is not a little hole in the front of the desk and a wire and somebody in the basement sitting with a monitor, as we conjure up in our imagination. But there is something like a typical home-run operated camera that people walk around and take pictures.
Mr. RUFF. I think we probably have some real live examples with us this morning.
Mr. KANJORSKI. So, if we asked every one of these fine television men to reverse that camera and turn it on themselves, what we see walking around here walks around the White House all the time.
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. As a matter of fact, I do not think any of us would want to put a number on how many events at the White House would be taped. But, again, the American people do not meet movie stars and Nobel prize winners, and Congressmen every day of the week as the President does. He has a strange function down there. He is doing, 10, 12, 15 meetings that are televised almost every day. Is that not correct?
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Mr. RUFF. I'm not sure of the number. But certainly a great many of the things that he does, particularly the ones that are ceremonial, but also occasionally ones that are official.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Right. Well, I was thinking in the back of my mind, the amount of time that I spent with the President or have seen him or been around him, and whether there were cameras there. And I had to conclude that probably half of the time that I have been with the President, there has been a camera there, but it is blended into the woodwork because we were not paying attention to it: it was just expected.
And prior to events starting, whether it is a very serious meeting or whether it is just a ceremonial meeting, an entire crew comes in with cameras and snaps pictures. Then they clear them out, and then you start doing something serious. And, of course, the cameras are off at that time.
So it is unlike what average, typical Americans experience with a camera, or the 25th anniversary party that gets taped, or anything else; this is such a regular occurrence at the White House that none of us would probably make any to-do about it. As a matter of fact, in that regard, I was thinking I hope that Mr. Burton never sends a subpoena to me and asks the same question to provide this committee with all the tapes, because I always forget to ask these guys, we have three, four, five, six, eight, I think a count of nine television cameras in this room right now, and I haven't the slightest idea who they are. It could be NBC, CBS, Japanese television. It could be—there is a new network, RNC. They are usually around and about. But all these people come in and constantly take our pictures and it blends into the woodwork. We do not know. But how in the world would I find out? Or if any staff and I received the subpoena and I said, answer this subpoena, I am not sure we could go back here and find out every occasion I have been in this room or other rooms and who these people are and where these tapes are. So inevitably, regardless of what material or documents I send, I would never comply 100 percent. Would that be reasonable to assume?
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Next Hearing Segment(3)