Segment 16 Of 22 Previous Hearing Segment(15) Next Hearing Segment(17)
SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I would like to explain, the reason I would like to discuss this is because I think, whether or not anyone agrees, that the President had knowledge of Charlie Trie being a fund-raiser. I think the record, the Congressman is correct, the record can speak for itself, and I will let it do so.
But I would ask, you know, and I think you have already indicated, but I would ask you if you do recall if you told the President or First Lady about Mr. Trie's activities with the trust, the money he had given to the trust?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. We have been joined by Mr. Kanjorski from the minority side.
Ms. COMSTOCK. At any point you may have questions, please let me know and interrupt, and we will cease.
The WITNESS. What is your question?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Okay. My question is, I think we have already established you did not talk with the President about the information that Mr. Cardozo shared with you about Mr. Trie's donations, correct, or you don't believe you did?
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Answer. I don't believe I did.
Question. Okay. Now did there come a time you became aware that Mr. Cardozo had informed the First Lady and Harold Ickes about Mr. Trie's contributions?
Answer. I understand that to be the case.
Question. When I say Mr. Trie's contributions, I understand they aren't his, but I am generically referring to the money, he brought it in the bag, and if we can shorthand that because I am trying to make it as brief as possible——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. This was all covered in the Senate deposition. I don't see that it is productive for us to go into this.
The WITNESS. I have heard that that happened.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. But at that time you did not know Mr. Cardozo had informed Mr. Ickes and the First Lady about Mr. Trie's donations he had provided to the trust?
Answer. I am not sure when I became aware of that, but I don't believe I knew it on May 9.
Question. Okay. And following——
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Answer. I can't be sure about that.
Question [continuing]. Following the May 9 meeting, did you share the information you learned from Mr. Cardozo with anybody else at the White House?
Ms. BEHAN. If you don't recall, you don't recall.
The WITNESS. I am trying to remember if I recall. I don't recall.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you recall ever discussing anything related to Mr. Trie with Harold Ickes?
Ms. BEHAN. Other than what has been discussed in the Senate deposition?
Ms. COMSTOCK. Right, and I understand Mr. Ickes——
Ms. BEHAN. And what he's said about the Legal Expense Trust?
Ms. COMSTOCK.—Mr. Ickes was in the May 9 meeting.
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. But did you ever have any discussions with Mr. Ickes, other than he was sitting in the room at the same time Mr. Cardozo relayed this information?
Answer. Look, I can't say that at no time after that meeting we passed words about the situation, but I don't recall any specific conversation I might have had with him about the Trie donations.
Question. Okay. And do you know if you discussed with anybody ever whether or not Mr. Trie was involved in DNC fund-raising?
Answer. I am virtually certain I never had any such discussion with anyone.
Question. All right. Now there came a time in December of 1996 where it became public about Mr. Trie's donations. At that time, did you learn he had been involved in DNC fund-raising?
Answer. I don't recall when I learned it, but it was, as you say, much later, much, much later.
Question. So in the October time frame, October, 1996, Mr. Ickes has indicated that he told Ms. Thornberry at the DNC or made references to Charlie Trie. Did he ever mention anything like that to you in that time frame of October of 1996?
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Ms. BEHAN. Objection on foundation grounds.
The WITNESS. I don't believe he did at that time. Again, I wish I could recall every snippet of every conversation I had in 4 years at the White House. There was a lot going on. This was one of a great many things going on. Looking back now, I don't recall Harold having told me that. But I have to be very careful about this because I can't sit here and swear that he didn't say any such thing. I don't believe he did, but that is the best I can do.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Okay. Do you have any knowledge of him informing Ms. Sherburne about Mr. Trie's fund-raising?
Answer. I do not.
Question. And if we could return then to some of the—when the information about Mr. Huang's fund-raising first became public, there were requests from this and, I know, other committees about information relating to Mr. Huang. We will make this Deposition Exhibit No. 2. These are two requests from the same day: A letter to the President of October 31, 1996, from Chairman Clinger, the previous chairman of the committee; and an October 31, 1996 request to Terry Good of the Office of Records Management, requesting Mr. Huang's WAVE records.
Do you recall dealing with either of these matters?
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Answer. Not specifically. Eventually, this letter addressed to the President would have found its way to my desk; almost always, I will tell you, with a good deal of delay, because for future reference, when you send a letter addressed to the President like this, it goes through the Legislative Affairs Office and it may sit there anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks.
Question. So we should simultaneously fax to the Counsel's Office?
Answer. You bet.
Question. I think we learned that somewhere along the line.
Do you recall if you tasked Ms. Mills in gathering John Huang's WAVE records or any records relating to John Huang in October of 1996?
Answer. I don't specifically recall, but—well, that is my answer. I don't specifically recall whom I would have assigned this to in the office. There was a likelihood it would have been Ms. Mills.
Question. Okay. And I know you have indicated sort of in the October time frame you weren't really—would it be fair to say you really weren't aware of what Ms. Sherburne was doing at that time on anything?
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Answer. That would be fair.
Question. Okay. Now in fact, we have received testimony that Ms. Sherburne was sort of handling these issues or at least gathering documents relating to the issues. Did there come a time you learned she had sort of gathered some files, and did you ever ask her to pass them on to Ms. Mills or anything like that?
Answer. There came a time I know she passed materials on to Ms. Mills, as she was transitioning out. I can't pinpoint the date, but I am aware of that.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Okay. And then why don't we go ahead and mark these two as Deposition Exhibits 2 and 3.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 2 was marked for identification.]
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 3 was marked for identification.]
Ms. COMSTOCK. And this is another letter, a November 1st letter.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Do you have another copy, Barbara?
Ms. COMSTOCK. I will make this Deposition Exhibit No. 4.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 4 was marked for identification.]
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you recall receiving this letter?
Answer. Vaguely, yes.
Question. And do you recall Kathleen Wallman being involved in anything relating to Mr. Huang's WAVE records?
Answer. No, but she was my deputy so she was involved in many of the things I was involved in.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I wanted to ask something. I understood you to say you were asking questions on background as to the transition to the current White House team. Are you looking at compliance with document requests issued by the last Congress to this White House counsel or are you actually trying to get at subpoena compliance? I mean, I just think it is a matter of public record.
As you said before, the first subpoena issued by this committee was issued on March 4th. Mr. Quinn had left at least 2 weeks prior to that, and so background is one thing. Digging into back and forth exchanges back in October and November may be interesting political history but I don't think it sheds any light on subpoena compliance.
Ms. COMSTOCK. This all leads to the gathering of a body of information that was residing in the White House in January and early February at the time when Mr. Quinn left, and that's what we are trying to establish here, is to go through that as we did with other witnesses.
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Ms. BEHAN. I will just second the objection for the record. It sounds that—it appears to be beyond the scope. I will permit you to answer.
The WITNESS. What is the question about this?
Ms. BEHAN. On background.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I was wondering if you recall taking any action in terms of gathering documents related to Mr. Huang in response to this letter?
Answer. Well, let me say this: It was my job, as counsel, to make sure that we were responsive to the request of the Congress for information on all of the legitimate matters Congress had an interest in for purposes of legislating and conducting oversight. We dealt with this, as we did with all other requests, by attempting to gather the information carefully, deliberately, thoroughly and responding to it in due course.
There was, as you have pointed out by showing me these letters, a particular sense of urgency on the part of your committee, at the end of October of 1996, to getting this information. That sense of urgency no doubt had to do with the impending elections, and I know that it might—it might have created on the part of some up here some sense of eagerness to get whatever information it could.
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It was our job to collect all of the information you wanted and get it to you as promptly as we could, but as completely and thoroughly as we could, without reference to the fact that the election was coming up.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Quinn, can I interject for a second. Did you receive more than one request from more than one committee?
The WITNESS. Yes. We had a good many requests on this and other topics.
Mr. TIERNEY. Are you aware of any directive that the Republican leadership sent to its various committees instructing them or suggesting to them that they send off a number of requests to the White House all at once?
The WITNESS. I am aware that the House leadership instructed its committees to investigate to a fare-thee-well to ferret out all information it could get on whatever could be found that might be helpful for political purposes. And I think that that instruction was a significant reason why we had a large volume of requests from the Congress, why we were never really able to negotiate reasonable scope on those requests and, you know, why it was just so difficult to do this under the artificial deadlines that were imposed on us.
You look at the letters that have just been entered in as exhibits and see the deadlines that were imposed. They had—they all had reference to them—I mean, they were in a matter of days. They wanted them by noon on a certain day. It was never noon the day after the election. It was noon in advance of the election.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. Do you think there may have been some relationship to that?
