Segment 4 Of 22 Previous Hearing Segment(3) Next Hearing Segment(5)
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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Do you recall if there were any limitations of any kind in that memorandum?
Mr. RUFF. To the contrary. I believe it was emphasized that there were no limitations on the form or nature of the documents to be retrieved.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And so it would be very difficult for one to suggest in reality that there was any confusion in relationship to what the directive actually meant?
Mr. RUFF. I think it was clear. I doubt that there was any confusion. To the extent that anyone had any questions, our lawyers were ready to respond and did respond to any questions.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And so even if some confusion would arise, although it was unlikely, there were individuals listed that one could call and inquire or ask or clear up any questions that they may have?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct. And, in addition, my lawyers actually visited individuals and offices to make sure whether they needed assistance in pursuing their searches.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me also ask, did you ask the heads of the different offices to certify in writing that both they and their employees had done a complete search in response to the April 28th directive?
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Mr. RUFF. Yes, we did.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And did they, in fact, comply?
Mr. RUFF. Routinely so, yes.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Then you would find it difficult, as I do, to rationalize how anyone could suggest that there was any lack of clarity or lack of understanding relative to the effort put forth to comply in the generation of all documents and information that was available?
Mr. RUFF. I believe and hope that we were clear and that is my understanding.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FORD. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I will yield to Representative Ford.
Mr. FORD. Thank you. I really just have one question. I thank the panelists for coming and I appreciate your patience. Your patience is being tested, as ours are on this panel, on this committee.
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But just to be clear, Ms. Mills, the 11 documents that we have, those on this committee and others in this Congress have expressed some disappointment in receiving late, do those documents show that there was any integration of them? My dear colleague from Ohio has mentioned this, but I want the record to reflect clearly.
Does it show that there was any integration between White House data bases and DNC data bases?
Ms. MILLS. It does not, and it is also duplicative of other information we provided to the subcommittee some time ago.
Mr. FORD. Does it show, do any of those documents demonstrate that any of these data bases were used for campaign purposes?
Ms. MILLS. No.
Mr. FORD. Does it show that anything—do any of these documents suggest there was anything illegal done by anyone in your office or anyone in the White House with regard to the 1996 campaign?
Ms. MILLS. No.
Mr. FORD. I have no further questions. Thank you, Ms. Mills.
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Mr. BURTON. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ruff and Ms. Mills, to your knowledge, did anyone in your office discuss with others at the White House potentially responsive records pertaining to the White House coffees? Mr. Ruff.
Mr. RUFF. I am not sure I fully understand the question, Congressman.
Mr. MICA. Did anyone discuss or did you discuss or anyone in the office, to your knowledge, discuss with others at the White House potentially responsive, being responsive to the request you had made regarding the coffees? Any type of discussions taking place?
Mr. RUFF. My colleague, Mr. Breuer, is probably best able to respond, but I think it's fair to say the answer is, yes, in the sense that when we search for documents we frequently end up talking to people who have those documents or have questions about whether they have responsive documents.
Mr. MICA. Well, was the discussion limited to the individuals that are at the table or beyond that?
Mr. RUFF. Perhaps, if I can, I will allow Mr. Breuer to respond.
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Mr. BREUER. Congressman, in attempting to respond to the many requests of this committee, we endeavor to search through a variety of different ways. One way that we did that has been discussed: through the directive. But the other way that we did it, frankly, was through targeted searches. And in doing that we did speak to people at the White House, and we attempted, Congressman——
Mr. MICA. My question is, we have counsels here that primarily were involved with dealing with questions and discussions about the coffees and the tapes; right?
Mr. BREUER. Well, Congressman, in all due respect, I am trying to—I will try to answer that. It is not, in retrospect, a reality to say that there were discussions just about videotapes.
Mr. MICA. What I am trying to do is trace when the subpoenas came in, and the subpoena came in and you knew some time ago that, and I guess it is January; is that the first time folks knew about the existence of videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. No.
Mr. BREUER. No.
Mr. MICA. Were you made aware of it in January?
Mr. BREUER. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you are talking about January, Congressman. Are you talking about when we first received a request for videotapes? Or are you saying when did we first learn there were videotapes of the coffees?
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Mr. MICA. When did you first learn there were videotapes, Ms. Mills?
Ms. MILLS. I learned of the videotapes of the coffees on October 3rd.
Mr. MICA. Of this year?
Ms. MILLS. Correct.
Mr. MICA. But you were not aware that these things were being done before?
Ms. MILLS. Correct.
Mr. MICA. OK. And, again, the discussion took place among you from October 3rd forward?
Mr. BREUER. Well, Congressman——
Mr. MICA. Did you discuss it—you were involved in trying to get information on the early subpoena, which was the beginning of the year?
Mr. BREUER. Well, we received a subpoena from this committee in March, Congressman.
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Mr. MICA. Right. Was there any discussion before that, among any of the folks who were involved in dealing with the systems that were issued by this committee?
Mr. BREUER. And now are you asking, Congressman, if there were discussions specifically about videotaping of coffees or simply about discussions in general?
Mr. MICA. Existence of videotapes; about——
Mr. BREUER. Congressman——
Mr. MICA. Anything that pertained to potentially responsive records relating to what was requested by this committee or the Senate committee.
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, as I'm sure you are aware, this committee has generated approximately 300 requests. When I first came about, in the middle of February—Congressman, I have to be——
Mr. MICA. You are not answering my question, though. My question is did you all know of the existence of these tapes prior to that point, or was there any discussion among any of the folks who were involved about the existence of those tapes?
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, I have testified before the House, before the Senate, and in other forums that I, in fact, did not know about the existence of videotapes of coffees, and had I known about it, of course, we would have produced them to you promptly.
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Mr. MICA. You are not answering my question.
Mr. BREUER. I think I am trying to.
Mr. MICA. Were there any discussions prior to that date about the existence of the videotapes or a request from this committee or the Senate committee for that? Were there discussions——
Mr. BREUER. I was not involved——
Mr. MICA. If I——
Mr. BREUER. I was not involved in any conversations with respect specifically to the videotaping of coffees in March of this year, Congressman.
Mr. MICA. You keep changing my question. Prior to March, or prior to March and in response to our requests, are you aware of any discussions that you had or others had relating to the existence of these tapes?
Mr. BREUER. I joined the White House Counsel's Office approximately February 18th. Between February 18th and March 5th, or, in fact, until much after that, Congressman, I am aware of absolutely no conversations dealing with videotapes and coffees.
Mr. MICA. OK. Mr. Ruff, did you have any knowledge of the existence of the tapes?
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Mr. RUFF. Certainly did not, Congressman, until October 2nd, nor am I aware of any discussions focusing on the existence or nonexistence of videotapes before that time.
Mr. MICA. But our request came some time ago.
Mr. RUFF. Yes.
Mr. MICA. And you are saying you were never aware and you never discussed with anyone the question of are there videotapes?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct, not until I was alerted to their existence on October 2nd.
Mr. MICA. Who did you talk with, then, about the existence of videotapes?
Mr. BREUER. Well, Congressman, as we have stated before, that when the request came in from the Senate, it was a much more general request. At the time that the request came in to one of the associate counsels on approximately August 7th, Mr. Imbroscio began the inquiry to determine whether or not there were videotapes from WHCA. At some point, he did learn about those and we pursued that matter.
He found out about that, Congressman, and continued to endeavor to find out, and on September 9th notified the Senate of the existence of videotapes for fund-raising events, but at that time was under the understanding that he did not and there were not videotapes of coffees.
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He confirmed the fact that there were videotapes of coffees, I believe, either late in the evening of October 1 or sometime on October 2. The Senate was notified, as you know, Congressman, on October 2. And that is the chronology of the discovery of the videotapes.
Mr. MICA. That is the famous Saturday?
Mr. BREUER. I think Saturday was the 3rd—the 4th, I'm sorry. Saturday was the 4th. October 4th. I was referring to Friday, October 3rd.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I truly believe that any hearing that focuses on campaigns and how campaigns are run and the vast amount of money involved is critically important. Because I really believe that our democracy is at stake, given the way that our campaign laws, that are weak to begin with, are being manipulated, coordinated, sidetracked and abused.
I would like to focus on a group called Triad, which, according to reports in the press, not in any hearings before Congress, but in the press, that Triad Management ran $5 million in attack ads and coordinated PACs in the closing days of the 1996 elections.
I have one question, Mr. Chairman. I would like to know when you are going to issue subpoenas to the groups and individuals involved in the Triad Management scheme to violate or evade the campaign finance laws?
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This has been reported in the press over and over again. Now, if we are going to look at how campaigns are being run, we are going to look at money. This is a group that needs to be looked at. And I would like to know what is it going to take? You have issued a lot of subpoenas. What is it going to take to subpoena the Triad Management group?
Mr. BURTON. Is that a question you would like to pose to me this morning?
Mrs. MALONEY. Yes.
Mr. BURTON. Let me just say we don't disclose potential subpoenas before we issue them. We will be issuing additional subpoenas, some to Republican targets as well as Democrat targets. I will not tell you that we are going to issue them to the Triad group, but I will tell you that we are going to look at it. We are looking at it. And we very well may do that.
