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PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Additional material pertinent to this transcript may be found on the web site of the Committee at [http://www.house.gov/reform]. Complete hearing records are available for review at the Committee offices and also may be purchased at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATION
THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Hastert, Morella, McHugh, Horn, Mica, Davis of Virginia, McIntosh, Souder, Shadegg, Sununu, Pappas, Barr, Miller, Waxman, Wise, Kanjorski, Sanders, Maloney, Barrett, Norton, Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, and Turner.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Richard Bennett, chief counsel; Judith McCoy, chief clerk; Teresa Austin, assistant clerk/calendar clerk; William Moschella, deputy counsel and parliamentarian; Will Dwyer, director of communications; Ashley Williams, deputy director of communications; Dudley Hodgson, chief investigator; Barbara Comstock, chief investigative counsel; Dave Bossie, oversight coordinator; James C. Wilson, Robert Rohrbaugh, and Uttam Dhillon, senior investigative counsels; Bill Hanka, investigative counsel; Robert Dold and E. Edward Eynon, investigative attorneys; Jason Foster and Elliot Berke, investigators; Robin Butler, office manager; Carolyn Pritts, investigative administrative assistant; Barrett Davie and Mark Sylvester, investigative staff assistants; Phil Schiliro, minority staff director; Kenneth Ballen, minority chief investigative counsel; Michael Raphael, David Sadkin, Michael Yang, and Michael Yeager, minority counsels; Rick Jauert, minority professional staff member; Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa and Amy Wendt, minority staff assistants.
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Mr. BURTON. The committee will come to order. You may be seated right now, Mr. Secretary, if you don't mind.
Good morning. A quorum being present, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight will come to order. Today, we will continue the hearings into allegations of political pressure on the Interior Department to deny an application made by three Indian Tribes in Wisconsin to take land in trust for gambling purposes.
This is our fourth and final day of hearings into allegations of political pressure on the Interior Department to reject an application by three poor Wisconsin tribes to open a casino in Hudson, WI.
Our final witness and our only witness for today is Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us today.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, good morning.
Mr. BURTON. Several of my colleagues on the Democratic side commented yesterday that they have seen no evidence of political interference in this decision. Member after Member on that side of the aisle said there was not one shred of evidence indicating that politics had been brought to bear.
Unfortunately, there is evidence. There is sworn testimony. The allegations against Mr. Babbitt were not made by me. They were not made by anyone in the Republican party. They were made by one of Secretary Babbitt's best friends. They were made by Secretary Babbitt's former law partner and campaign manager, a long-time Democrat, Mr. Paul Eckstein.
Paul Eckstein went to see Secretary Babbitt the day the casino application was rejected. He asked for more time for his clients, the Wisconsin Chippewa tribes, to address whatever objections the Department had. Secretary Babbitt told him that he could not give him more time because Harold Ickes wanted the decision out that day. Mr. Eckstein contends that Secretary Babbitt went on to ask if he knew how much these Indian tribes had given to the Democratic party. Apparently, Mr. Eckstein didn't know, so Secretary Babbitt told him it was in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars.
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Secretary Babbitt has, by his own admission, lent credibility to Mr. Eckstein's story by changing his own account of that meeting so radically. At first, he denied ever invoking Harold Ickes' name or mentioning donations by Indian tribes. Then, a year later, he reversed course. He said that he did invoke Harold Ickes' name, but that he was lying to his old friend to get him out of his office.
Did Mr. Eckstein's allegations have credibility? They apparently have enough credibility for the Justice Department to be close to seeking an independent counsel. Reuters and CNN quoted the ''Justice Department officials'' on January 19th as saying that it was virtually certain that the Attorney General would seek an independent counsel in this case. And we all know that this is not an Attorney General who seeks independent counsels at the drop of a hat.
I have a copy of Secretary Babbitt's opening statement with me. In it, the Secretary says that he never had any contact with Mr. Ickes on this issue. Two senior members of his staff who testified yesterday, said that they never had any contact with Mr. Ickes. Apparently, as the Secretary was attempting to get Mr. Eckstein out of his office, he pulled Mr. Ickes' name out of thin air. But why Harold Ickes? Why not Leon Panetta or George Stephanopoulos or the President? Why invoke the name of Harold Ickes?