Ms. COMSTOCK. Or perhaps any relationship with them not being produced in time?
The WITNESS. I think not. I think there was no relationship to their not being produced. And, look, I confess to you that this was a source of some frustration because we had, relatively speaking, a small staff; certainly a fraction of the staff that this committee and the Senate committee have employed to investigate these matters.
It was always a source of frustration that none of the Members of Congress who wanted this information, and I say this to you with all respect, went down on to the floor of the House and said, let's appropriate more money to give these people the resources they need to answer our questions. All of the appropriations were for more staff to ask the questions. There has never been an appropriation for staff to answer the questions.
Mr. TIERNEY. Other than this committee, the Government Reform and Oversight, can you think off the top of your head of some of the other committees that were making requests for documents at that same time?
The WITNESS. Well, Mr. Solomon was making requests on a weekly, if not more frequent, basis, again with a great sense of urgency. There were requests, I believe, from the Foreign Affairs Committee. I can't identify all of them but there were a good many requests at the time. Mr. McIntosh had sort of a rolling set of requests.
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Mr. TIERNEY. Were they duplicative in any way?
The WITNESS. They were overlapping, no doubt about it. And at this time there was a good deal of uncertainty, at least on our part, where the authority to investigate these matters would ultimately rest in the House of Representatives.
There was, as you may recall, public discussion about the possibility of the Speaker putting together a special committee or a select committee, of his assigning it to joint task forces and so on. So there was a good deal of confusion.
But putting all of that aside, again, when I would see a request for information in 3 days, what I feared was not getting the information out because, mind you, none of this information ultimately has been hurtful. What I feared was our putting the information out that we could get in 3 days and then a week later, quite naturally, finding additional information and then being accused of not providing everything when it was due.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Wasn't that a favorite expression of Mr. Clinger: This raises more questions?
The WITNESS. Right. I mean, we would constantly get into sort of losing sight of what started all this, what the underlying issue is and get into process, frankly, as we are now. What becomes more interesting to people when the substance turns out to be noncontroversial is the process by which the White House responds to these matters.
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But it was always a trap to impose deadlines that were unreasonable that couldn't be met that have us provide some of the information but not all of the information and then later slam us for not having provided all of the information on a timely basis.
We did everything we could, and I say that with all my heart. I went out and hired additional people to come in, after there were some admitted, acknowledged late-found documents—and no one was more distressed about that than I was—things that should have been turned over under previous counsels that were found in the White House while I was counsel. That was painful. And I went out and I brought in people, and I said, your job is to take this place and turn it upside down and shake it, and you find everything that's responsive to these requests and you get it to Ken Starr and you get it up to the Hill. And we did that. We did that.
We had, in the period 1996, just the number of requests, it exploded exponentially and, frankly, it was just overwhelming. We were just drowning in requests and we did our very best to find the information and turn it over in a timely basis.
Mr. TIERNEY. Was there any sense of coordination on your part from the Majority's issuance of these requests for documents? Did you get the sense that anybody was coordinating that effort or was it just coming in from all different directions?
The WITNESS. Yeah, on the contrary. We got a sense that there was no coordination, that we were getting overlapping and inconsistent requests and having to assemble one set of information for one committee and a slightly different set of information for another one.
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And, again, we truly were shorthanded.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I have a quick follow-up. These deadlines——
Ms. COMSTOCK. Actually, I——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Just a quick follow-up to the Congressman's questions. These deadlines in Exhibits 3 and 4, was it—in Exhibit 4, was it humanly possible to meet a 1-day turnaround for all documents related to John Huang?
Ms. COMSTOCK. I will state for the record as having been the person who spoke with Mr. Good.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I am sorry. Are you testifying? I didn't actually ask you a question.
Ms. COMSTOCK. But you have raised questions.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I don't want you to testify in response to my question. My question was to Mr. Quinn.
Mr. Quinn, was it humanly possible to obtain, within a 24-hour period, all documents relating to John Huang?
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The WITNESS. I have to answer you by telling you that I was a level or so removed from the process of actually gathering the documents. I had to rely on other people on my staff to go out and deal with the people who had access to them. So I didn't have firsthand knowledge.
I do have, however, absolute confidence in the honesty and integrity of the people who had the documents in the White House and who work in the counsel's office and had the job of producing them. And I think that they did at the time and continue to do the very best they can to respond to these requests.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Is that——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. My second follow-up question to the Congressman's questions is——
Ms. COMSTOCK. We are on the first round and you are, I guess now, the designated counsel for today?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Since the very beginning, as I indicated during your opening remarks.
Ms. COMSTOCK. It is just that Mr. Ballen is——
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mr. Quinn——
Ms. COMSTOCK. We are not on your round.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. No. I am asking a follow-up question to the questions by the Congressman. Are you going to deny me the ability to ask a follow-up question to questions asked by members of this committee? Yes or no?
Ms. COMSTOCK. Just proceed, Mr. McLaughlin.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Thank you, Ms. Comstock.
Is it at least conceivable to you, Mr. Quinn, that Chairman Clinger and the other committee and subcommittee chairmen that were passing these requests along in the week or two just prior to the election, is it conceivable to you that they were setting unreasonable deadlines so that the White House would not be able to meet them and so that they could yet then claim, as is so often the case here in Congress, that a cover-up was taking place? Is that conceivable?
The WITNESS. Look, I am not going to question anyone's motivation, including Chairman Clinger.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I think usually counsel is asked not to speculate.
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Actually, it is a question as to whether it is conceivable.
Ms. COMSTOCK. That's not speculative?
The WITNESS. But I will say this—I will say this, and I said it, frankly, to either Mr. Clinger or Mr. McIntosh in the context of some of these requests, I was distressed at this time that there was a bald partisan political election related effort to use these committees not for legislative or oversight purposes but as, frankly, an adjunct to the Republican campaign.
I ignored that. I wasn't going to let us be affected by democratic politics but I didn't think that we should be bullied into doing something incomplete or hastily or inappropriate just because some people wanted to use these investigations to affect the campaign.
I certainly never thought there was anything here that would affect them, by the way, but with all my heart I tell you that there was not a person I worked with in the counsel's office who would countenance unreasonable delay, who would countenance anything in the nature of foot dragging, who would do anything other than do their job and do it thoroughly and completely and on a reasonable and timely basis.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you know Mr. Good, who is the Office of Records Management chief?
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Answer. I may have met him at some point. I don't know him personally.
Question. You know of his work and that he has been at the White House for over 25 years or so?
Answer. I do.
Question. All right. Do you have any reason to think that he would give misinformation to this committee?
Answer. I do not.
Question. Or lie?
Answer. No, I do not.
Question. If Mr. Good had told this committee that certain records were available within a day or two, do you think that he would have been giving misinformation to this committee for any political reasons or anything such as that?
Ms. BEHAN. Objection. I don't know what you mean. Available within what?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Do you have any documents about this, Barbara?
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. If Mr. Good had informed the committee that the WAVES could be made available promptly, do you have any reason to make believe that——
Ms. BEHAN. I would object to the form of this question. It is calling for the same speculation that you have just said that he should not do.
Mr. KANJORSKI. I think we should call Mr. Good. I don't think Mr. Quinn should be called upon to testify.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I would hope that we don't have to call Mr. Good. Maybe we can just submit some questions to him.
In fact, I will make this Deposition Exhibit No. 5.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 5 was marked for identification.]
Ms. BEHAN. Is Mr. Good getting special treatment?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Weren't the WAVES records actually collected at some time in October, to your knowledge?
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Answer. I don't have direct knowledge of this. I assigned this matter to others in the office and I can't speak to what was collected or when it was collected. I did not involve myself in the collection of the documents, analysis of the documents, submission of the documents, except on certain exceptional occasions.
So these questions are best directed to the lawyers and the staff who did gather the documents as to when they did and how they did.
Question. Okay. Did anybody——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I just want to know—it now seems we are clearly straying beyond background to subpoena compliance. Now you are once again just poking around.
Ms. BEHAN. I would like to reiterate that objection.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Did you ever see these WAVES records that had been gathered at the time in regard to documents that were gathered regarding John Huang and James Riady? These are actually WAVES records from both Mr. Riady and Mr. Huang.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Barbara, is it the case that you are trying to figure out why information was not turned over immediately prior to the election? Because this information has been turned over. I am looking at it here. It has got an early EOP number. It obviously was an early part of the White House's production to this committee. Is this committee inquiring as to why this stuff was not added to the documents that the Congress wanted prior to the election? Is that the nature of the inquiry?