Mrs. MALONEY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There have been many reports that these hearings have been very partisan, but I am hopeful that you will be bipartisan and look at both parties, because I believe there are skeletons in both parties.
Mr. BURTON. I can assure you wherever we find illegal or potentially illegal activities in the area of fund-raising, we will look at it, regardless of where the chips may fall.
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Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I would like to challenge the ranking Democratic member, Mr. Waxman, who is incredibly busy curbing the money of tobacco interests in our country and working on trying to improve public health, but I would like to challenge you, since I don't believe we're going to have hearings that are going to focus on Triad and the abuses that took place.
I would like to read into the record what has been reported, not before congressional committees, not in hearings, but reported by Time Magazine, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, but not before congressional hearings, and they show ways that they are getting around campaign finance laws.
I feel even if you don't have the officials, the documents that we can bring together, this has to be brought up to the public, and I would hope that the ranking member would pay attention to this. And if you have to go down the hall or into some other office building to have it, the Vice President's office or the President's office to have a room to have a hearing, they have offices on the Capitol if we can't get one from the Republicans, as happened in the past. I would like to challenge you to have hearings on Triad Management.
Mr. WAXMAN. Would you yield to me?
Mrs. MALONEY. I certainly will.
Mr. WAXMAN. Our committee has already sent out document requests or subpoenas, over 600, to Democratic targets and only 10 to Republican targets.
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The chairman answered your question as if you were a member of the press. You said are you going to pursue the Triad issue because it's been so prominently mentioned in the press as a clear issue similar to the ones we have been investigating. His answer was he wouldn't tell you specifically because he's not going to talk about specific subpoenas. Well, you are a member of the committee.
Mr. BURTON. Would the gentleman——
Mr. WAXMAN. I'm the ranking Democrat on the committee. He hasn't mentioned that he is going to pursue that issue at all.
Mr. BURTON. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. WAXMAN. I will in a minute, or she will, I would encourage her to in a minute. It is her time.
But if I can just complete my statement. We see no evidence that this committee is going to pursue anything that has to do with Republican targets. We have heard this rhetoric from the chairman over and over again. We are going to pursue these things wherever they may be, but we have seen no action to back up that rhetoric.
We have seen a clear record of going after Democrats, and, of course, we're reminded again what the former chief counsel of this committee said when he quit. He said, they're only interested in ''sliming'' Democrats.
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Mrs. MALONEY. Reclaiming my time.
Mr. BURTON. Would the gentlelady yield for a response?
Mrs. MALONEY. Reclaiming my time, I will certainly yield on your time. But on my time I have a point that I would like to make, and this is that in the final days of the 1996 election, tax exempt organizations, tax exempt organizations spent more than $5 million on attack ads benefiting Republicans in 34 key congressional races. Among the groups that paid for this, for this media blitz, were the Coalition for our Children's Future, Citizens for Reform, and Citizens for the Republic Education Fund.
All of these groups did not have to disclose to the Federal Election Commission how they spent their money or where their money came from. The Citizens for Reform and the Citizens for the Republic Education Fund were directly run by the Triad, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Again, there have been no hearings on this. We are relying on the press. But the point is here, they have been credited by the press for turning and winning elections at the last minute, yet they don't have to disclose where their money comes from. It is a way to get around the existing laws, and this loophole should be changed.
I have a bill in, by the way——
Mr. BURTON. The gentlelady's time has expired.
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Mrs. MALONEY [continuing]. With Mr. Horn that would close this loophole, and I hope that is one measure this Congress can pass.
I look forward to your response now, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentlelady's time has expired. And I will just say that I will be happy to talk with any member of the committee privately about the potential targets for subpoenas. We have done that in the past.
We have sent subpoenas out to the Young Brothers, which was a company out of Hong Kong that had a shell corporation that sent money to the RNC. We are looking at that as well. So we will look at these things, and I will discuss them with you.
I do not believe that potential subpoenas or targets should be discussed in an open forum. So when Mr. Waxman says that we're trying to keep it from members of this committee, he is in error.
Now, let me just say I want to take my 5 minutes now, so please start the clock.
I would like to put up Exhibit No.s 141 and 141–A, please.
[Note.—Exhibit 141 can be found on p. 81, and exhibit 141–A can be found on p. 85.]
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Mr. BURTON. Now, Ms. Mills, you have danced around this issue quite a bit by saying that you were not aware of videotapes of coffees. Now, if you look at these two documents, I believe they were your documents. It is very clear you knew there were videotapes being made in the White House, correct?
Ms. MILLS. I was aware that WHCA videotaped events of the President. I was not aware as to which events WHCA videotaped.
Mr. BURTON. But you were aware that videotapes were being made?
Ms. MILLS. I certainly was aware that the President's remarks at events were videotaped. I was not aware as to which events were videotaped.
Mr. BURTON. But it was in the White House?
Ms. MILLS. He travels as well.
Mr. BURTON. In the White House?
Ms. MILLS. I have been to events in the White House where the press are present and WHCA is present as well, yes.
Mr. BURTON. In the White House.
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Ms. MILLS. I just said, I will say again, I have been to events in the White House in which WHCA is present and videotaping, along with other cameras as well.
Mr. BURTON. Now, in the subpoena that was sent to Mr. Ruff, does it say videotapes of the coffees?
Ms. MILLS. I'm sure it does.
Mr. BURTON. To your knowledge.
Ms. MILLS. I did not review the subpoena. I have seen the directives. As you probably are aware, Mr. Breuer is the Special Counsel who ends up handling these types of matters.
Mr. BURTON. Were you in any meetings with Mr. Ruff when you discussed the subpoena we sent to you?
Ms. MILLS. I do not recall an occasion where I have been in a meeting with Mr. Ruff or Mr. Breuer where we talked about videotapes.
Mr. BURTON. No.
Ms. MILLS. I have been in many meetings—Mr. Chairman, I really will try to be responsive to your question, if you let me. I have been in many meetings when we have discussed different requests that are—to the White House, but I could not tell you whether those requests are from this committee, the Senate or others.
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Mr. BURTON. Were you in any meetings—and Mr. Ruff, I will ask you if she was in any meetings; or Mr. Breuer, was she in any meetings when you discussed or had any discussion whatsoever about the subpoena that I sent to you back in March?
Ms. MILLS. I will answer that one more time and then I will let both of them answer it.
I am quite confident that I have been in meetings where issues that were covered by your subpoenas were discussed. I don't know if they were discussed as your subpoena, but I'm quite confident that I have been in meetings where issues that you all, this committee and other committees are interested in, have been discussed.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you. Now, let me just followup on that. In the subpoena that I sent to Mr. Ruff, it very clearly asks for video and audiotapes, and it does not specify whether or not they were coffees or Presidential addresses or anything else. Is that correct, Mr. Ruff?
Mr. RUFF. I believe that in the definition of documents audio and visual taping is included as a definition and, thus, we treat that as encompassing any relevant matter that is listed in the subpoena as something the committee is looking for.
Mr. BURTON. So those tapes, even though they may not have been coffee tapes, would have been included under our subpoena, correct?
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Mr. RUFF. If there was a request concerning an individual or an event and we knew about a video or an audiotape that encompassed that individual or event, yes, it would be responsive.
Mr. BURTON. So, to me, it stretches credulity to think that from March, until late June when you sent me that letter, that somebody would not have said, hey, there were videotapes made, shouldn't we check into this? And yet that wasn't done until October.
Can you explain to me why? I mean, how many—all videotapes were encompassed in my subpoena. Now, why is it, Ms. Mills, and the others who were very well aware—if you look at the documents that are on the screen, why is it that nobody even said, hey, there were some videotapes taken; shouldn't we take a look at this, especially in view of the fact that everybody knows what happened in Watergate when we found out about the audiotapes?
You would think somebody would have thought of that. And for a group of people as intelligent as you—and you are very intelligent, we all know that—to not even discuss the contents of my subpoena, which was all-inclusive about videotapes, just stretches somebody's imagination beyond credulity, as I said.
Mr. RUFF. I won't comment on what is or is not within the bounds of imagination. I will simply repeat what I have said before.
It is absolutely true that there was never in any conversation I have been a part of or, I'm sure, any member of my staff has been a part of, any discussion of the existence of videotapes that would be relevant to this committee's response until I first learned of it on October 2nd.
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Mr. BURTON. I'd like to point out that my letter of January 15th, before you became Counsel, noted videotapes even before you came on board.
So we asked for videotapes in a letter; we asked for video or audiotapes in a subpoena. You sent me a letter in June saying that to the best of your knowledge everything I asked for in my subpoena had been complied with. Since that time, we've had 12 boxes of documents; and now, in October, we find out there were videotapes.
There's an appearance here that you were trying to stop us from getting information that was relevant to our investigation. Now, I know you're going to say that that appearance is erroneous.
Mr. RUFF. Indeed, that is in fact my testimony.
Mr. BURTON. But anybody in the public who sees this, they would have to say, my gosh, 12 boxes of documents after you said we had everything; videotapes which were asked for not once, but twice, as well as audiotapes, we don't find out about until October, when the young lady who sits right next to you, who is Associate Counsel to the President of the United States, who was in one videotape, had letters containing two videotapes, it just doesn't make any sense.