We have a few clues. Perhaps the fact that Harold Ickes' assistant called Secretary Babbitt's assistant three times about this application had something to do with it. It is also an interesting coincidence that Mr. Ickes was lobbied directly on this issue not once, but twice by Tom Schneider of the law firm of O'Connor & Hannan.
It is even more interesting that on the day that the casino application was rejected, Mr. Schneider's law partner, Patrick O'Connor, who testified here yesterday, noted in his billing records that he needed to followup with Harold Ickes at the White House to outline fund-raising strategies. This is the same Harold Ickes who kept records of large contributions by Indian tribes to State parties in his office.
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Do all of these coincidences suggest an explanation as to why Secretary Babbitt might invoke Harold Ickes' name? Do they lend credibility to Mr. Eckstein's sworn testimony? I would say that they do. But don't take my word for it. Here is what Federal Judge Barbara Crabb had to say last March. ''There is considerable evidence that suggests that improper political pressure may have influenced agency decisionmaking.''
Here is what the Justice Department attorney who is representing the Interior Department in this civil suit had to say. ''Now that we have reviewed the administrative record in greater depth, we have determined that the alleged problems with the process are significant. We are primarily concerned about our ability to show that plaintiffs were told about and given an opportunity to remedy the problems which the Department ultimately found were outcome-determinative.''
The Attorney General appointed by Bill Clinton has, according to news reports, found enough credible evidence to seek an independent counsel. Now, this remains to be seen, but this is what reports have been made through the media. A Federal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter found considerable evidence of improper political interference. The Interior Department's own lawyer said that they didn't follow their own procedures and recommended settling the case. Two of the Secretary's top aides left the Department for very lucrative jobs representing the tribes who benefited from the decision. And yet some of my colleagues here today say there is no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing. I find that amazing.
I am tempted to discuss at length the multitude of ways that the Interior Department violated their own procedures. There was no finding of any detriment to the local community, which is required by the law. There was never any meaningful consultation with the applicants to give them a chance to resolve any problems, which is required by the law. They reopened the administrative record at the request of the opposing tribes, the very rich tribes, and they kept it a secret from the applicants, the very poor tribes.
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I won't go into this in the length that it deserves, but let me summarize it in this way. The poor tribes, the tribes whose members made an average of about $6,000 a year, the tribes that couldn't afford to give anything to the DNC, were completely shut out of the process. They were kept in the dark. The wealthy tribes, the tribes whose casinos were bringing in around $400,000 a year for every man, woman and child, the tribes who went on to give $356,000 to the Democratic National party, got special treatment. That pretty much says it all.
Secretary Babbitt, thank you for agreeing to testify today. I am certain that you will defend your record very ably. We will proceed to your opening statement in a moment, but first I want to recognize Congressman Waxman for his statement.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As we come to the end of our examination of the Hudson Casino decision, we have sat through hearings, we have heard this controversy described both as a fight between competing Indian tribes and a prime example of selling public policy for campaign contributions. This is our fourth hearing on this matter. But the essence of this fight really came into focus for me at the end of yesterday's hearing. When I looked around the room, I only saw three other committee members present and not a single reporter.
The only people here were Interior Department officials and Fred Havenick, the owner of the Hudson Dog Track and his team of lawyers. In the end, when we are finished with our speeches and questions, that's what this controversy is all about. It is about one man's determined effort to force the Interior Department to approve his proposal to build a casino in Hudson, WI.
In waging this fight, Mr. Havenick has done nothing illegal or improper, but he has pulled out all the stops to get his way. When he first proposed his dog track in the 1980's, he had to surmount local zoning ordinances and fierce local opposition. He managed to do both and he opened his track. When his track lost millions, as everyone predicted it would, he conceived the idea of bringing a Las Vegas style casino to Hudson, but because only Indian tribes were permitted to operate casinos under Wisconsin law, he needed to find an Indian tribe willing to be his partner.
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When the combined vote of the towns of Hudson and Troy rejected the casino, his first partner, the St. Croix Indian tribe, withdrew. So Mr. Havenick had to look around for some other partners. And in 1994, he found new partners in three other tribes that were 80 to 200 miles away from this site where his dog track was located.