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Ms. COMSTOCK. I will just let my question stand.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. You are declining to respond to my question about your question? Is that yes or no, Barbara? Okay. I am just going to——
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. If the witness could answer the question?
Answer. And the question was?
Question. The question was, at the time did you see Mr. Huang's records——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Before you answer, Mr. Quinn, I just want to note for the record that Majority counsel is declining to answer a basic question about the scope of the inquiry.
The WITNESS. At the time, by which you mean November 2nd?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. On or around the end of October, early, mid-November, did you see these WAVES records before they were turned over?
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Answer. I don't recall seeing these particular records. I mean, I have seen other WAVES records and so they look familiar to me. But I don't recall having been shown these.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Is that the marked copy? Can we show the marked copy to the witness?
Ms. COMSTOCK. These are all identical copies. If you want to check at the end of the deposition to make sure these are the actual things, we have made identical copies of this. It is easier to mark them and——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That's your representation but the bottom line is it is normal deposition practice—I know that you are not a practicing lawyer, but it is a normal deposition practice to show the copy that goes into the record to the witness. That's just rudimentary law, rudimentary civil procedure.
Ms. BEHAN. He is now looking at the official copy of the exhibit.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Are these supposed to mean something?
Ms. COMSTOCK. Yes.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
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Question. On page EOP 4986, I want to direct your attention to a WAVE entry for John Huang, and actually I think that is the date of Exhibit 1, the meeting that John Huang had referred to on September 24th. And the visitee is listed as Quinn and the requester here is listed as Hopkins.
I will note for the record—I don't know how familiar you are with WAVES—the stars there to the right sometimes indicate that people may or may not have come by.
Mr. Huang's letter indicated he stopped by. These WAVES records are sort of inconclusive as to whether he came in. He may have come in at a different entrance. I think you maybe may have gone through——
Ms. BEHAN. Are you indicating that the WAVES records do not suggest that he came there?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. No, I am just asking if Mr.—if you recall Mr. Hopkins or Ms. Hopkins, whoever that is, having anything to do with John Huang or if you talked—in seeing these WAVES records at or around November of 1996, if you recall discussing any meetings that you may have had with John Huang?
Answer. I do not recall.
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Ms. BEHAN. Do you recall seeing these WAVES records specifically?
The WITNESS. I don't recall seeing these—these may have been shown to me in the Senate deposition. In any event, Kim Hopkins was one of the assistants who worked outside my office. She was a receptionist. And so it would not be unusual for her to wave people into the building.
As I said earlier in this deposition, I don't doubt for a moment that John Huang stopped by to see me.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I understand. I am just wondering if this refreshes your recollection as to any discussions you may have had about Mr. Huang or when you say the WAVES records, if at the time you saw the WAVES records before turning them over, you——
Answer. No, it really wouldn't. It really wouldn't. And it is highly unlikely I would have had any discussion with Kim about him.
Question. Okay. Now, these WAVES records were WAVES records that were prepared by Ms. Mills, and as is reflected on the fax sheet she sent them to Mr. Lindsey. Were you aware of Mr. Lindsey handling matters relating to John Huang and James Riady at this time?
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Answer. I was aware that he was—Bruce has a deputy counsel, still is a deputy counsel, and was involved in these matters and in helping to ensure our compliance, sure.
Question. Okay. Did you ask Ms. Mills to send these to Mr. Lindsey?
Answer. I don't recall having done so, but Bruce is somebody whom it would have been my practice to consult on any number of matters, because he was a senior lawyer in the office and a person of good judgment.
I am not sure why they had this interaction. I just don't know. I mean, you would have to ask them.
Question. Okay. Is it your recollection that Mr. Lindsey was traveling with the President at that time, and this would be a few days before the election in 1996?
Ms. BEHAN. I object. I think that is really calling for speculation since he knows so little about this.
The WITNESS. True. I can't answer this.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I am referring to November 2nd.
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Ms. BEHAN. There is something——
The WITNESS. There is a line on the first page that tells me it went to the—that it went to Mr. Lindsey while he was with the President on the road.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you know any particular reason why Mr. Lindsey wanted these documents while they were on the road?
Ms. BEHAN. Again, I am going to object. He said he is learning this from the face of the document.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I think he has already responded that Bruce Lindsey was involved in the matter.
The WITNESS. I thought you folks were in a hurry to get these things. I mean, the alternative, it seemed to me, would be for Ms. Mills to wait until they returned.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I am just trying to understand what your knowledge was at that time of preparing these records.
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Answer. My lawyer is going to let me speculate here that Ms. Mills was trying very hard to get you the information as quickly as possible, even going to the length of sending this material to Mr. Lindsey while he was on the road so that she could clear it with him or get his input and get it up to you as soon as possible. But I am speculating. Again, you would have to ask them.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I will mark this as Deposition Exhibit No. 6.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 6 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. This is an October 31st, 1996, memo for all staff of the White House from yourself regarding documents relating to the Lippo Group. And as we had discussed earlier, I think you said it was your practice often to send out the actual request and that is—as indicated here, it is attached to this memo. Do you recall sending this memo out?
Answer. Vaguely.
Question. At this time, do you recall having Kathleen Wallman or Alan Kreczko handling these matters?
Answer. Again, it appears as such from the face of the document.
Question. Okay. And the due date for producing these documents was November 12th, 1996. Do you know if documents responsive to this request started coming in in that time frame?
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Answer. I don't know. Again, it—as you can see from the document, Wallman and Kreczko were sort of the people overseeing compliance with the request. The actual first line person gathering the documents was Bill Leary at the National Security Council, who is somebody who I will tell you is the—one of the people, if not the person, most expert in the classification of national security related materials and the person who would be in a position to know whether the disclosure of information might compromise the national security.
Question. Okay. Is it your experience that Mr. Leary, if he were tasked with something such as this, would be responsive and make an effort to get the documents by the due date on this directive?
Answer. I certainly believe so. I mean, he is not a political operative, if that's what the question is.
Question. No, that's not the question. The question is just as to Mr. Leary's, you know, responsibilities that if he didn't get documents that he might go out and seek them and make sure people were complying with your directive.
Answer. I tried very hard, in my time in the White House, not just to protect and preserve Presidential prerogatives as the constitutional responsibilities of the President, but I tried also, whenever matters arose that might implicate national security, to exercise utmost caution. And, again, we were in a period of time when there were a good many requests for information from different sources that went to matters involving foreign affairs and national security issues, and we had to take particular care to make sure that those matters were handled appropriately. And we tried to do so.
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Question. Okay. And was it your experience that Mr. Leary and Mr. Kreczko usually responded to your directives in a prompt manner?
Answer. Absolutely. They are the utmost professionals, but they are also extremely careful to protect the national interests. I mean, I can give you examples. We had, again, in response to this directive from the leadership, I assume, you know, we had requests, for example, as breathtaking as this seems—I am sure even to you now—we had a congressional request for a memorandum of a conversation between President Clinton and President Yeltsin. That obviously is the sort of request that makes people whose job it is to protect the national security very nervous.
We had inquiries, as I think you know, into the issues of arms shipments through Croatia into Bosnia and the report of the Intelligence Oversight Board on that matter.
We had inquiries into the alleged involvement of intelligence agents and military personnel of this country in arms shipments to Bosnia. These are all matters—and I sat down on a number of occasions with Mr. Gilman and worked through these requests. Sometimes we agreed; sometimes we didn't. But the point I am making is that whenever we had a request that might implicate the national security or the foreign relations of the United States, I made sure that they were handled in a way that would allow the National Security Council and the Department of State and not the political people in the administration to exercise the ultimate judgment.
Question. That is why Mr. Kreczko is on here and Mr. Leary?
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Answer. Right.
Question. And if Mr. McLaughlin doesn't mind, I will note that we have had very fine dealings with Mr. Kreczko, and to the extent that Mr. Leary has been involved, that is true, too, and we agree with your assessment of those abilities.
What I am trying to determine is if you have a knowledge of the volume of documents that have been gathered at or around this time in November, December of 1996?
Answer. I don't. None of that, I don't believe, came back to me.
Question. Were there any particular documents, as they were gathered, that people may have brought to your attention or talked to you about in that time frame?
Answer. I don't recall any specific documents coming to me, but, you know, it is not out of the question. Again, I don't recall it in this context; that somebody might say, gee, do you think this is responsive or not responsive, questions like that.
Question. And then during this time frame, say November, December 1996, at that time did anybody come to you about any problems they had heard about John Huang or Charlie Trie and fund-raising issues?
Ms. BEHAN. I believe he has already answered this.
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The WITNESS. Yeah. I just—again, I—well, let's take them one at a time.