So I think that it's something that the American people, if they are paying attention to this, would question, even though we have high regard for you and your ability.
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And I would like to just say for the record—and I will bring this up in just a few moments, my time has run out; I want to bring up a statement you made back at the end of the Watergate hearings, which I talked to you about yesterday, where I think you indicated that it's convenient for you not to know certain things, because if you didn't know those things, you couldn't be held accountable. And we will put that in the record before too long.
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Chairman, since you have raised that issue with me, after you raised it with me the other night, since I didn't ever remember saying that, I went back and put my own name in Lexis-Nexis, and went back to my—I won't say youth, because I was not youthful at the time, in 1977, when the Watergate office closed. In an interview with Bob Woodward I was quoted as saying, I think—and I am trying to put myself back in my mood on that day, which was, as expressed in that article, one of relief and an overwhelming desire to close the doors of the office and move on to other things. I think I said something along the lines of, the one lesson I have learned, and one can go back and look at the teachers during that period of time, was that if called on to recite the events of Watergate, that one escape from that question was a failure of recollection.
It had nothing to do with—first of all, it was facetious, Mr. Chairman; and second, it had nothing to do with what is another line from Watergate, which is ''plausible deniability.'' I don't have any of that. I take responsibility for everything my office does.
Mr. BURTON. Let me just read to you exactly what Mr. Woodward said that you said. He said, ''If called to testify someday at such an inquiry, Ruff said he knows just what to do, just what to do, quote, 'I'd say, gee, I just don't remember what happened back then, and they won't be able to indict me for perjury,' and that 'maybe that's the principal thing that I've learned in 4 years. I just intend to rely on that failure of memory.' ''
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And I want you to know that maybe you didn't mean that, Mr. Ruff, but when you look at all the things we're talking about here today, it certainly sounds like you took that to heart.
And with that, I would be happy to yield——
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 93 TO 96 HERE
Mr. RUFF. Mr. Chairman, I think we probably all—those in this room and elsewhere—have made comments to the press that were perhaps facetious when made and came back to haunt one.
But I will tell you this: Whatever I said in that moment to Bob Woodward—and I said it on the record, knowing that he was going to print it, it has nothing to do, nothing to do with my role as Counsel to the President of the United States.
I have told you what we've done. We did it in good faith. My testimony here is accurate. My testimony here is as responsive as I can make it to this committee's questions and nothing else.
Mr. BURTON. Who do you have at this time?
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Mr. Fattah.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Fattah, would you yield to me?
Mr. FATTAH. Let me yield to the ranking member.
Mr. WAXMAN. I just want to say a couple of things for the record. One, I want to quote from the Washington Times, July 3rd. ''Committee aide said, Mr. Rowley, who was the chief counsel of this committee, had tried to fire Mr. Bossie, but was overruled by Mr. Burton. They said Mr. Rowley complained that Mr. Bossie was trying to use the probe to 'slime' the Democrats, while Mr. Rowley wanted to 'follow where the evidence leads us.' ''
Second, I want to point out that on May 8, 1997, the Democrats asked Mr. Burton to issue subpoenas to investigate congressional fund-raising on Federal properties; for example, the 1995 Republican House-Senate dinner invitations put a price tag on Federal property, and he refused to issue the subpoenas or investigate.
Second, we also asked that events held by GOPAC, which is Speaker Gingrich's political action committee, on Federal property, be examined; and Mr. Burton refused to investigate.
I want those things on the record, when we hear how this investigation is going to pursue wrongdoing wherever it may lead. You can't pursue wrongdoing that you refuse to know anything about.
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I thank you for yielding.
Mr. FATTAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me try to delve back into this. Again, we're talking about the same videotapes that everyone's seen that show that the President didn't do anything improper or wrong or different than Bob Dole in his campaign? Are those the videotapes we're talking about?
Mr. RUFF. Those are, I presume, the videotapes we are talking about.
Mr. FATTAH. So the inference and the accusation, after trying to, I think four or five times, state that it was a tour with your family in the White House, when you were telling us under oath that it wasn't a tour—the allegation is that basically you somehow knew something about the fact that these coffees were videotaped and that by your absence of letting someone know, you were purposely trying to obstruct this committee from ever seeing these videotapes that exonerate the President?
Ms. MILLS. That would appear to be the line of questioning.
Mr. FATTAH. Now, the people who have questioned you about this, they don't want to bring the people from the White House Communications Agency in, the supervisors, the people who control the activities of this office, who themselves did not know that these were the types of events that were being videotaped, right?
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Ms. MILLS. That's correct. They indicated that they did not know. Indeed, Mr. Smith, when I met with him at the time, when we were drafting this particular memo, was not over the audiovisual and did not know at that time what they taped and what they did not tape, so he could not have communicated that information because he himself was not aware of it.
Mr. FATTAH. Now, you are an attorney, right?
Ms. MILLS. Yes.
Mr. FATTAH. And you don't do any videotaping yourself, do you? Have you videotaped any of these coffees?
Ms. MILLS. I have not.
Mr. FATTAH. That is not part of your responsibility at the White House?
Ms. MILLS. It is not.
Mr. FATTAH. And the people who were videotaping in the White House, they didn't come knock on your door—videotaping the coffees, they didn't come knock on your door and say we videotaped those coffees that everybody is talking about and here they are.
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Ms. MILLS. That's correct. I was unaware that any of the coffees had been videotaped.
Mr. FATTAH. In fact, even these military officials, when they testified before the Senate, said they didn't know anything about this confusion. They are like the majority of the American public; they are not paying attention to this. They are dealing with more pressing issues of the day.
Ms. MILLS. That is my understanding of what they said.
Mr. FATTAH. So just so the record can be clear, this accusation is baseless, and it really stretches the credibility of our committee to continue this kind of assault unnecessarily. I think maybe we can move on to some other issues.
We have covered—I was intrigued by Congressman Horn's questions about the transportation budget of the President on one of his international visits, and the allegation that somehow you were being unresponsive in letting us know about what the travel costs for that visit were.
I just think that what it appears to me to be is that the committee and the Congress have made so many requests, issued so many subpoenas, that they really have created a situation where there is always going to be something that is a little bit late or hard to get your hands on, because it is a purposeful overload of a very small office in the White House, making, would you say, over 300 requests from this committee?
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Mr. RUFF. That is correct.
Mr. FATTAH. 1,100 or so in total. And you have six lawyers responding to them.
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. FATTAH. Now, this committee has a staff of, I guess there are 60 people we heard yesterday. So if we cannot keep track of who we are subpoenaing, and we have had our own problems that have been illustrated in the press, and keep track of what we are doing, it is possible the White House could be having some difficulty.
But I want to be as clear as I can. Mr. Ruff, the questions of Mr. Horn about the President's trip to Southeast Asia, he said he had sent you a letter about that. He actually sent that letter to Jack Quinn.
Mr. RUFF. I believe he said he'd sent a letter to Mr. Quinn and then one later to me. But I must say it is not one I'm aware of, and I told him I'd look into it.
Mr. FATTAH. This has to do with his concern about how much it costs for the President to travel?
Mr. RUFF. I believe that's correct.
Mr. FATTAH. And this is what Jay Letterman, the guy who's got the show at night. He was talking about the fact of why people don't walk across the street from the White House and use the phone booth. Because it costs a lot of money to move the President around, right?
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Mr. RUFF. Yes.
Mr. FATTAH. Thank you very much.
Jay Leno was his name. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. McIntosh will be recognized for 5 minutes. Then we will go vote and break and we will allow our guests to get some lunch, as well as members of the committee, and we will reconvene about 10 minutes after 2 or 15 minutes after 2. That will give us 5 minutes for Mr. McIntosh and then 30 minutes for lunch.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Continuing on with some of the questions that we had yesterday on the WhoDB documents, Ms. Mills, you testified yesterday that on the weekend of September 18th, when you were going through the documents to respond to one of our early requests, that there were some additional lawyers who helped you review those documents. Were those lawyers also all members of the White House Counsel's Office staff, or were there lawyers outside of that office or outside of the White House staff?
Ms. MILLS. There were a number of people who helped and who volunteered to try to be of assistance. I recall speaking to people in the Counsel's Office at a staff meeting, asking if there was any way they could be helpful, I would appreciate it.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Could you help me by trying to recall who some or all of those lawyers are?
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Ms. MILLS. I'm probably not going to do a good job, so I don't want to try to misrepresent the record.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Let me ask two things. Let me ask unanimous consent that we keep the record open for 5 days so that you can get a chance to look and talk to your colleagues and find that out.
Ms. MILLS. OK.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Are there any that you know of today who helped with this?
Ms. MILLS. As I sit here, the best of my recollection—I have a recollection, I believe, of Wendy White having volunteered some of her time. Potentially, Dawn Chirwa. I just can't—but those are two of the people who come to my mind as I sit here right now.
Mr. MCINTOSH. If I could ask, Mr. Chairman, for unanimous consent to allow the record to be open so Ms. Mills could go back and consult with her colleagues and try to find her best knowledge possible who was involved in that.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection.
[Note.—The information referred to was requested but never received.]
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Mr. MCINTOSH. Thank you.