So he petitioned the Department of the Interior with these new partners for what is called an off-reservation trust. That means that the land is taken away from any control of the local jurisdiction, State and city officials, and turned over to the Federal Government, and then under the Federal Government's aegis, a casino could be opened up, even though it is not on a reservation.
Well, when the Interior Department found that local opposition was intensifying and opposing the tribes, Mr. Havenick mounted a lobbying campaign. He hired his own lobbyists. One of them, Paul Eckstein, appeared to be the one lobbyist in Washington who would have the best access to Secretary Babbitt. It's interesting. The chairman just said that what we have were poor Indian tribes, they couldn't afford contributions, they couldn't afford representation, they were shut out.
In fact, Mr. Havenick and his partner Indian tribes who put up no money, but looked forward to realizing some economic benefit from this casino, hired lawyers, hired people to do what they could. Mr. Havenick had made political contributions, and they hired a lobbyist. They hired a lobbyist whose biggest claim to fame was that he was a personal friend of the Secretary's, and they hoped that he would influence the Secretary.
Well, it didn't work out that way. The Department of the Interior rejected Mr. Havenick's scheme, and so Mr. Havenick hired more of an army of lawyers and lobbyists to overturn this decision. He filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin and deployed lobbying super stars like the powerhouse firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow to argue his case in Washington. And he is doing all of this with a real sense of urgency. He is losing millions of dollars without a casino and believes he can make millions of dollars with one.
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As we have held these hearings, it has become clear that not a single Member of this committee shares Mr. Havenick's view that it makes sense to locate a casino in Hudson, WI. I haven't heard any Member on either side of the aisle, Democrat or Republican, argue with the substance of the Interior Department's decision. In fact, we learned that elected officials in Wisconsin have consistently opposed the casino, including the former Republican Congressman from the area, the State Attorney General, and the Governor.
Democrats and Republicans alike back home didn't want this casino. So instead of challenging the decision, the chairman has argued the decision was right, but that campaign contributions and political considerations improperly affected the political—affected the decisionmaking process. But in our hearings and depositions, we have heard from the four Interior Department employees most involved in this issue. They have all testified under oath that they made the decision on the merits and without political interference. That is what George Skibine, Hilda Manuel, Michael Anderson and Tom Hartman said in their depositions, and some of them were even allowed to testify in our hearings. They have all said that this was—the basis of the decision was based on the merits and not because of political interference.
That position was affirmed yesterday by John Duffy and Tom Collier. Those are the facts, regardless of whether the chairman or Mr. Havenick want to accept them, and if I fault Mr. Havenick and others for anything, it is for their readiness to ignore the facts and impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with them.
When asked about his own significant campaign contributions, even to people who could make the decision about this casino, Mr. Havenick said he made his contributions because he was a generous man, motivated by a belief in the candidates to whom he was contributing. It was not an effort, he said, to buy influence. But when Mr. Havenick testified about his opponents' campaign contributions, he insisted that they were motivated by politics and unfairly influenced the decisionmaking process.
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Although Mr. Havenick has been litigating this matter for 2 years, he waited until last week for the very first time to question George Skibine's integrity, or to bring Terry McAuliffe's name into the fight. I think anyone following this matter closely now knows both allegations are thoroughly discredited.
By this point, it is absolutely clear that the Hudson Casino decision was heavily lobbied by both sides. The chairman said that we reject that there was political activities to try to get this casino application approved. I don't deny there were political activities to get it approved, and it is clear there were political activities to get it disapproved. But the question is not whether there were political activities involved, the question is whether those political activities determined the outcome, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the decision was made for any other reason than on the merits and under the testimony by those who made it without any kind of political interference.
I am sure Secretary Babbitt's testimony today will focus in part on the different recollections he and Paul Eckstein have regarding their meeting on July 14, 1995. Mr. Babbitt has already testified in the Senate on this issue, and I am not sure we will learn anything new today, but I am glad he has taken the time to be with us.
I want to add another point. The name of Harold Ickes has been bandied about as if Harold Ickes must have been the key man who exerted the political interference. Well, it is rather shameful, it seems to me, that when the chairman of the committee makes accusations about Harold Ickes' involvement, he has not even given Harold Ickes the courtesy of asking him whether he was involved. If we are trying to get to the truth, why not ask a man who has been accused or presumed to have done something whether he did it. We have heard from Harold Ickes and he has denied being involved.