I don't recall anybody coming to me about John Huang, raising problems with me, asking me to take any action or anything like that.
Charlie Trie, I became aware of in May in the context of his effort to make donations to the Presidential Legal Expense Trust. And since you have come back to that again, let me just tell you the—let me describe for you the prism through which I was looking at that issue.
No one said to us, not Michael Cardozo or anyone in the White House, this guy is a democratic activist or a fund-raiser or somebody who makes contributions to the campaign. When this came to us, it was, this is a guy who has a restaurant in Little Rock and we have learned that some of these contributions are connected with a religious sect, some said cult, in California. And there was some description of the sort of activities and beliefs of this cult.
For months, in my mind, this was this cult issue. These people were trying to give donations to the President. I didn't know why. I knew that the expense trust and its investigators thought they were questionable. But I didn't connect them up with the campaign or democratic politics or any other activities of Mr. Trie.
The only other activity of which I was aware was that this guy was a former restaurant owner who loved the President.
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Question. At any time did you learn that he had been appointed by the President to a Presidential commission?
Answer. I think I learned that much, much later. I can't tell you when I learned that, but it was not during those early months, I am virtually certain.
Question. And the Executive order that expanded that commission——
Answer. And may I—just one other point on this, because I think this is important. In the time I was counsel, it was always clear through the course of our dealings that the trustees of the trust and Mr. Cardozo and Mr. Cardozo's lawyer from Sullivan and Cromwell regarded the trust as independent. When they informed us of things, it was just that.
Question. An FYI?
Answer. Information.
If I expressed a view, I might think they would take it into consideration, but it was always clear—and I think if you look at the trustees, you will understand why. It was always clear that they regarded themselves as the people who would make decisions about how to handle the affairs of the trust.
I mean, you are talking about people like Elliott Richardson and—I mean, these were not people who were sending Michael Cardozo over to the White House to get direction from me or anyone else. It just didn't work that way. And so I didn't view the Trie donations issue as sort of—as being on our to-do list. Okay?
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Cardozo came over in May, said we have got this issue. We are undertaking, through this investigative agency, to run this down and get additional information.
My reaction, frankly, was that, gosh, these people are really going to extraordinary lengths to make sure that they don't take any contribution that's inappropriate. I thought it was admirable. I still think it was admirable. I think they handled it with enormous integrity and responsibility.
But when Michael Cardozo left the White House that day, I regarded the ball as being very much in his court and the court of the trustees; that they were going to conduct a further investigation and figure out what to do. They weren't expecting me to do anything. I didn't need to go running to the President and say, the trust has, you know, this problem; we need to do something.
We didn't need to do anything. The ball was in their court.
Question. Did he indicate whether he was going to—somebody was going to inform the President about the problematic contributions?
Answer. I honestly don't recall how or when the President was informed. I just don't recall that.
Question. Do you have any knowledge if the President knew sometime prior to the October 1996?
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Answer. I do not. I don't recall that. I just don't recall. I did become aware at some point, as you pointed out, that Cardozo had had a conversation with the First Lady and with Harold Ickes.
Question. To your knowledge, and if you know, I mean, did the First Lady share information like that with the President, to your knowledge?
Ms. BEHAN. I am going to object to this. I think this is inappropriate.
The WITNESS. I can't speculate.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. The indication is obnoxious, Barbara.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you know whether the President knew about Charlie Trie's contributions?
Answer. I don't now. If I did, I have forgotten, sincerely.
Question. And I believe it was at a Christmas event in December of 1996. I believe the date is at or around December 13th, 1996, Charlie Trie was invited to a Christmas party event. Do you recall any issues that arose around Mr. Trie attending that event?
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Answer. I do not.
Question. That was not brought to your attention at that time?
Ms. BEHAN. I am going to object to the foundation. I have no idea what you mean by ''issues,'' and if he doesn't recall then——
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. If anyone brought it to your attention should we have him attend this or not, is that going to be appropriate?
Answer. I don't recall that having come up.
Ms. BEHAN. Shall we take a break? Do you need a break? No?
The WITNESS. I would just assume plow through.
Ms. BEHAN. Okay.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 7 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
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Question. I am showing the witness a December 16th, 1996, directive, to all——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Do you have copies for the Congressmen?
The WITNESS. Yeah. I mean, this goes back to, you know, your first question, how would I handle document requests. Well, I would tell people, you know, dammit, I want you to go through all of your files and I want you to turn things over to us promptly. In this case, what, in a week?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I believe on the second page it indicates December 23rd?
Answer. We gave people 1 week to respond to this request.
Mr. KANJORSKI. This was over Christmas; wasn't it?
The WITNESS. Right.
Ms. BEHAN. He was nice to them because it was shopping time.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
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Question. Do you recall—the first paragraph of the memo indicates that, quote, we have received document requests from certain congressional committees and the Department of Justice.
At that time, was there a grand jury subpoena that came to the White House about a number of these matters?
Ms. BEHAN. If you recall.
The WITNESS. I don't recall.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. And——
Answer. Do you know?
Question. Yes, I believe there was. I was just seeing if you recall some of the events.
Do you recall—the names that are listed here, did you have knowledge of who some of these people were? Aside from people like John Huang or James Riady, that you might have heard about in October or November, were you familiar with the other individuals on the list?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. You mean other than from press accounts was he familiar with any of these names or do you mean including through press accounts?
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Ms. COMSTOCK. Just any knowledge he had about them.
The WITNESS. We have talked about Huang. I guess by this point I had heard plenty about Riady. I was familiar with Pauline Kanchanalak.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. How were you familiar with her?
Answer. Back—I had seen her—I probably hadn't seen her in a couple of years, but I recall back in the days when I ran the Vice President's office seeing her at events, DNC-related events, that sort of thing.
Question. Were you aware of her role in fund-raising or if she had a role? Or did you just see her at events?
Answer. I saw her at events that were related to fund-raising, so I would have said she was a donor or somehow related to a donor.
Question. Johnny Chung, had heard about him at that time?
Answer. Well, I think I have seen him around as well. Okay?
Question. I don't know if you had any pictures pop up. He had pictures with everybody.
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Answer. Well, as a matter of fact——
Question. Do you have one?
Answer. The reason I am smiling is because when I think of Johnny Chung, I mean, I have the image of this guy going 100 miles an hour, sort of running around with a camera and always asking people to pose for a picture.
I was—and I will tell you that I was in a restaurant one night and I came across this group of about eight Asians or Asian Americans and this guy came up and asked me, can we take our picture with you? And I did. And I had a picture taken with these guys.
It has always baffled me why they always wanted to—why this fellow always wanted to have pictures made. But in any event, he always had his camera ready.
Question. Okay. Had you heard about him at the White House coming in often or trying to get people in, anything like that?
Answer. Not really. I think—I will tell you what I knew about him. At some point when—somebody said to me at one point, this guy has a blast fax business. And I recall saying, what is a blast fax? And I learned that it is some technology that allows you to send a fax out to hundreds or thousands of people more or less simultaneously. And that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of Johnny Chung.
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Question. Okay. And during the time frame when you were still counsel and documents were being collected, did you learn anything more about Mr. Chung——
Answer. No.
Question [continuing]. Or what he had done at the White House?
Were you aware of the contributions that he—the $50,000 check that he gave to Maggie Williams?
Answer. No, I was not.
Question. When you were at the White House, did anyone ever hand you a check for the DNC?
Answer. No.
Question. Okay. Was it your understanding that people were not supposed to be giving you contributions at the White House?
Answer. Well, I was familiar with the Hatch Act restrictions regarding the receipt, acceptance or solicitation of contributions. But it was never an issue, because I don't—I don't think anyone was ever tempted to give me a contribution.
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I never—I never had occasion to wonder if I could because I never was in a circumstance where someone might.
Question. Okay. But if someone had walked up, here is a $50,000 check, just wanted to drop it off with you, was it your understanding that you were supposed to direct them elsewhere?
Answer. No, that's not necessarily my understanding now. I probably would have consulted somebody else. But it is my understanding at this time that it might be permissible to forward a contribution as long as one didn't hold it for some period of time. I think there are Hatch Act regulations or instructions on this.
Question. Okay. So it is your understanding that you are not supposed to solicit checks in the White House?
Answer. It is my understanding that persons subject to the Hatch Act——
Question. Contributions?
Answer. Are not to solicit contributions.
Question. Okay.
Some of the other people on this directive, did you——
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Answer. And just for the record I will say that——
Question. And I won't—we are not going into the phone calls or any of the other things today.
Answer. I want to say that the President and the Vice President are not subject to the Hatch Act, for the record.
Question. Is that your legal opinion?