Mr. Ruff, obviously I'm interested not only in the documents that were sent to us in your recent letter and which—I appreciated your candor in sending that. But all of the documents that were apparently set aside in a folder or another box as being determined to be nonresponsive, but having been sent to the White House Counsel's Office.
Have we received all of the documents that were in that folder as having been at one point determined to be nonresponsive?
Mr. RUFF. No, you haven't. Mr. Chairman, I reviewed that folder and determined, I believe, three—I believe three, but I will clarify it further once I go back and look again. One comes to mind, for example; it was simply a memo from a person asking for a pay raise. The other had to do with, I think, the archived records of President Clinton when he was Governor. I forget what the third one was.
But there was no reference, direct or indirect, to WhoDB in any of those three documents. We turned over everything else, as I think I indicated in my letter to you, erring on the side of over-inclusiveness, because we surely did not want to suggest that there was any fine lines being drawn, given the concerns I expressed in my letter, that I wanted to be fully open and candid with you on this matter.
Mr. MCINTOSH. So we have all but those three?
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Mr. RUFF. Of those folders; that's correct.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Of those folders. Were any of the documents that were at one point sent to the White House Counsel's Office sent back during the last year?
Mr. RUFF. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Ms. Mills, to your knowledge, is that true?
Ms. MILLS. These were in a file that I transferred in December to another attorney who is handling the matter. It is my understanding that they remained in that file with that attorney during that entire time.
Mr. MCINTOSH. During the time you had responsibility for the investigation, none of the documents sent to your office, pursuant to your request within the White House, were sent back? They were all kept and either determined to be nonresponsive or sent to the committee?
Ms. MILLS. Right. That's the best of my understanding.
Mr. MCINTOSH. OK. And currently all the documents are in custody of the White House Counsel's Office; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
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Mr. MCINTOSH. Mr. Ruff, let me, I guess, say we will probably want to work with you—I know we will want to work with you as a procedure to also look at the remaining documents, because I think it's important that we satisfy ourselves, given what we've seen so far.
Mr. RUFF. I understand that concern, and we will be glad to work with your staff.
Mr. MCINTOSH. The other question that I want to ask at this point is, have you satisfied yourself that there are no documents in the White House about—that your process has been thorough enough that you have received all the documents that may be responsive to our requests?
Mr. RUFF. I believe that's the case, Mr. McIntosh.
Let me do this, which I will commit to do at your staff's convenience: I will need to talk through with Ms. Paxton whether there are any remaining issues, because she is in the process of trying to respond to one of your earlier letters, and I will be able to make that representation to you once I have had that further detailed conversation.
Mr. MCINTOSH. The other thing that would be helpful is, for a while there was no document log kept; and I think you have changed the procedure on that, to do it. We will need to have that, to the best of the ability of those involved, go back and try to recreate some of that.
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And I understand that's a resource question. Given the difficulty we're having, I think that would be important.
Mr. RUFF. It is, I'm afraid, not just a resource question; it is a question of people, just because most of it was done in 1996 and before, who are no longer around and it may be very difficult.
We will do our best to try to respond. Particularly if you have a particular document or set of documents that you have a question about, we will do our best to try to reconstruct it. But I am told that it's a very difficult process just because the people are not there anymore.
Mr. MCINTOSH. And the final——
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. MCINTOSH. I ask unanimous consent for 10 more seconds.
Mr. BURTON. All right.
Mr. MCINTOSH. The White House data base, I understand, is continuing to be used and has a legitimate function, but the audit trail has never been engaged, and we need you to engage that audit trail. And that's a computer function that needs to be switched on. It was built into it, but never turned on.
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Mr. RUFF. You have now gone well past my understanding of what's in the computer, but we will be happy to talk to staff about what's possible and be as responsive as we can.
Mr. MCINTOSH. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. The committee will stand in recess until 2:20.
Mr. BURTON. The committee will come to order. What we have decided to do to help expedite things is, Mr. Bennett will go ahead and start his last round of questioning and then when Members come back, we may interrupt him so that they can have their questioning. That way, we will not have to impose on your time any more than is absolutely necessary.
Mr. Bennett.
Mr. BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Breuer, Mr. Nionakis, I compliment you on your patience. You were both here all day yesterday. And, Mr. Nionakis, you must be exhausted after all your testimony thus far. For the record, I believe you are represented by Mr. Neil Eggleston of the law firm of Howrey & Simon, Mr. Eggleston?
Mr. NIONAKIS. That is correct.
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Mr. BENNETT. And Mr. Breuer, you're represented by Mr. Mark Lynch of the firm of Covington & Burling; is that correct?
Mr. BREUER. That's correct, Mr. Bennett.
As you know, I had been hopeful that the White House Counsel would be able to represent the various people in the office, as has been in other fora. This committee chose not to permit that to take place, and so we have endeavored to get representation for the various lawyers, given that they are going to have to be deposed and appear in various hearings.
Mr. BENNETT. Certainly. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Eggleston, welcome. Nice to see you here. We will move along, and to the extent any Members want to come in, I will stop and interrupt my questioning.
Mr. Breuer, you, in fact began your employment in the White House Counsel's Office in February of this year; is that correct?
Mr. BREUER. That's correct, Mr. Bennett, I did.
Mr. BENNETT. And, Mr. Nionakis, you began your employment in March of this year?
Mr. BURTON. Would you pull the mic a little bit closer so we can pick you up?
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Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Nionakis, you began your employment when, sir?
Mr. NIONAKIS. In the beginning of March 1997.
Mr. BENNETT. And Mr. Breuer, you had extensive experience with respect to the area of law known as white collar criminal defense practice; isn't that correct?
Mr. BREUER. Fairly extensive, that's correct, yes.
Mr. BENNETT. I think you need to pull the microphone a little closer to you again.
Mr. BREUER. I keep changing it because every time I move it, the camera people ask me to move it back. But I will move it toward me.
Mr. BENNETT. Certainly defer to the camera people over me, sir.
And in terms of your private practice background, you have had considerable experience with respect to compliance with grand jury subpoenas for individual clients and corporations; is that correct?
Mr. BREUER. I did have a fair degree, yes.
Mr. BENNETT. And what percentage of your practice would have been based in that area of the law, sir?
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Mr. BREUER. As you know, Mr. Bennett, I said in my deposition it is somewhat difficult to give you a percentage of the different types. During my 7 1/2 years at Covington & Burling, more or less of my time would be spent on criminal work, but a significant amount. I don't think I can do better than that.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Nionakis, have you had any experience with respect to white collar criminal practice and/or grand jury subpoena compliance?
Mr. NIONAKIS. Yes, I have.
Mr. BENNETT. And what was the nature of your experience in private practice?
Mr. NIONAKIS. As an associate in a downtown law firm here in DC, I—a portion of my practice was working on white collar matters.
Mr. BENNETT. And I gather with respect with your precise role, Mr. Breuer, I think you've indicated that you were in fact—or I think Mr. Ruff has indicated you were in fact hired specifically to handle the various investigations currently being handled by the White House Counsel's Office; isn't that correct?
Mr. BREUER. That's correct, under Mr. Ruff.
Mr. BENNETT. And that is your primary task, to handle all those matters?
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Mr. BREUER. It is to the handle a good number of the investigatory matters that face the White House. That is correct.
Mr. BENNETT. And that would include the Senate, the House, as well as the Department of Justice or any Independent Counsel who have been appointed?
Mr. BREUER. That is correct for the most part, yes.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Nionakis, what would have been the extent of your particular assignments since March?
Mr. NIONAKIS. Excuse me, with respect to?
Mr. BENNETT. In terms of, are you assigned on the side of the office Mr. Ruff addressed that deals with judicial appointments, are you assigned to the side of the office dealing with investigations?
Mr. NIONAKIS. I do mostly investigations.
Mr. BENNETT. And what percentage of your time is spent on the investigations?
Mr. NIONAKIS. Since I have begun at the White House, virtually all of my time.
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Mr. BENNETT. And Mr. Breuer, essentially—correct me if I am wrong—I believe I asked Ms. Mills yesterday, as of February or March of this year, essentially an entirely new team of lawyers came on board with the exception of Ms. Mills and Mr. Bruce Lindsey. Is that basically correct?
Mr. BREUER. That's essentially correct. That's right. There are some lawyers, who still have stayed on, that had various responsibilities, but for the most part there was a new team.
Mr. BENNETT. And Ms. Mills, I think you have previously indicated, particularly played a key role in orienting the new team with respect to document compliance, is that correct, Mr. Breuer?
Mr. BREUER. I'm sorry; I thought that was directed to Ms. Mills.
Ms. Mills has been very willing and extremely helpful in providing information to the team. That is correct.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. Nionakis, were Ms. Mills and Mr. Lindsey both helpful to you also with respect to your initial work assignments?
Mr. NIONAKIS. I would say that is true with respect to Ms. Mills, yes.
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Mr. BENNETT. In fact, one of the first assignments both of you worked on upon coming to the White House Counsel's Office was with respect to the compliance with this committee's subpoena of March 4, 1997; isn't that correct?
Mr. BREUER. That's correct. This committee's subpoena of March 4, among others, was of central importance and something we did in fact work on soon after I joined the White House.