Now, we have also heard from the chairman that there is a Carter-appointed judge who has, according to the chairman, found significant evidence of political interference. Let's get the record straight. Judge Crabb said, in looking at this litigation by Mr. Havenick and his partners, that ''There is considerable evidence that suggests that improper political pressure may have influenced agency decisionmaking. It is necessary to allow extra record discovery to uncover whether that is true.'' You never hear them read that last part of her sentence.
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All she said was, there is evidence, we don't know whether it is true or not; therefore, in the litigation we are going to allow discovery to see if evidence can be found to substantiate this kind of accusation. She didn't buy this line, and it is unfair to attribute that line to her.
One final point, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday, you rejected my request that this committee issue subpoenas relating to the Newt Gingrich-Trent Lott tobacco scandal. The facts, as you may remember, are that the tobacco industry is the biggest contributor to the Republican party. There is not even a close second. They are the biggest contributor to the Republican party.
They hired Haley Barbour, who was the chairman of the Republican party, to lobby for them, and then they got the Republican Senate leader, Trent Lott and the Republican Speaker, Newt Gingrich, to sneak into a bill, without anybody knowing about it, a $50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry.
Mr. Chairman, yesterday you said we weren't going to look at this because the Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over the tobacco legislation, but as I pointed out to you, the Commerce Committee is not conducting an investigation on campaign finance issues. Our committee is doing that.
In addition, we have another committee of the House called the Resources Committee which has jurisdiction over the Hudson Casino issue and the whole idea of Indian trust land and whether there should be gambling on or off the reservation. That is not our committee's jurisdiction. It is the Resources Committee, and they are conducting their own investigation on this same issue. They will probably have all the same witnesses and all the same characters will be in the audience and we will hear all the same testimony over and over again with all the same charges, even though there is no evidence to back up these charges. But the fact that we have another committee of the House that has legislative jurisdiction over this issue didn't keep us from looking at the question of whether there was improper political interference because of campaign contributions.
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By the same logic, we ought to be holding a hearing on the tobacco scandal. We ought to be looking at whether the campaign contributions to the Republican party influenced this sneaking into the budget bill a $50 billion tax break.
I realize I am not going to change your mind. I think you made an arbitrary and partisan decision, but I have no intention of giving up on my demand for these subpoenas, and I am going to appeal your decision, Mr. Chairman, to the full committee and will insist that we vote on this matter when we next meet. If any scandal deserves our attention, it is the $50 billion tax break Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott gift wrapped for the tobacco industry.
That concludes my statement. I am pleased the Secretary is here. I am looking forward to his testimony. These 4 days, extraordinary 4 days devoted to this issue, I think, has set out the record very clearly, and let the facts speak for themselves, and when the facts speak for themselves, I think that we realize that what we have are allegations based on innuendo and allegations that are based on partisanship, without substantiating evidence to make those allegations stick. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Waxman.
Secretary Babbitt, would you please rise?
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Babbitt, do you have an opening statement you would like to read? We would like to, if possible, keep it as close to 5 minutes as we can, but if you feel you need to go further, we will allow it. If you can condense it into 5 minutes, we will submit the rest for the record.
Mr. Babbitt.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE BABBITT, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appear today in response to your request to discuss the record of the Hudson Casino matter. The committee, of course, has every right to look into the record, and we at the Interior Department have every right to a fair and impartial hearing. Someone once said that facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.
21Mr. Chairman, there are those with a vested financial interest in this matter who would have you and members of this committee turn a blind eye to the facts of the case so they can peddle their half-baked theory of improper political influence and intrigue. They would like you to ignore the voluminous record, the hours of sworn testimony by dedicated and hard working civil servants in the Interior Department, and have you believe a conspiracy theory worthy of Oliver Stone. But efforts to obscure the truth will not and cannot change the facts.
The fact is that the decision in the Hudson Casino matter was firmly grounded in the law, it was consistent with Department practice, and based on the merits of the case. The fact is it was the right decision made in the right way and for the right reasons.