Answer. It is fact.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mere facts.
Mr. KANJORSKI. How about Members of Congress?
The WITNESS. I don't think so.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mere facts don't always pertain to this committee investigation.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Or apparently inquiries at the Justice Department, also.
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Any of the other individuals here, Johnny Chung, as you go down the list, did you have any personal knowledge of other names listed here?
Answer. I don't believe so.
Question. And the second page, if you would turn to the entities, did you have any particular knowledge of any of these entities that were listed?
Answer. I do not.
Question. Did you task anybody to sort of find out, so that you would know, like who are some of these people or what are these entities, as we are trying to gather information, so that you would know, you know, where to look for information, you know, what it was you were looking for?
Answer. I learned from experience that it would be unwise to try to narrow the places we were looking, because——
Question. I am thinking more in terms of so that you look at enough places.
Answer. My memo went to the Executive Office of the President's staff. Everybody, the gardeners, everybody was to comply; everybody was to search all of their records. If we had—if I had sat down and said, well, let's just think of where these things are most likely to be, then I would be sitting explaining to this committee why I only looked in those offices and not in the gardener's wastebasket.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. If I may interpose a question. Executive Office of the President, would that include the White House WHCA—what is it called?
The WITNESS. WHCA.
Mr. KANJORSKI. WHCA.
The WITNESS. Yes, indeed. The Executive Office of the President includes what is called the White House office and it includes all of the related White House.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Twelve in all?
The WITNESS. OMB and U.S. Trade Representative.
Mr. KANJORSKI. This talks about electronic material. Did they ever indicate to anyone or to you that they may have videotapes of any of these people?
The WITNESS. No, I never heard that from—you mean did WHCA come to me and say that?
Mr. KANJORSKI. Under this directive, it would seem to me that WHCA should have looked into any possibilities that any of these people were on videotape.
The WITNESS. Indeed.
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Actually, we know WHCA searched for videotapes with every single directive.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Are you testifying, Mr. McLaughlin?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Actually, I am just stating a fact.
Mr. KANJORSKI. So that under this directive, Mr. Quinn, WHCA would have been on notice of trying to search in every office of the—in every entity of the Executive Office of the President who had this memo at that point in time, as of December 16th?
The WITNESS. That's correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. They should have been on notice to make that examination and finding?
The WITNESS. I believe that's right.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. To your knowledge, did WHCA list people's names who attended events? Were they ever given names of individuals who were at events to put into their database so that they could search for people's names?
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Answer. I don't know the answer to that question, other than to say that there are some people on this committee who greatly object to the use of our database for recording people who come to events.
Question. Well, I am talking about the White House Communications Office, which one of the things they did was tape the President. Were you aware of them, when they were taping the President, getting a list of names of people who were at an event with the President?
Answer. No. I would say in the course of a typical day, the President might come in touch with hundreds of people.
Question. Okay. Are you aware that they largely are taping the President himself and that they record events by date only and event?
Answer. I am not familiar——
Ms. BEHAN. Are you familiar today?
The WITNESS. I wasn't then nor am I now familiar with how WHCA catalogs its materials.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Were you aware that there were videotaped events at the White House?
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Ms. BEHAN. When is this? When?
Ms. COMSTOCK. When you were at the White House.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Including by the press?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. By WHCA.
Answer. Let me answer you this way: And I have to answer as to both. If you said to me, were Presidential events videotaped, I would say certainly, not as a matter of course. But certainly some things are, a good many by the press, which are open press events, and I would say to you, I also recall seeing video cameras on a small number of occasions and then you would say, like what? And I would say, the radio addresses. But I can't tell you for sure whose cameras they are, whether they are WHCA's or the press.
But I have, for example, when I try to answer this question and I conjure up an image in my mind of the President sitting at his desk in the Oval Office and 40 people sitting around watching him do his radio address, in my mind's eye there is a camera in the middle of the room and it might be a WHCA camera.
But I will also say to you that when you work around that place, cameras are ubiquitous. They are just all over. There are still cameras. There occasionally are the press, you know, what do you call, motion picture cameras, you know what I mean, video cameras.
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I hate to say this. I mean, photographers do start to blend into the wallpaper. Okay? But I would also say to you that in my experience most things the President does in the course of a day are not videotaped. So I would have said, no. I mean by and large he is not typically taped but there are occasions when he is.
Question. Okay. And did you have any knowledge about the—any of the political, the White House political coffees being videotaped?
Answer. I didn't. I mean, I would have thought not but I wouldn't be sure.
Question. Okay. Did you know Steve Goodin?
Answer. Sure.
Question. Did he ever raise with you at any time, in response to any document request, while you were serving as counsel, that there might be videotape of any certain events or things that you were looking for?
Answer. No, he didn't.
Question. To your knowledge, is Steve—would Steve Goodin—he works in the Executive Office of the President?
Answer. That's correct.
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Question. So he would receive a memo such as this?
Answer. You bet.
Question. So if he received a memo such as this, in an attempt to find out information from him that he might know about, would he be an individual who would have known about taping of Presidential events?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I am going to object.
Ms. BEHAN. I will object and say you should not be speculating about what is in people's heads.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Let me just state——
Ms. COMSTOCK. What is your understanding——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Barbara, let me state my objection for the record, which is that it seems to me that on its face this document requests—this directive requests documents that somebody has, not documents that somebody may suspect exist somewhere or even know about. So it is a mischaracterization to say that this directive somehow directs individuals to produce documents that they don't possess.
Ms. COMSTOCK. That's not my question.
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. My question is: Did Mr. Goodin ever bring to your attention, in response to any type of document request he might have gotten, that you might want to look at videotapes?
Answer. No, he didn't, but it was not my expectation that people would say, here is what I have and, by the way, you know, the following 12 offices may also have documents.
Question. No, I understand. But I am just asking, did he ever say to you——
Answer. No, he did not.
Question [continuing]. By the way, you might want to look at this?
Answer. No, he did not.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. He didn't do what you didn't ask him to do?
The WITNESS. Right.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. I have a question. When is the first time that the committee received any videotapes from the White House at all, Ms. Comstock?
Ms. COMSTOCK. I believe actually we had received some videotapes about Harry Thomasson perhaps last year from the White House that were Mr. Thomasson's but this year was October 5th, 1997.
Mr. KANJORSKI. The first time, this was a——
Ms. COMSTOCK. Did you want this on the record?
Mr. KANJORSKI. Yes. Was this some new thing that the committee became aware of that there may be taping at the White House?
The reason I asked the question for the record is—of course, I have read Mr. Clinger has made requests, and I assume the subsequent chairman has made requests. And as a Member of Congress, I am aware of almost 50 percent of the times I have been in the White House that I have been on tape or a video machine or a movie machine was going on. I am curious why no member of the Majority of our committee ever brought that to the attention that when they are at the White House there is—I mean, if I go to the Christmas party, there is a videotape machine there.
The Members of Congress were oblivious to it, also?
Ms. COMSTOCK. My understanding was that the way this came about was that it was brought to the attention of the White House by the Senate on August 7th, 1997, and then there were initially—they were initially told that they were not tapings of the coffee events in particular, and then they came back a month later and informed them that, in fact, there were taping of events and that's when they were produced.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. But that was the first time that any Member, any House Member or Senate Member, that they were aware of functions at the White House where there was this individual who would be doing tapes?
I am shocked about it. I am surprised. I assume when I am at the White House I am always on tape. That would be my presumption because I am mostly there at a function.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Well, actually, our request and subpoenas have always included videotapes. When things aren't produced, there is a presumption that they don't exist or there weren't responsive documents that exist.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Why wasn't there follow-up saying, well, I recall this function or that function that there was a videotape there. Have you searched different individuals?
And we are all aware of the fact that it was usually done by the Defense Department, all of this, whatever it was, and that these were the people that really should have been zeroed in on. I am just curious why that didn't happen. We made such a big to-do of it in the press. It wasn't surprising to me.
I could just name off dozens of functions and yet I am not sure how you would ever offer a subpoena for it. Let me give you an example. One day I took to the White House the winning national high school football team, and if you had asked whether Ron Pollis was on tape, that was the year he was the quarterback of that team, I am not sure you would ever find it unless you searched down the particular event and time and circumstance.
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Do they categorize and classify every individual? Because I don't think they took the names of the whole team.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I don't know that any of us probably should be testifying on that. But I think we do have testimony on that from others.
Mr. KANJORSKI. So as a member of the committee, you can tell me as counsel, that nobody, Mr. Clinger or no one else, ever raised that question? I have been in the Oval Office with Mr. Clinger when we have been taped.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Actually, in the last Congress we did raise the issue of tapes relating to Harry Thomasson related to a number of issues. We could ask the witness about that.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you recall, you did have some documents and actually——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Just so I am clear, the committee did know that events were videotaped because they had received them in the last Congress and yet the Majority never made a specific request?