Mr. BENNETT. And I gather, with respect to document production, that Ms. Mills has continued to play some role and assist you and the members of your team in compliance with document production, is that correct, Mr. Breuer?
Mr. BREUER. She has certainly played—as the Deputy White House Counsel, she has definitely played a role; that's correct.
Mr. BENNETT. Now, you have both patiently sat through a great deal of testimony, and I'm not going to go through the matter of the March 4, 1977, subpoena—1997 subpoena or Mr. Ruff's directive of April 28th of this year.
And I think that Mr. Breuer, with respect to—your testimony with respect to the videotapes is a matter of public record, so I will again try not to have you repeat that for purposes of time.
But, Mr. Nionakis, you did not testify before the Senate, did you, sir?
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Mr. NIONAKIS. I did not. That's correct.
Mr. BENNETT. And exactly when did you become aware of the fact that there was an inquiry with respect to videotaping at the White House?
Mr. NIONAKIS. It would have been sometime prior to October 2nd, but sometime after the Senate committee staff member had made the inquiry to Mr. Imbroscio in the Counsel's Office.
Mr. BENNETT. And what was the nature of the inquiry from the committee staff member from the Senate?
Mr. NIONAKIS. Well, the way it was conveyed to me was that the subcommittee staff member had inquired about the possible existence of clandestine audiotapings in the Oval Office.
Mr. BENNETT. Did that seem somewhat bizarre to you?
Mr. NIONAKIS. ''Bizarre'' probably isn't the word I'd use; but ''odd,'' I would say.
Mr. BENNETT. And given what you determined would be an odd inquiry, exactly with whom did you speak about possible clandestine taping at the White House?
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Mr. NIONAKIS. I only had one conversation and that was with Mr. Imbroscio when he conveyed the substance of that conversation that he had had with a Senate subcommittee staff member.
Mr. BENNETT. You did speak with Mr. Imbroscio about this?
Mr. NIONAKIS. He conveyed to me the conversation that he had had with the person on the Senate committee.
Mr. BENNETT. Yes, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Cox has another appointment, and I promised him when he came back that we would give him 5 minutes.
Mr. BENNETT. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. BURTON. So could you suspend?
Mr. BENNETT. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. BURTON. Keep track of the time down there, will you please?
Mr. Cox.
Mr. COX. You've very kind, and I thank you for yielding, and I thank the chairman.
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If I might, Mr. Breuer, ask you, in the Counsel's Office, whom do you report to?
Mr. BREUER. I report to Mr. Ruff, Congressman.
Mr. COX. And on Teamsters matters, whom do you report to?
Mr. BREUER. On Teamsters matters, I inform Ms. Mills about the matters. I'm not sure to what degree, if any, Mr. Ruff follows it, but there have been——
Mr. COX. Would it be fair then to say that you report to Ms. Mills on Teamsters matters?
Mr. BREUER. No, I don't think it would be fair to say that I report to her.
Mr. COX. You report to somebody else?
Mr. BREUER. I don't think with respect to the particular matter of the Teamsters that I really think in terms of reporting to someone.
Mr. COX. Are you sort of—you are as far as it goes in the White House?
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Mr. BREUER. No, I don't think I'm as far as it goes. I think on a general matter, various people in the White House Counsel's Office are aware of what we're doing. I think Ms. Mills may be aware. Frankly, I'm not positive.
Mr. COX. Now, the Counsel to the President in other matters reports to the President, of course. He is an Assistant to the President. Since he has got to recuse himself because he has represented the Teamsters, in Teamsters matters do you report to the President?
Mr. BREUER. Well, Congressman, I——
Mr. COX. Have you ever reported to the President on the Teamsters matters?
Mr. BREUER. Without really going into the substance of what requests have been made, there have been a limited number of requests that have, in fact, been made by various committees and others about Teamsters matters. And with respect to those, they have been document requests and we have simply fulfilled those requests by identifying the relevant documents and producing them.
Mr. COX. So it's safe to say there is not an independent White House investigation of any of this?
Mr. BREUER. None that I'm aware of, that's correct, Congressman.
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Mr. COX. Mr. Ruff, you recused yourself on what date?
Mr. RUFF. I don't recall. I think the first occasion on which—whenever it was, on which allegations began to surface about possible links between the fund-raising inquiry and the Carey re-election, I indicated to my staff that I really didn't want to participate in those matters because I had represented the union, not in connection with anything that was involved in these matters, but in 1994. I just thought it better that I not have any substantive role in the process.
Mr. COX. Now, you told me that you didn't write any kind of recusal letter.
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. COX. Is there anything memorializing your recusal, even a memo to the file?
Mr. RUFF. No, there is not. This is not a matter in which there was any conflict of interest, Congressman. I simply thought it better, given my former representation, that the rest of my staff deal with any document requests that arose in this connection.
Mr. COX. Why is there not a conflict of interest?
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Mr. RUFF. Because I didn't represent the Teamsters Union in any matters that to my knowledge are at issue in the ongoing inquiries.
Mr. COX. There is litigation right now, is there not, by union members against the Teamsters to determine what the $152,000 that you spent to hire Jack Palladino——
Mr. RUFF. There was litigation on that subject but that is not the subject, to my knowledge, of any inquiries that have been made of the White House. In any event, that was not the triggering event. I simply believed that in light of my representation of the union, it would not be appropriate——
Mr. COX. It seems to me that the Counsel's Office is supposed to be concerned about making sure the President avoids even the appearance of impropriety. And for to you say there is no conflict, when you were representing Teamsters management in 1994, when there is litigation pending about that right now, you were representing Teamsters management precisely because there were allegations about Mafia ties and so on, and your job was to make sure that all those allegations were dispersed, I think that is a serious conflict.
Right now allegations are that there was money laundering between the Teamsters and the campaign, the Clinton/Gore campaign, and the DNC. I think it is quite proper for to you recuse yourself.
Mr. RUFF. Congressman, as I've said, I did. We might disagree on whether there was a conflict within the meaning of the rules of professional conduct, but the fact is that I have not played any role in responding to Teamsters-related inquiries.
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Mr. COX. Now, when you were representing the Teamsters, were you a partner at Covington & Burling? In fact, the Teamsters hired the firm, right?
Mr. RUFF. That is correct.
Mr. COX. Now, you have turned over the Teamsters matters to Mr. Breuer. Was Mr. Breuer a partner at Covington & Burling also?
Mr. RUFF. No, he wasn't. Not during the time involved.
Mr. COX. But was he a partner at Covington & Burling?
Mr. RUFF. Just in the year or so before he came to the work in the White House.
Mr. COX. And before that he was an associate at Covington & Burling?
Mr. RUFF. That's correct.
Mr. COX. Mr. Breuer, how long did you work at Covington & Burling?
Mr. BREUER. Since 1989. I'd like to make a point if I——
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Mr. COX. Why is it that you were picked to be the guy to resolve the conflict that Mr. Ruff had because he worked at Covington & Burling? If you are trying to avoid the appearance of impropriety, wouldn't almost anybody else be a better choice?
Mr. BREUER. Well, I don't think I ought to be the person to discuss why certain decisions that I don't make are made. But I want to——
Mr. COX. Well, you accepted the position to be in charge of the Teamsters——
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, I just want to answer your question about one point that I think is important. When we talk about Teamsters inquiries you have to understand, as we get from this committee and others, we simply get requests and it is not always obvious to know why we get requests.
For instance, the kind of request we may get is for WAVES records, the amount of time that someone actually comes to the White House, a certain individual. That individual may or may not be involved in, as you described it, Congressman, a Teamster inquiry. But all that we are doing in that function is literally getting the documentation to establish how often a particular individual came to the White House, and that may be related to Teamsters or it may not. We are not always clear to know if it's Teamsters related or not.
Mr. COX. Innocuous requests, of course, pose no problem. But it seems to me that, first of all, if there is no written recusal there is probably no notice to anybody else in the White House that it would be improper for them to contact you, Mr. Ruff, about Teamsters matters. How are they to know that they're not supposed to contact you?
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Mr. RUFF. No one has ever contacted me. If anyone began to have such a conversation with me, I would refer them to Mr. Breuer or Ms. Mills.
Mr. COX. Don't you think it would be more advisable for to you do a written recusal?
Mr. RUFF. A written recusal is perfectly appropriate under the circumstances. I don't believe it's necessary. And I believe that there has been no hint or suggestion of any sort that I've played any role in connection with Teamsters matters while I have been at the White House, despite occasional press speculation on the contrary.
Mr. COX. My concern—and I don't wish in any way to question your scruples on this. I think it is quite appropriate that you have recused yourself. My concern is that there is not anybody in charge of these investigations in the White House in any way that—I mean, Mr. Breuer is not reporting to anyone except occasionally Ms. Mills, but not really, he said. You're the last person in charge of this.
I just compare it to the Iran-Contra matter where the President issued an Executive order, brought in the Tower Commission, did all of the document discovery because the White House wanted to get to the bottom of this before Congress forced them to. And that is how 250,000 documents were sent up here, and why at end of the investigation the Democratic chairman and various chairmen said, ''Congratulations on producing all of these things that we asked for.''