This was not, as some have portrayed it, a rich tribe-poor tribe saga. This casino was a business proposition developed by a well-financed, out-of-State gambling company. That gambling company, itself headed by a Democratic party contributor, hired its own lobbyists, tried to capitalize on an old friendship with me to push through a deficient application over the legitimate objections of the local communities. They wanted to make the Federal Government a participant in their scheme to add a money-making casino to a money-losing dog track. The decision to reject their plan was reached entirely on the merits, and it was entirely reasonable.
Now, both the proponents and opponents of the casino tried to use intermediaries with special access to influence the decision. One side allegedly tried to misuse its political contacts outside the Interior Department. The other side tried to misuse personal access to me. I consider both approaches to be inappropriate.
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Political affiliation should have nothing to do with a decision like this, and it didn't. Campaign contributions should have nothing to do with a decision like this, and they didn't. A personal relationship with the Secretary of the Interior should have nothing to do with a decision like this, and it didn't.
At this committee's request, the Department has now produced thousands of documents about this case and how the decision was made. If you look at the record as a whole and do not simply take snippets of conversations out of context, you will see that the responsible Government officials, who had no personal stake in whether a Florida gambling empire should be allowed to have a money-making casino at a money-losing dog track, came to a consensus decision based on the law and Department practice, and they got it right.
As Secretary, I am ultimately answerable for the Department's decisions. If you disagree with one of them, you have every right to criticize me, but it crosses the line of fairness and common decency to attack the integrity of the staff of this Department, especially the civil service staff. They are dedicated and honorable men and women. They acted properly, and they made their recommendations on the merits, and there is not an iota of credible evidence suggesting otherwise.
A number of myths have been deliberately created about this decision. Let me discuss some of them.
Myth No. 1. It was somehow unique and unusual for the Department to disagree with the approval recommendation that came up from Minneapolis by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The reality is that the review of the local decision was routine. By my Republican predecessor, Manuel Lujan, required the Department to review off-reservation gaming applications in Washington. Why? To ensure uniform and consistent application of the law and Department practice, and in this administration, we have continued that practice. Therefore, it was absolutely routine to review the area office recommendation and not unusual for the Department in Washington to have a different opinion. In fact, of the nine off-reservation applications approved by a BIA regional office, since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed in 1988, only one has led to the creation of an active off-reservation casino. In that case, unlike Hudson, the casino was supported by the surrounding community.
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Where there is substantial and well-founded community opposition instead of support, our practice is to reject the application. And we are not the first. In 1992, although the local BIA office recommended approval, Secretary Lujan denied an application by the Santee Sioux tribe of Nebraska, which wanted to open a casino in a community that had demonstrated substantial opposition. We have never approved an application in this administration that did not have community support.
Myth No. 2. The Hudson application was headed for Department approval but somehow it got derailed.
The reality is that the decision to reject the application was based on the law, consistent with Department practice, and was never opposed by any staff member in the Department's Washington headquarters.
Now, the law passed by Congress properly makes it more difficult for an off-reservation casino to be approved. It also requires us to give great weight to the sentiments of the local community. And because of the law, this application was controversial and it was troubled from the moment its consideration began at the Department.
Now, you have heard the testimony of the Department officers who participated in making the decision, and as these officials have testified to you, not a single person in the Washington office ever recommended approval of the Hudson Casino application, and no one in the Washington office ever wrote a memorandum recommending approval of the casino. The decision to reject the application was in full accord with the recommendation of the senior civil servant, George Skibine. For Mr. Skibine and others at Interior in Washington, the principal remaining issue was not whether to deny the application, but whether to rest the denial on the Indian Reorganization Act, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or both.
Deficiencies in the application were also apparent to the National Indian Gaming Commission, a quasi independent body not subject to my review. Three weeks before the Department decision, the National Indian Gaming Commission sent the Florida gambling company and the applicant tribes a letter stating that the application did not contain sufficient information to warrant approval. The decision to deny the application was also consistent with the Department practice. We do not allow a tribe to place a casino far from its own reservation in a community where there is substantial and well-founded opposition to it.
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I am gratified to learn from the record of these hearings to date that this committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, agree with this practice. In the Hudson case, the opposition of the surrounding community was widespread. It was legitimate; it was bipartisan. Community political leaders, including many Members of Congress, expressed their opposing views, and in contrast to this opposition, to my knowledge, not a single Member of Congress went on record in support of the Hudson application.