Mr. KANJORSKI. Let me give you a specific event so that there isn't any question about it. January 20th of 1996, Mr. Clinger sat with me in the Oval Office when a videotape was taken. Present at that meeting was Senator Specter, Senator Santorum, Bill Clinger, myself and possibly Jack Murtin. And none of the Republican Members of either the House or the Senate, Mr. Clinger in particular, never suspected or remembered that he was videotaped that day?
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Ms. COMSTOCK. I don't know that there would be any reason that Mr. Clinger, in any previous requests, would have requested videotapes of himself.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I just want to note that it is fascinating that this committee knew of the existence of the videotapes in this last Congress and never made a request for searches to be made.
Ms. COMSTOCK. First of all, we are not testifying, and what we are talking about is we did have a previous—last year it also included tapes.
The WITNESS. Can I——
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. We can just show the witness a document and see if you recall. This was CGE 1048. It is a document received from last Congress. It was notes of Mr. Foster, who was deputy counsel. And item No. 9 mentions HT tapes.
Do you recall at any time discussing the issue of Harry Thomasson tapes?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Let me raise an objection to this. This is so flagrantly outside the scope of today's deposition, I am not even sure that—words fail me.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I did not plan to raise this, but Mr. Kanjorski and yourself raised the issue tapes.
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Please don't interrupt me. Anyway, it is so far outside the scope of this deposition that words fail me. We are now investigating, miraculously enough, Vince Foster's notes having something to do with Harry Thomasson. And I am flabbergasted, but frankly not surprised that we would careen off in directions like this.
Mr. KANJORSKI. What are the dates of these notes, if I may ask?
Ms. COMSTOCK. These are notes from December of 1993. Because you raised this, I am just asking if——
Mr. KANJORSKI. Was Mr. Quinn counsel to the President?
Ms. BEHAN. No.
Ms. COMSTOCK. No, but these were matters that we were investigating.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I am just wondering if at any time during 1996 if the issues of tapes relating to Harry Thomasson was raised?
Answer. No, it was not.
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Ms. COMSTOCK. I don't even think we need to go into this, I agree, but Mr. Kanjorski raised this.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. This is going to be what exhibit number?
Ms. COMSTOCK. I am not making this an exhibit. The witness has said he didn't know about it.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Don't think all documents shown to the witness in the course of the deposition should be made a part of the record?
Ms. BEHAN. We should make that part of the record.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Fine. We will make that deposition exhibit number——
Mr. TIERNEY. Just mark it for identification. You don't have to mark it as an exhibit if you don't want.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Just include it for the record.
Ms. COMSTOCK. It is CGE 1048.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
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Question. But did the issue of tapes—was that ever discussed in previous productions? Do you recall discussing it or learning that there were tapes of particular events or private events?
Answer. No. It was not, to my knowledge, the subject of any discussion.
What I think is—and perhaps we are going to move on. I would like to say, as my memorandum of December 16th, 1996, makes clear, we asked for everything and we asked for it promptly. Tapes later turned up which were not turned over to us. I think the record ought to reflect there was nothing on the tapes of any interest to anyone.
So, frankly, we spent a lot of time talking about whether these tapes could have been found earlier. Had they been found earlier, what? I mean, how would anything be different if these tapes had been located earlier?
Mr. KANJORSKI. We'd know that John Huang doesn't take sugar in his coffee.
The WITNESS. It beats me.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I don't think we need to be answering rhetorical questions.
This is Deposition Exhibit No. 8, which is a January 9 directive which followed up on your December 16, 1996 directive.
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The WITNESS. Yes.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 8 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Do you recall sending this out?
Answer. I vaguely recall that it was sent out. As you can see from the signature line, my deputy, Kathy Wallman, signed it in my absence.
Question. And do you recall what prompted this additional directive?
Answer. I do not. I don't know whether it is identical or not, I don't.
Question. And then directing your attention to Page 2 of this memo, Deposition Exhibit No. 8, the January 9, 1997 directive, the due date on this is January 16, 1997, and the documents were to be produced to Cheryl Mills or Karen Popp?
Answer. Yes.
Question. Do you recall assigning Karen Popp to work on this matter?
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Answer. Karen was somebody I brought in to help on this. As I indicated earlier, I knew we had to beef up the staff. Karen was a career prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, and we added her to the team. I don't recall exactly what date I hired her, but we brought her in to help with compliance and make sure we got all the materials that were being requested.
Question. Okay. And so at or around the time of mid-January, 1997, do you have any knowledge of the body of documents that had been gathered in response to, first, the October 31 directive that you had sent out, and then the December and the January directives?
Answer. I do not.
Question. Did you ever talk with Ms. Mills about what volume or type of documents were being collected?
Ms. BEHAN. At any time?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. During this time frame, November, December, January?
Answer. I don't recall now having such a conversation.
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Question. Do you recall discussing with her whether or not those documents would be produced to any investigative body, whether it be the Justice Department or congressional committees?
Answer. Whether they would?
Question. Yes.
Answer. I didn't need to discuss that. We were going to gather everything everyone asked for and produce them.
Question. While you were there, were you aware if documents were in fact produced?
Answer. Let me state for the record, we never had discussions about not producing things that were called for.
Question. Did you have any timetables that you had established for producing the documents?
Answer. As soon as we reasonably and humanly could.
Question. Okay. Now if the due dates on these were the initial—the October 31st one I believe was in mid-November, so then the December 16 was December 23rd, and the January 9 was January 16. Do you know, then, following the gathering of those, how long it would be before you would produce documents?
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Ms. BEHAN. Just for the record, the due dates were internal dates for people to collect them.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Exactly, the due dates were for when they should be provided to counsel.
The WITNESS. I don't know whether logs were created. I know we always had these discussions with your office about, you know, there was a desire not just for the documents but for logs.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Logs that would identify the documents and whose office they came from?
Answer. Right, yes.
Question. Is that what you are referring to?
Answer. I don't know if those had to be prepared or not. I am not the person who can tell you what documents we gathered from what offices. And what cataloging or other work went on before they were delivered to the Congress, I don't have firsthand knowledge of.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Quinn, when you say you never had discussions of not producing documents, you don't mean you didn't have discussions not to produce documents that may have had executive privilege or——
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The WITNESS. Or that were not called for.
Mr. KANJORSKI. In other words, you did have discussions not to produce documents that may have been subject to the subpoena but may have had some sensitive information concerns?
The WITNESS. That is correct, or that were questionable in terms of whether they were called for or not. But I was never, in my time in the White House, involved in a conversation involving a document that was clearly called for in which anyone suggested that we find a way not to produce it. If we knew a document was called for and it was not privileged, and it was clearly called for, everyone understood we are going to produce it, we are going to do what is right.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I have a quick follow-up to that.
In light of the fact that a new Congress had just been convened, after you had collected the documents, might you have wanted to negotiate a reasonable document protocol for the handling of those documents before physically turning them over?
The WITNESS. Absolutely. I mean, we always tried to do that, particularly—well, particularly where there might be documents with, as I say, a foreign policy or a national security implication.
It was not unknown to us that documents we turned over to the Hill later found their way into the public and to the press. We had had a very unhappy experience with one of the subcommittees of this committee involving what I believed to have been the inappropriate and unforgivable disclosure of certain confidential information involving the database, despite assurances it would be maintained in confidence.
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But, again, the really important area is an area that involved foreign affairs and international security interests, and to the extent there might have been documents here that fell in that category, we would want to have an airtight protocol in addressing the handling of those documents.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. So had you been at the White House after mid-February, and had this committee not adopted a document protocol until April, there may well have been grounds to withhold certain documents for a period of time until the negotiations of the protocol had been settled and completed and then to produce those documents; is that fair?
The WITNESS. Absolutely. I think that in the case of certain kinds of sensitive information, it would be irresponsible to produce it in the absence of a protocol.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. And one last follow-up. It is particularly significant that a new protocol be negotiated in January of 1997 because there is a new Congress, the old Congress has expired, and even some protocols have expired along with it?
The WITNESS. That is correct, and we had, frankly, a new Chair.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Thank you, Barbara.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Are you through?
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 9 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Okay. In the course of collecting these documents, do you recall, or just in the normal course of having received documents——
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Is this Exhibit BL–26?
Ms. COMSTOCK. No, I am changing it. For the witness, it will be Deposition Exhibit 9.