Here, we are not uncovering the documents that we should be uncovering. I see that my time has expired and I apologize for running over. But I think as an oversight committee our concern is that——
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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, he has run over, and it seems to be only fair to give us a chance over here on this side.
Mr. BURTON. I most certainly will. The Chair wants to be fair.
Mr. COX. I yield back.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Cox, if you choose we can have another round and you can get back to this.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I'm seeking recognition.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. First of all, Mr. Ruff let me tell you I have to apologize to you, to have you come here and have to be abused in the rudest possible way. Now, the idea that you don't have a recusal in writing is nonsense, because if you claim you are recusing yourself, you are recusing yourself. There is no requirement that it be in writing.
No one asked Senator Lott, when he recused himself in the tobacco issue because his brother-in-law is a lawyer representing some of the parties in that negotiation, whether he had it in writing. We trust his judgment, if he says he is recusing himself, to recuse himself.
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I just think that Mr. Cox has been quite out of line in the questions that he has asked and I want to state that publicly. And I just think that at some point—it's like we're not going to leave a stone unturned; we're going to turn it over and we're going to turn it over and we're going to turn it over and we're going to turn it over again.
You have all answered the questions that have been asked by members continuously. I hope C–SPAN, if C–SPAN is covering this, would just pan how many Members are sitting here. Members are not sitting here, they leave, they are doing other things, and then they walk in and ask you the exact same questions that the other Members asked.
So you have answered the same questions over and over again, and that has been just today. And then you did it yesterday, and then you did it in the Senate, and then you all did it in depositions. And we are all paying your salary because we're all taxpayers. Now it seems to me is that at some point this gets to be a little ridiculous.
What is happening, of course, is that you're being asked these questions and being attacked so that the press will write it in the newspapers. Now they don't make a judgment as to what is accurate or not. They say things like ''GOP accuses White House of stonewalling,'' ''Republicans accuse White House counsel of not turning over documents,'' or whatever. And they don't even have to have evidence sometimes for these kinds of accusation that are made—when they are made.
As I said when we started this hearing, our chairman said that the tapes were altered and he's yet to explain to us any evidence that would lead him to that conclusion. But it's like Members of Congress don't need any evidence to make an accusation, and we're never subject to any lawsuits because the Constitution gives us immunity from any defamation, unlike other Americans who have to watch what they say for fear that they may be sued.
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Now, are we under the 5-minute rule?
Let me—some in this committee have raised questions about the Hudson casino document. Mr. Ruff, can you explain that issue to me and what the disagreement is all about?
Mr. RUFF. I will try to do it in something approaching shorthand, Congressman Waxman.
There has been for some time now litigation against the United States in Wisconsin dealing with the question of approval by the Interior Department, or the disapproval, of a casino on Indian reservation land. As part of the discovery process in that litigation, documents were sought from the White House.
At the same time as we were searching for those documents, represented in that process by the Department of Justice—since we were not parties to the litigation, they were representing the United States, and they were representing our interest as the subject of discovery in the search for those documents—we produced some 300-plus documents which were turned over to this committee in mid-September. Some 9 documents, I believe, were listed on a privilege log prepared with the advice and guidance of the Department of Justice and filed with the court in Wisconsin in response to the document request. Also, a copy of that log was provided to the committee.
The privilege assertions on that log, reflected as well in the privilege claims raised but never formally asserted before this committee, were essentially claims having to do with the protection of the confidentiality of White House communications.
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This committee has had since mid-September, as I said, the 330 or so documents produced to the plaintiffs. In addition, since October 21st the committee has had all of the documents as to which we have stated that there are issues of privilege.
Mr. WAXMAN. So we have these documents?
Mr. RUFF. You do have them, and they——
Mr. WAXMAN. They were not withheld from this committee. No privilege was asserted over these documents, not executive privilege, not attorney-client privilege, not deliberative process privilege?
Mr. RUFF. No. Pursuant to the understanding we have with the committee which has worked well over the last several months, where we have privilege issues which we believe are raised by some of the documents, we turn them over to the committee for the committee's use, and that's what's happened here. There was an exchange of correspondence between me and the chairman back in June.
Mr. WAXMAN. So that correspondence we have?
Mr. RUFF. Yes.
Mr. WAXMAN. I see my yellow light and my time is going to be up and I don't want to abuse the time as some Members do on this committee. I just want to say this: You recused yourself on some issue where you have a conflict of interest. Tomorrow's headline could say, ''Ruff Claims Conflict of Interest,'' and they will never quite explain what is going on. Just like we will never see a headline explaining, ''Tapes Were Never Altered,'' when we finally get everybody to admit that, although not everybody will admit that either.
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And I must say I am sorry Mr. Cox was not here. He was in your position at the White House. I don't know if it was the Reagan White House or the Bush White House. I don't know if he was there when Reagan was making fund-raising appeals or meeting with contributors or if he had any role in that, and I don't know if he was there when Bush was trying to cover up Iran-Contra. But for somebody who had that position to come and throw these grenades at you, I'm just outraged. I think it is completely out of line to take the scantiest information and try to blow it up into something when there is nothing there. My red light is on, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BURTON. Before I yield to Mr. Barr, yesterday, we dedicated with a great deal of fanfare the President Bush Library, and President Clinton even attended and I don't believe anybody, to my knowledge, has ever accused President Bush of any kind of a cover-up or wrongdoing of that type, and I am disappointed that my colleague did.
I also want to say briefly that we sent a subpoena in March to Mr. Ruff. In June, after the subpoena had expired, he sent a letter saying that we had received everything to the best of his knowledge that we requested. We have since then received 12 boxes of additional documents. They said they didn't know anything about the videotapes until October. Ms. Mills was in videotapes. She had memos about videotapes. She had a memo about a document pertaining to the WHoDB system in a file that she kept for 13 months.
I mean for my colleagues on the other side to try to infer that this exercise is just duplication and waste just goes beyond reason. And I just want my colleague to know that we're not trying to get headlines. We're not trying to get anything except at the truth.
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Mr. Barr.
Mr. WAXMAN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BREUER. Mr. Chairman, may I respond to your comment?
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Barr is recognized.
Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your lack of courtesy.
Mr. BARR. We hear that the ranking minority member is outraged that a Member on this side asked a question about recusal. Well, let me explain to the outraged Member that here, again, process does matter. The folks on the other side don't seem to feel that process matters at all.
Those of us who believe in some semblance of the rule of law believe that it does. When I served as U.S. Attorney recusal did matter. You want to avoid even the appearance of any impropriety. And if matters came before my office in which I might have, because of prior association, had even a passing interest, knowledge, or familiarity with those things, then I felt duty bound do recuse myself. Not because of the substance, but because of the process and because it was important in the Reagan and Bush Departments of Justice to avoid the appearance of any impropriety.
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So the fact that process does matter, that there are such things as formal recusals that are required in certain administrations to avoid that appearance may outrage the ranking member. So what. Process does matter to the many of us on this side of the aisle, and I suspect that deep down, it does matter to Mr. Ruff, whom I've known for many, many, many years.
Let me turn to process again. With regard to the Hudson Dog Track Indian gambling matter that we have begun to touch on here, Mr. Breuer, are you familiar with the various subpoenas that have been served on the White House regarding production of documents for this committee?
Mr. BREUER. Congressman Barr, in general, I am aware of the various subpoenas that we have received.
Mr. BARR. OK. Are you aware of any of those subpoenas, including but not limited to those that relate to the Hudson Indian gambling matter, that have either a footnote or contain a limitation in the body of those subpoenas that say: This subpoena does not extend to documents that may be of a kind that are not different from those that we have already gotten?
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, I'm not——
Mr. BARR. Are you familiar with any language to that effect in any of the subpoenas that have been served on the White House by either the Senate or House committees? Yes or no?
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Mr. BREUER. I'll have to check. I'm not—the language that you're saying——
Mr. BARR. That's very disingenuous. You know as well as I do that no such language is ever contained in a subpoena from the Congress.
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, I'd like to say first——
Mr. BARR. And the reason that I ask you that question——
Mr. BREUER. Congressman, if I may. You've just called me disingenuous.
Mr. BARR. No, you may not. Let me finish.
Mr. FATTAH. Could the chairman allow the witness to answer the question?
Mr. BARR. I'm controlling the time, not the gentleman from Pennsylvania. The reason I ask you that question Mr. Breuer, is very simple——
Mr. FATTAH. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. BURTON. What's your parliamentary inquiry?
Mr. BARR. In your deposition, Mr. Breuer——
Mr. BURTON. Just 1 second.
Mr. FATTAH. Is it the practice of the committee that we allow witnesses to answer a question that has been asked to them?
Mr. BURTON. It is the practice of the committee, and Mr. Barr is trying, I think, to get to the end of the question and we will allow the witness to answer the question.
Mr. BARR. The reason that I ask you this question, Mr. Breuer, is because in your deposition, in response to questions about why additional documents on this matter had not been provided, you said as a reason for further delays and not providing the information that, quote, It is not at all clear to me that the documents in front of me here represent information of a kind so different than the 330, the 340 pages of materials that you previously received on this issue, closed quote.
And my point is that that is not the basis, and never has been the basis for not supplying information pursuant to a lawful subpoena from this Congress. You know that as well as I do that language does not appear on any subpoena.