The WITNESS. I am aware of this document.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. This is EOP 8737, and it is a November 26, 1996 memo to Leon Panetta and Erskine Bowles from Jane Sherburne, and the subject is ''White House Statements Re Riady meetings.''
Did you receive that in the normal course—?
Answer. I did.
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Question [continuing]. Of November of 1996?
Answer. When you say in the normal course, I mean, I received it. I won't say I received it in the normal course. I don't recall where I got it. It was not addressed to me.
Question. I understand that. How did you get a copy of this document?
Answer. I'm not sure. I know I got Erskine's copy, I may have gotten Leon's copy, I think I got Bruce's copy, I may have gotten Cheryl's copy.
Question. And this one actually has a note from Bruce Lindsey on the top of it to you; is that correct?
Answer. That is correct.
Question. And this was regarding how the Riady meetings had been accounted for?
Answer. Characterized.
Question. And characterized in the press, is that correct?
Answer. I still have not read this memo.
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Question. Okay. Well, then that will make our questions real brief.
Ms. BEHAN. I also want to note for the record this was covered in the Senate deposition.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. We were discussing documents that had particular sensitivity or national security concerns. Was this such a document that had national security concerns, to your knowledge?
Answer. I doubt it. I have not read the document, and so I am not familiar with its content except to the extent I was briefed on it. I was told about it, I was told what it was about. It is a long document. I mean, you know, it is a long memo, but I was made aware by others what it was about.
Question. Okay. And what was your understanding of that? I think we can be very brief here.
Answer. My understanding is that it was a memo written by Jane explaining why she took the position she did about the characterization of the Riady meetings, and I guess I understood it to be in defense of whatever she had told the New York Times about those meetings.
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Question. And was this a type of executive privilege document or sensitive document, to your understanding?
Answer. No, I thought it was an unimportant document, not a sensitive document.
Question. Was this the type of document you thought necessitated any type of particular protocol or national security protection?
Ms. BEHAN. I want to state for the record, he testified he did not read the document.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. But your understanding of the document?
Answer. This is not the type of document I had in mind when I made my earlier point.
Question. That is what I was trying to get at. Thank you.
Ms. COMSTOCK. I would note for the record that is a document we received sometime in May after the committee had instituted—had actually scheduled a contempt hearing, and Mr. Ruff represented to us that that was a document that was being considered for executive privilege.
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, if it was gathered pursuant to the March 3rd subpoena, as limited by the April 18 letter, May production does not strike me as particularly dilatory.
Ms. COMSTOCK. If we can return to——
The WITNESS. Before you leave that.
Ms. BEHAN. Wait, wait. I think it is important to note for the record that whatever calls were made on this document, Mr. Quinn himself has testified he did not read the document, so I think——
Ms. COMSTOCK. And I understand and I think that is clear.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. When you said earlier the January 9, 1997 directive, as well as Deposition Exhibit No. 7, which is a December 16 one, does call for all documents related to James Riady, would that produce this document, which indeed discusses James Riady, if people were properly responding?
Ms. BEHAN. I am going to really object to that. You can say what you want, but I am going to object to your making any process calls on any document, both on privilege grounds, on the grounds that whatever her characterization of the document is——
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Why don't you tell us if you turned over your copy.
Answer. I am not going to talk about this document. What I would like to do is simply underscore the point that Congressman Kanjorski made a moment ago, that documents which are responsive to a request may nevertheless be subject to a legitimate claim of privilege, executive privilege or otherwise. And in response to the thrust of your questions, I will say that executive privilege is a concept that embraces more than just issues of national security.
Question. I understand that, and I would agree, but I guess we have had a representation by Mr. McLaughlin that this particular document, Exhibit No. 9, was gathered in response to the March 4 subpoena, which I have no idea, unless he is over collecting documents at the White House for the White House, how he would have had any possibility of knowing that.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I don't want the record to be unclear. My statement is that this document is responsive to this committee's March 3rd subpoena as limited by the April 18 letter, so for us to get a document that is responsive to the subpoena within a month, I believe, of the limiting letter actually going out, does not strike me as dilatory. I have no idea what they collected it relative to. All I know is, the subpoena that this committee issued after Mr. Quinn left the White House called for this document.
Ms. COMSTOCK. And my question to the witness was his understanding of what documents would have been—if a document that existed on November 26 was requested—all documents relating to Mr. Riady were requested on December 16 and in a January 9 directive, has it been your experience that someone would produce such a document to the Counsel's Office?
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The WITNESS. I have lost the thrust of your question, but I will repeat, I still haven't read this document and I still don't plan to.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. And did you have a copy in your files that you turned over at any point to Cheryl Mills or Karen Popp or whoever else may have been collecting documents?
Answer. I think this came from my files.
Question. I would think that is a fair guess since it is addressed to you, but do you recall turning that particular document over, or would you have had a secretary go through and check your records?
Answer. I would have had a lawyer go through my files. You know, I may have been told this was going to be turned over. It was not a matter of great moment to me.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 10 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Deposition Exhibit No. 10 is a January 15 letter request which is addressed to both Mr. Ruff and to you, and I understand at that time you were still the person represented as counsel; is that correct?
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Answer. Yes.
Question. And Mr. Ruff had been named to come on board as your successor?
Answer. Right.
Question. Do you recall receiving this document request?
Answer. I do.
Question. And noting the attachment, which asks for certain records, do you recall that a large part of the requests in this mirrored the directives that you had sent out in December and January?
Answer. Do I recall that now? I mean, I see that now. I mean, I see some similarities.
Question. Okay. And actually, if I could direct your attention to Paragraph 2 of the letter, the first page of the letter does note that you had distributed two memos instructing White House staff to collect and submit documents to the Counsel's Office.
Answer. Right.
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Question. Do you recall discussing with Ms. Mills or others in the Counsel's Office or anybody at the White House responding to this letter request of January 15?
Answer. I think I did respond to it, did I not?
Question. In general, in terms of turning over documents that had been collected, responsive to the——
Answer. There was, as you know from the earlier exhibits, there was a document collection process ongoing at this time. I would have given this request to those who were supervising that process. To the extent it was duplicative, they would have made sure that the documents being collected were turned over in response to this request. To the extent that it may have asked for things not sought in the original two requests, they presumably would have made additional requests of the staff.
Ms. COMSTOCK. Okay. And you noted you did respond to this in a letter on January 17 from you to Chairman Burton, which I will make Deposition Exhibit No. 17.
[Quinn Deposition Exhibit No. 11 was marked for identification.]
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. And I guess, directing your attention to the second page of the letter—and actually, if you would like an opportunity to review the entire letter, why don't we take some time.
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Answer. I was just looking at the first paragraph and thinking the chairman never called me to express his dissatisfaction with our response.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. You received no such call from Chairman Burton?
The WITNESS. No.
Ms. COMSTOCK. It is Deposition Exhibit No. 11. January 17 is the date of the letter, if I had it incorrect on the record.
The WITNESS. I understand.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. So no such call expressing dissatisfaction was received?
The WITNESS. No.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Was there a document protocol in place at this time?
The WITNESS. I don't believe so. As you can see, at this time I expressed the hope that we could sit down with the Chairman to talk about the scope and bases for his request and expressed the desire that we do that soon.
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. And in fact, did you come to learn the Chairman had a meeting with Mr. Ruff shortly thereafter?
Answer. Was it shortly thereafter?
Question. February 6th.
Answer. I thought on your schedule that wasn't very shortly.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. A little more than shortly?
The WITNESS. But I will accept that.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. Okay. Now directing your attention to the second page of the letter, the last line says, ''I look forward to discussing with you a reasonable timetable for the production of the documents requested in your letter.''
Just in terms of the timetable, since the production had been going on, I mean, since people had been producing documents at the White House, presumably in response to your directive, since October 31, and there had been this previous practice of a rolling production, was there any problem in beginning to produce documents in January?
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Answer. Well, we didn't have any understanding. Look, I think you are familiar with this. I must say it always struck me as odd that, unlike in private practice, which was the only thing I was familiar with when I was there, typically when people ask for documents, you would say, ''Okay, let's get together, let's talk about two things, one, what you really need and how we can get it, and, two, when we can get it,'' there was never that kind of discussion, at least involving me. The deadlines were always, you know, now, now, now, now, now, and without any reference to what was possible. And I always felt, frankly, that the deadlines were set—one couldn't help but feel, frankly, that they were set precisely so that failure was inevitable, so that we could always be accused of not responding to the deadline.
Question. Didn't you in fact turn over documents to the Justice Department responsive to some of these matters in late January, early February?
Answer. I don't know the answer to that question. Again, I didn't collect and transfer the documents.