So that's my point. And you know that that language does not appear on any subpoenas. That is not an excuse for not providing information, is it?
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Mr. BREUER. Congressman, may I respond? First, I would like to take exception. The chief counsel of the majority has gone out of his way to say, in the very deposition you are quoting, that he believed I have been nothing but forthright and complete in all of my questions.
Mr. BARR. I haven't presumed otherwise.
Mr. BREUER. Indeed, the chairman of the committee has said much of the same. So on a personal note, Congressman, we don't know one another, but I assure you I am not being disingenuous. As a second point, Congressman, I——
Mr. BARR. No, I think you are because you know as well as I do——
Mr. BREUER. And as you are doing now, Congressman, I was unable to complete my answer——
Mr. BARR. That—Mr. Breuer, I am finished on that particular point. I am not interested in pursuing that further.
Mr. BREUER. Obviously.
Mr. BARR. I think it is a very disingenuous response.
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Mr. BREUER. I was not able to finish my answer, and indeed, Congressman, I don't believe you are fairly characterizing my deposition testimony as well.
Mr. BARR. Life is tough, Mr. Breuer. Life is tough.
Mr. BREUER. I am sure that my deposition testimony will be taken as a whole in the record.
Mr. BARR. Oh, I'm sure.
If I could, turning now back to this Indian matter, we have touched on it briefly. What is the basis, Mr. Ruff, a number of documents, including one EOP 069092, which you discussed with the chairman Wednesday night, which is a notation, a handwritten notation from the President to Mr. Panetta inquiring about the Indian tribal deal. He asked what the status of that is. That is one document for which you have asserted some form of privilege so that it is not made available to us in a way that can be made public so the American people can see it.
There have been several other documents, as you are well aware of, that fit into the category in the subpoenas that have been served with regard to the Indian gambling matter, the Hudson Dog Track matter. What is the basis for asserting executive privilege, particularly in light of the fact that we have very recent case law, and I cite you to the case of In re Sealed Case, 121 F 3rd 729, decided by the DC Circuit just a few months ago in June, that I think makes very clear that there continue to be limitations on the assertion of executive privilege. That particularly where there is evidence to believe that misconduct may have occurred in this case, very clear evidence that a decision by the BIA and the Department of the Interior stemming from a meeting at which President Clinton was present, may have been influenced by moneys. What is the basis for the assertion of executive privilege with regard to these types of documents?
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Mr. RUFF. Congressman Barr, I think probably of all the members of in committee you may be in the best place to appreciate the circumstances surrounding the production of these documents.
As you know, these documents were initially the subject of discovery requests from a private plaintiff. And the assertions of privilege here were initially contained in privilege claims asserted vis-a-vis those private plaintiffs. The goal, as you will fully appreciate, is to make available to the plaintiffs as much as possible those documents which are relevant to their lawsuit, but to protect the confidentiality interests of the Executive Office of the President.
That's what was done in this case with the full cooperation and advice of the Department of Justice, who is representing through the U.S. Attorneys Office in Madison, the interests of the White House in this matter.
So that what has occurred here is that six or seven documents were treated as privileged vis-a-vis those private plaintiffs who are seeking them in this discovery. They were all turned over to this committee, as you know. And so the question you raise is in essence should this committee be able to make public documents which are the subject of private litigation and in which the private plaintiffs do not have a right of access unless they can convince a judge or convince us as a matter of discretion that they ought to be released?
So this is not a setting in which this committee has been deprived in any way of the opportunity to study these documents. They have been fully available to you now for some 2 weeks and they will continue to be available to you hereafter.
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With respect to the specific document you question, I would note only this: First of all, the mere allegation of impropriety cannot be taken to wipe out the legitimate confidentiality concerns of the White House, particularly with respect to this document. As you're fully aware, it was prepared some year or more after the decision in the Hudson Casino matter had been made, and is simply a retrospective discussion of the circumstances surrounding the litigation.
When communications are made to the President of the United States, or he asks questions about a particular matter, that goes, obviously, presumptively to the very heart of the Presidential communications which are the subject of In re Sealed Case. Far from that opinion being a voice for restricting the extent to which privileges can be claimed, that opinion is a ringing endorsement of the breadth, albeit exercised with discretion, of the Presidential communications privilege.
And I suggest to you that we have accommodated this committee pursuant to my understanding and agreement with the chairman, to the maximum extent that could ever be contemplated in a setting in which the confidentiality interests of the President of the United States are implicated because you have the documents, as does every member of this committee, and may use them for every purpose in taking depositions, in analyzing the particular substance of the matter at issue. All we ask is because they are not being made public in connection with the litigation, that they not be made public here.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. Let me just say we did have a meeting last Wednesday with the President's counsel, Mr. Ruff and Mr. Breuer. The question was at that time—and my legal counsel concurred—the question was that they didn't have enough time to review and make the case that executive privilege was necessary. And because of the sensitivity of the documents, we decided to give them a little bit more time to make their case.
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That's not to say that at some point, if we don't feel the case is made, that we won't release the documents. And so, Mr. Ruff, and I and Mr. Bennett and Mr. Breuer and others will be discussing this and debating it and at some point they may very well be made public.
Mr. RUFF. Your description of our understanding is exactly correct, Mr. Chairman. We look forward to further discussions on this subject.
Mr. BURTON. I think both Mr. Fattah has had two rounds of questioning and so has Mr. Waxman. Did Mr. Shadegg want a second round of questioning? Mr. Mica you want to go first?
Mr. FATTAH. Wait a minute, Mr. Chairman, excuse me. Parliamentary inquiry. Isn't it the rule of the committee that it is 5 minutes on that side and 5 minutes on our side?
Mr. BURTON. It is as long as we have Members on both sides that—but we've had two rounds. We are going by rounds.
Mr. WAXMAN. I don't think Mr. Fattah has had two.
Mr. FATTAH. I would insist that there be a ruling by the Parliamentarian on this matter. We are entitled to equal time.
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Mr. BURTON. We will check. Just 1 second. I stand corrected. You have had but one round. You're next. Mr. Fattah.
Mr. FATTAH. Let me pursue my parliamentary inquiry first. Is it not true, even if I had had a second round, that we are entitled to 5 minutes for every 5 minutes that the majority has?
Mr. BURTON. The Parliamentarian informs me that you have to extinguish the round for all Members before you go back, even if there is fewer minority or majority Members in attendance. So if we had two majority Members and you had six minority Members here, we would go ahead and proceed after a round until that round was completed.
Mr. FATTAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This issue of ethics in Government is one that has got a lot of attention, especially here on the Hill, because we have had our own share of problems. We had a member of the Republican leadership, at least as reported in the press that, had a logbook of contributions by various lobbyists and would direct them when they came into the office to, you know, look at where they stood in relative conformity to Republican giving.
And we had, as I was mentioning earlier, the Speaker of the House, who was defended enthusiastically by Members on this committee, even though he had misled the Ethics Committee, because it was stated that he had no intent to. And we have seen the selective investigative techniques of our committee.
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I mean, we have had plenty of examples of foreign money in the 1996 elections that we have neglected to look at. We had a foreign arms dealer who donated thousands of dollars to the Speaker's campaign. We had a circumstance in Florida where the Florida Republican party was sanctioned by the court in a fine of significant dollars because of a gentleman of—a foreigner who had contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we have had, as I was interested in discussing earlier, the Haley Barbour trip in which he went over—first of all, created something called the National Policy Forum. In the documents that established the framework for creating this entity, it was said to be established so that they could attract foreign money. He then went in, asked for, and received some $2 million. And as the chairman mentioned earlier, the Young brothers' front corporation was the vehicle under which this money eventually made its way back and was focused in on the election of Republicans to the Congress.
And just a few days ago we had the circumstance in New York in which there was a contested election, and it was widely publicized that the Home Builders PAC and the Realtors PAC were both informed by the Republican leadership that if they had contributed to the Democratic candidate as their local membership wanted them to contribute, they would be effectively left out of the debate here on matters that might have been of importance to them.
So the reason why I assume the Congress is so interested in ethics is that we have our own burdens to bear. I was reading this new book that was written on the subject, a book entitled ''The Appearance of Impropriety'' by Morgan and Reynolds and it goes to great length to make a very important point, and that is that the appearance of something being amiss does not mean necessarily that something is amiss. And the appearance that everything is fine does not mean that everything is fine.
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It starts out with the whole discussion of how con men operate, that the whole notion of their framework. And I am reminded that when we had the S&L scandal we had people who seemingly were conducting appropriate business but doing something else.
This committee is focusing in on the appearance of what may be some delay in receiving some information, but we have not focused in on the substance of what that information is, and we had the gentleman from Georgia who was talking about, Mr. Ruff, you not recusing yourself.
Now, one could draw a number of inferences on this matter, or one might recuse themselves of something they might already have had some involvement in. But we have members of this committee who have already said that the President of the United States should be impeached. They have already come to the conclusion that there are impeachable offenses that have been acted upon by the President. And one might draw a notion that they might not be objective, fair investigators of the facts because they have already come to that conclusion.