Question. You have no knowledge of documents being turned over in late January, early February?
Answer. That may have happened, but as I have tried to explain, people who were my subordinates on the staff undertook the collection to—undertook to supervise the collection of the documents, the handling of them once they came in and then the transmittal of them to the requesting party. I did not intervene in that process. I was not a screen between the collection of the documents and the transmittal of them, either to the Department of Justice or to you. I wasn't a screen in the middle of that process.
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Can I ask a follow-up?
Ms. COMSTOCK. Can I finish my questions first?
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Can I ask a follow-up? Barbara, are you going to deny me the opportunity to ask a directly relevant follow-up question?
Mr. Quinn, is the Department of Justice subject to grand jury secrecy rules which cover the treatment and handling of documents and which do not apply to this committee?
The WITNESS. That's correct.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK.
Question. And I am talking about the timetable, and the timetable here—did the Justice Department, did you have any discussions with them that their timetable of producing things in late January, early February was unreasonable?
Ms. BEHAN. I just want to say, I think this line of questioning is highly argumentative to what he is trying to address, which has to do with compliance with subpoenas for this committee and has nothing to do with the Department of Justice.
The WITNESS. You know, the protocols were of course in place in the case of the Justice Department. I reached out to Chairman Burton, I asked him to sit down with me, I asked him to talk to me about the timetable for production. I never got a call.
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EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. And at that time you were planning to leave the White House; isn't that correct?
Answer. I reached out to the Chairman, I asked him to sit down with me, I asked him to discuss the timetable for the production of documents. I never heard from him.
Question. Well, I think the record will reflect the January 15 letter was addressed to both Mr. Ruff and you, and Mr. Ruff also reached out, and since Mr. Ruff was going to be the person there long-term, that was the person that the Chairman contacted.
Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Who is testifying now?
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. But I am trying to find out if you know about the body of documents——
Answer. I can't explain to you why it was that the meeting I requested took place 3 weeks later. If there was such a sense of urgency that we had to have the documents by the time Justice had them or by the end of January, I would think that meeting could have taken place at an earlier point, but it is not for me to explain that.
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All I can point out is that, as you will see from the documents I sent to the White House staff, number one, I put demanding timetables on them for the production of documents. Number two, I didn't ask for them once, I asked for them twice, and I twice put demanding timetables on them. Number three, I received the Chairman's request and responded, I think, in a forthcoming way, and expressed an eagerness to sit down with him and talk about how we could cooperate and meet his needs. Now the paper speaks for itself, I think.
Question. Was there any particular reason that you felt that the January 30 deadline, given that these documents were collected, that no documents could be provided at that time?
Answer. What January 30 deadline?
Question. That was in the January 15 letter. The January 15 letter, Exhibit No. 10, had a deadline of January 30. I am wondering if there was a particular reason you can recall——
Answer. My recollection is that we did not have in place at that time a protocol for the handling of the documents. We didn't have any understanding about how these documents would be handled, and I think it was very important that we have that in place.
Question. Do you recall turning over documents relating to the coffees, providing them to the press in this time frame?
Answer. I don't, no.
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Question. Were you involved in that at all?
Answer. I am not sure——
Question. I mean in doing a final review of them or a sign-off that they could be turned over or provided to the press.
Answer. I am not sure what documents you are talking about.
Question. The documents on the White House political coffees.
Answer. If there were people in the White House whose job it was to deal with the press or whose job it was to deal with politics or whose job it was to deal with things other than legal matters, who made a decision to turn documents over to the press, they didn't need my permission to do that.
Question. Did they usually consult with you before those documents were turned over, if they were documents——
Answer. I can't give you an answer that applies to all situations.
Question. But if I can finish my question, for example, when Mr. Fabiani was there, during your tenure for the most part; is that correct?
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Answer. Correct.
Question. Before he would turn over documents to the press that were basically documents provided to various investigations, would he consult with you before turning those documents over to the press?
Answer. He might or might not. It would depend on whether Jane recommended that he talk to me.
Question. Is that part of the, I guess the reporting situation, where Jane would sometimes consult with Harold Ickes on that type of thing rather than you?
Answer. That might have been a political judgment, not a legal issue.
Question. On the White House political coffees information which was released in late January, do you recall being involved in that decision at all?
Answer. I don't. I don't want to rule it out, but I just don't now remember.
Mr. KANJORSKI. For the record, may I ask, Ms. Comstock, my understanding is that Congress took no action to authorize the investigation of the campaign fund-raising until some time after its reorganization in January. In Mr. Burton's letter he references a prior understanding of 15 days as a reasonable response period. Isn't that consistent with the examination made of Whitewater, the FBI files, and sundry other examinations of Mr. Clinger's committee, as opposed to any understanding or protocol having taken place with Mr. Quinn and the White House regarding campaign files, or am I missing something? I assume we went home for an election in early October and had no further meeting with the committee to transact any business and any further examination until we returned in January. Am I understanding that?
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Ms. COMSTOCK. I believe the 15-day turnaround time was both based on the fact Mr. Quinn's directives indicated documents would have been gathered at this point, as well as a previous understanding that that was an agreed upon turnaround time.
The WITNESS. In another context. But the Congressman is quite right that it——
Ms. COMSTOCK. Which I think we clearly said and is clearly noted in the record.
The WITNESS. At this point in time, and the reason we said ''I know that we will want to explore with you,'' I am quoting from my letter, ''the scope and bases for your inquiries,'' is because it was not at all clear that this committee——
Mr. KANJORSKI. Had jurisdiction.
The WITNESS. Had jurisdiction. We had Mr. Solomon expressing a good deal of interest. There was talk about the creation of a select committee. There was talk about the creation of a joint committee between the House and the Senate.
Mr. KANJORSKI. That goes to, and I want this on the record, these letters of late October or early November. Anyone in Washington at that period of time knew we were involved in a congressional and presidential election, the committee was no longer sitting, and the committee's charge in the 104th Congress had been an examination of Whitewater, FBI, and——
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Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Travel Office.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Yes, Travel Office. I have lost track of all the investigations we have been involved in, but they all came to an end and the committee was charged with filing a report. Those members of the committee would have been astounded to know that Mr. Clinger, who was now clearly leaving office within the 60 days, would be making demands upon the White House on anything to do with campaign finance reform, because it was not an issue at that time before the committee.
EXAMINATION BY MS. COMSTOCK:
Question. I would like to talk briefly about your transition between you and Mr. Ruff. Can you just generally describe to us what assistance you provided to Mr. Ruff during the transition time? Perhaps you can tell us what the transition time period was, first.
Answer. I provided all I could because I was so pleased he was there.
Question. Was there an overlapping time when you both worked in the office together?
Answer. Yes, a bit. Not as much as I would have liked, and not as much time as I had actually in the office with my predecessor, because my recollection is that Chuck had had more difficulty than he expected finding a replacement for himself at the Corporation Counsel's Office, and so he got out of there later than he had hoped to, so we didn't have as much time as I think we would have liked.
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Question. And did you have him meet Ms. Mills and the other people that had been handling this particular investigation, in terms of transitioning this information to him?
Answer. We went through—I set up a series of briefings over the course of probably a week, in which people working on different matters came in and brought Chuck up to speed on those matters. It is important, I think, to put this in some context.
Again, these matters with which you are now concerned, the production of documents on this inquiry at the time, and I am afraid that it has grown, but at the time these were just a small part of the work of our office. We had responsibility for a great many other matters ranging from, you know, overseeing the vetting of senior level appointees and the selection of candidates for different kinds of offices to advising the President and people in the White House on a range of legal issues related to policy matters.
We would, for example, get involved in legislative issues that raised legal concerns. There were, for example, certain constitutional concerns that came up in welfare reform. We had to have people work on that. We were involved in legal reform, product liability and the like. We were involved in the tobacco litigation.
Question. Well, I understand there are a lot of duties at the Counsel's Office, but I want to talk about——
Answer. What I want you to understand is that in bringing Chuck Ruff up to speed on these matters, this would be but a fraction of the things he had to worry about.
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Question. And I just wanted to get an understanding of how you brought him up to speed on these particular campaign fund-raising matters.
Answer. He would have been briefed by the people working on the matter.
Question. Do you recall who that was at that time?
Answer. No doubt it would be Cheryl and Karen Popp and whoever else might have been tasked to the matter at the time.
Question. Okay. And do you recall generally, you know, what they had learned at that point or what they briefed Mr. Ruff on?
Answer. No.
Question. I mean, just topics? Not to go into details, but just, you know, ''We have gathered this many documents, this many boxes,'' something like that?
Next Hearing Segment(17)