But one could always know that it is not the appearance of these issues. I am sure the gentleman from Georgia and others can, in fact, be fair, and that they are going to search and work hard at it as we go forward, because we are supposedly operating not as just mere partisans but we are supposed to be representatives of the American people. And it does a great disservice to this committee, to this House, for us to be in a situation in which we, first of all, question but not even give room for one to answer.
And I want to yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Breuer to have an opportunity to further expound on responses to inquiries that were made to him, but he was not able to answer.
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Mr. BREUER. Congressman, the one point that I would like to make is that there's been a reference that since the time of the certification that was made by Mr. Ruff that some 12 boxes of documents came to this committee. Well, in fact, as those most familiar with this process are aware, we alerted the committee that we would give a certification, if indeed required, that there were certain types of materials that were physically not possible to produce by the time of the certification. Those included the e-mail system, Congressman, that, in fact, for the most part was inherited by prior administrations for which it is extraordinarily costly and time-consuming to produce and reconstruct e-mails so that we can actually generate them, go through them, find the responsive materials and produce them to you. Much of the boxes that occurred after the certification were, in fact, those e-mails.
Second, as we informed the staff of this committee, there were phone logs. There are many phone logs, as you can imagine, at the White House that are in storage. Literally—paralegals have to go page by page through every single phone log to try to determine which of those are responsive. We alerted the committee that this was a remarkably time-consuming task and that, too, could not be done until after the certification.
And last, because of the instructions by Mr. Ruff and the fact we should remain as thorough and complete as possible, we sent lawyers and paralegals back to review briefing papers and schedules to determine that, in fact, if there were other responsive materials that could not be gleaned, either from computer searches or because of subsequent information we had learned, that we went over and again tried to find those, and indeed we did that. And we did that so that we could be as thorough as possible.
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If we simply wanted to have an appearance, as you have described Congressman—and I agree, appearance and content are not always the same—we would have simply closed up and said: we're all done and let the appearance be that, because Mr. Ruff had written a certification, that it was all over. But we didn't do that. We went back and we looked further.
That is why there have been 12 additional boxes, but that's not really a surprise to the staff of this committee. We have apprised this committee that we would continue to look and, indeed, we will continue to look. And the best we can do in a place as large and complex as the White House with as many employees as the White House has, some 2,000 not even including the military people when are nearly another thousand, is that as we learn more we will endeavor to search more and find more, and regardless of the political repercussions, we will produce those materials to you as quickly as we can. I think we did that here.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Let me just make one brief observation before I yield to Mr. Shadegg, and that is that Senator Thompson and I have been of the same opinion that there has been a very, very, very slow production of a lot of documents. Mr. Thompson, I think, said at the conclusion of his set of hearings, that he was frustrated because he was upset with the—I think he used the term ''stonewalling,'' I am not sure, by the White House. And so I want you to know that while I respect all of you folks a great deal, I think the appearance to both of the chairmen of the committees in the Congress that have been investigating this, that there has been either incompetence or a deliberate attempt to keep information from getting to us in a timely fashion, and that is something that really concerns us.
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Mr. Mica. Excuse me.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just go back to sequencing your involvement in the production of documents.
Now, Ms. Mills, you are the long-term, I guess, individual involved in this. When did you start looking for various documents that were requested?
Ms. MILLS. I took over responsibility in an interim basis on October 30th of 1996 for requests that were coming in related to different matters. And transitioned that matter in the beginning of February.
Mr. MICA. So you were basically in charge of getting the information requested. Mr. Quinn, would he direct you at that time?
Ms. MILLS. That's correct.
Mr. MICA. And these gentlemen came on, when did you come on? March?
Mr. BREUER. I came in the middle of February, Congressman.
Mr. NIONAKIS. I came on in the beginning of March.
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Mr. MICA. And you came in February?
Mr. RUFF. February 10th.
Mr. MICA. Well, we have documents here, the very beginning exhibits, I have 135 requesting information and you were involved, I guess, in trying to help Mr. Quinn get some of this information together, documents and backgrounds.
Ms. MILLS. I think as I testified yesterday I wasn't involved with this particular request, but I was involved with the subsequent one on December 16th.
Mr. MICA. December 16th. These are some that I am referring to.
Ms. MILLS. That's correct.
Mr. MICA. Then we have the January 15th memo from our chairman, and it was addressed because—I guess you were coming in; is that correct?
Mr. RUFF. My appointment had been announced on January 6th, I believe, Congressman, but I didn't arrive for another month.
Mr. MICA. Or our request, January 15th, was directed to both you and Mr. Quinn as White House counsel. Now, this is back in January. Did you see this January 15th memo that was directed to you?
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Mr. RUFF. I saw it, I believe, after I had arrived at the White House. I'm not positive, though.
Mr. MICA. Did you ask that there be any followup to comply with that request since you had taken over those responsibilities?
Mr. RUFF. When I arrived, there was an ongoing process of trying to collect documents pursuant to the Quinn directives.
Mr. MICA. But did you read the 15th memo?
Mr. RUFF. I believe I reviewed all of the outstanding document requests that had been collected in those early days of my tenure.
Mr. MICA. So you did review the 15th memo——
Mr. RUFF. I believe I did, yes.
Mr. MICA [continuing]. From the committee. And in that 15th memo—now, you had already been assigned to work on the request of December 16th, and you were starting on the work on the 15th? Did Mr. Quinn give you—did he give you any requests from the 15th to comply with our requests?
Ms. MILLS. I'm sure that I would have seen this, though at that time Mr. Quinn indicated to the committee that we were transitioning that and the committee indicated that they understood and would be working with the new Members.
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Mr. MICA. So Mr. Quinn, not Mr. Ruff, showed you the memo of the 15th?
Ms. MILLS. I believe that would have been correct.
Mr. MICA. I mean, the memo of the 15th says to prevent any conflicts or appearance of conflicts, it is essential that none of the individuals involved in dealing with Mr. Huang, Mr. Trie or any of the DC fund-raising matters be involved in the collection of documents or response to congressional requests.
In this regard, it has been confirmed by the White House that deputy counsels Bruce Lindsey and Cheryl Mills attended a May 9, 1996, meeting regarding questionable funds raised by Mr. Trie for the Presidential Legal Expense Trust fund.
So Mr. Quinn gave you this that said you shouldn't be involved in putting together any information for response to this committee?
Ms. MILLS. As you likely are aware, Congressman, Mr. Quinn wrote back and indicated that there was not indeed a conflict. And indeed, if on every occasion that that was alleged, we would never be in a position to be able to assist this committee because there would be no one in our office left to be able to assist. So one of the things we try and do is review all of the materials and requests that you all have and come to a reasonable way to try and address them.
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Mr. MICA. But you did read this and you weren't concerned that already that your involvement was called into question January 15, 1997, by this committee that expressed concern so you just went on with your regular——
Ms. MILLS. You all had requests; I thought it was my job to try and address them. That's what I try and do. The particular matter that you all indicated that I should recuse myself or not be involved was that I was at a meeting in which the legal expense trust was discussed with regard to contributions that had been received. I was in that position in my role as Associate Counsel in the Counsel's Office, and that is something that I had an obligation and a responsibility to do.
Mr. MICA. Were you in charge of this inquiry at that point or had anyone else come in?
Ms. MILLS. At that point—in October is when I took responsibility for dealing with these matters.
Mr. MICA. Right. And we are now up to January. He has come in. He has looked at this memo.
Ms. MILLS. Actually, Mr. Ruff came in in February, as he just indicated, and we had also indicated to this committee that we anticipated new arrivals and that they would be addressing this matter with respect to your requests.
Mr. MICA. From December on through this time——
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Ms. MILLS. Yes, that was me.
Mr. MICA. And you were totally in charge?
Ms. MILLS. I wasn't totally in charge. As you might be aware, during that time period I was associate counsel. There were two deputy counsels and also a counsel.
Mr. MICA. But you were given this responsibility?
Ms. MILLS. I had the responsibility for trying to respond to different requests, including this committee's requests.
Mr. MICA. What concerns me is that I am also hearing that we may be getting more. There may be more tapes, there may be requests for information or the material that we have requested coming in dribbles and drabs. It sounded like you were talking about that we should expect this and shouldn't be shocked by it.
Mr. BREUER. Well, don't think that's fair, Congressman. What I do think is the fact is that we have produced to you, as best as we can, completely. Now, this committee has reviewed—it should be no secret, that since the beginning of the Presidency, the President has had videotapes. We have now provided to you far in excess of any request you have ever made the videotape data bases of every single event where the President of the United States has either been videotaped or audiotaped. This subcommittee has at least indicated, at least initially, an interest in videotapes or audiotapes that at first blush, Congressman, appear to have no relationship whatsoever to your inquiry. But we have said because Mr. Ruff has instructed us to——
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Mr. MICA. They just happened to feature all of the principals in that——
Mr. BREUER. Well, no, Congressman. Some of them happen to feature nothing more than private personal events.
Mr. MICA. I have seen them.
Mr. BREUER. We're talking about the ones you don't have.
Mr. MICA. Oh, I am sorry.
Mr. BREUER. Because you have now expressed interest—because videotapes since the first day, Congressman, of this administration, as there have been in all administrations. I am simply telling you——
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