Now, the gambling interests financing this application, they knew about the deficiencies in their application, but they could not overcome the community opposition problem for a simple reason and that's because they were anchored to Hudson by their interest in bailing out their failing dog track. We took the views of community political leaders in Hudson, the city council formal opposition in Troy, the city—town council formal opposition, the St. Croix tribe formal opposition into consideration. It was entirely appropriate in the decisionmaking process, as I am sure members of this committee would agree.
Myth No. 3. The supposed derailment was somehow caused by improper political influence.
The reality is that the participants inside the decisionmaking process based their decision on the merits of the case, and the questionable behavior of lobbyists on both sides of this issue did not affect the decision. If the allegations are correct that lobbyists who opposed the application attempted to inject improper political considerations into Interior's decisionmaking process, well, they failed.
As the testimony before you has shown, the Interior officials involved in the decision were unaware of, and therefore, could not possibly have been influenced by, any of the improper political arguments that advocates of the opposing tribes are reported to have made.
I was personally unaware of any such improper political efforts by the opposing tribes, as were the other Interior officials, who actually participated in deciding the Hudson matter. Any improper political message simply did not get through.
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To be specific, I was unaware of communications the lobbyists of the opposing tribes are alleged to have had with the President and his advisors in the White House. I did not hear about them from the opposing tribes' lobbyists, and I did not hear about them from Harold Ickes or anyone else at the White House. Neither, as they have testified, did my personal staff or the Indian Affairs officials, including the career civil servants who worked on the matter.
The Department's officials have been deposed and redeposed under oath. George Skibine, for example, a career civil servant of impeccable reputation, was deposed twice and appeared before this committee and the Senate committee for a total of 16 hours of sworn testimony. They have answered the same questions again and again, and their testimony confirms what I say.
Myth No. 4. The White House inquiries into this matter were attempts to influence the Hudson decision.
The reality is that these White House inquiries, which critics of my Department have mischaracterized to further their conspiracy theory, were entirely benign and utterly routine. They involved status checks made by staff assistants. The staff at Interior recognized the status checks as routine and treated them as such. I was unaware of these inquiries at the time. When I answered the July 19, 1996, letter from Senator McCain more than a year after the Hudson decision, I attached a staff memo describing such inquiries.
Myth No. 5. Somehow I was the conduit by which White House influence was transmitted to Interior decisionmakers.
The reality is that the conduit theory is a fantasy. I never communicated with anyone at the White House or the Democratic National Committee about the Hudson matter. And because I had previously delegated my authority in such gaming matters to subordinates, I did not participate in the Department's decision. Thus, as I have said previously, the conduit theory fails because there was no connection at either end of the alleged conduit. The speculation and innuendo about it simply does not survive an examination of the facts.
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Mr. Chairman, the record regarding the Department's Hudson Casino decision shows that it was the right decision made in the right way for the right reasons. But I must acknowledge my own mistake in what I said about it when I granted the casino lobbyist's last minute request to meet with me.
On July 11, 1995, as the Department was close to announcing the decision to deny the application, I received a telephone call from an old friend and former law partner, Paul Eckstein, who had been hired by the gambling company supporting the application. Mr. Eckstein asked to meet with me. I asked one of my counselors, John Duffy, to meet with him. Mr. Duffy met with Mr. Eckstein on July 14th, the earliest date Mr. Eckstein could get to Washington. Later that day, Mr. Eckstein asked to see me without an appointment. When I reluctantly agreed to meet with him, he told me that Mr. Duffy had said the rejection decision was imminent. He then asked me to delay it so his clients could make a final presentation. I declined. Unfortunately, I made up an excuse in an effort to end the meeting. To the best of my recollection, I said that Harold Ickes wanted or expected the Department to make a decision promptly. It was indulgent of me to see Mr. Eckstein, and it was a mistake to invoke Harold Ickes' name. The fact is, I never spoke with Mr. Ickes about the Hudson matter, and I shouldn't have given Mr. Eckstein any reason to suppose that I had. I regret the remark. It was a mistake, but that's all it was.
Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to my own prior statements about this matter, because they have been the basis for some unfair and unsupportable accusations that have been leveled at me. I told the truth when I wrote to Senator McCain about this matter. I told the truth when I wrote to Senator Thompson. I told the truth when I testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and I am telling the truth today. The letters to Senators McCain and Thompson are consistent on the central point of this inquiry and they are truthful on the different issues they address. Both letters state that I never discussed the Hudson matter with Harold Ickes. In the McCain letter I disputed Mr. Eckstein's version of our conversation. In the Thompson letter I provided my own best recollection of that conversation. The context of the two letters was different and accounts for the different language in the documents. As I have testified, I never spoke with Harold Ickes or anyone else at the White House about the Hudson matter.
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When I wrote Senator McCain in August 1996 after the Eckstein meeting, 13 months after it occurred, that is what I told Senator McCain. That is also what I told Senator Thompson in my letter of October 10, 1997. That was my sworn testimony on October 30, 1997.
Mr. Chairman, the voluminous record in this matter demonstrates that denying the application was the right decision, made the right way, and for the right reasons.
I have been in public service for 23 years, and during that time I have worked hard to earn a reputation for integrity and independence. The attacks on my integrity are uncalled for, they are unwarranted, and I must tell you I deeply resent them. I am determined to do everything I can to prevent my reputation and the reputation of George Skibine, Mike Anderson, and other dedicated individuals in the Department from being tarnished by a controversy manufactured by the losers to take advantage of the corrosive political atmosphere that surrounds this city at this time. The test of the Department's action in the Hudson decision should not be what was said or done outside the decisionmaking process by private individuals who had a vested interest in the decision. The test should be what was said and done inside the process by those who have a responsibility to serve the public interest. Those individuals have testified before you and have vouched for the integrity of their actions in the Hudson matter. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, with a clear and certain conscience, so do I.
Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Babbitt follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 397 TO 411 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. Let me preface my remarks by saying that we are not impugning the integrity of any of the civil servants. What we are trying to do is to get at the facts regarding possible political influences being exerted into this matter through political contributions and other avenues, and we are concerned that decisions or recommendations that were made in Ashland, WI, by the career staff, and Minneapolis, MN, by the career staff were reversed at the top levels of our Government in the Interior Department, and whether or not those decisions were reversed because of political contributions which came in. So we are not trying to impugn the integrity of any of the civil servants, because we believe that they largely do a very good job.
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Mr. Secretary, are you prepared to represent today to the House that all, all responsive documents that have been subpoenaed have been produced to this committee?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, to the very best of my knowledge, this Department has undertaken the most exhaustive search we have ever made and produced every single document that we have found, yes.
Mr. BURTON. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, could we have the Secretary pull the mic a little closer.
Mr. BURTON. Yes. Would you pull it a little closer.
The reason I ask that question is because we have asked the counsel for the President on a number of occasions if we had all the documents and they say we do, and then 2 or 3 weeks later we get another two or three boxes and so on.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I can only answer for the Interior Department.
Mr. BURTON. I understand, Mr. Babbitt.
Could you tell us what you have personally done to make sure that all the records that we have asked for have been provided?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, the document search was conducted under a process that was established by the solicitor. He is here and I am certain he could provide you that information.
Mr. BURTON. But to the best of your knowledge, we have all the documents we requested?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. BURTON. You yourself have indicated that you wanted all the facts and the information out. In keeping with your commitment, this committee voted yesterday to make all of the documents pertaining to this investigation public. So I thought we would inform you of that. We intend to turn these documents over to the chairman of the Interior Committee, Chairman Young and Chairman Pombo, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Resources Committee, to further review these matters and address any legislative remedies that need to be passed.
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Now, in a deposition last fall with the Senate, your longtime close friend, to whom you alluded in your opening remarks, a law school classmate and former campaign manager, Paul Eckstein, testified under oath before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee as follows regarding the rejection of the Hudson Casino application on July 14, 1995. Quote: ''The Secretary responded that he had been directed by Harold Ickes to issue the decision that day. . . . and the Secretary said at some point when we were standing up, he asked me rhetorically, 'Do you know how much,' I believe it was 'these tribes,' had contributed to either the Democrat party or the Democrat candidates or the DNC? I said, I don't have the slightest idea, and he responded by saying, Well, it's in the order of a half a million dollars or something like that.''
Mr. Secretary, in your opening remarks you alluded to part of that statement, but you didn't say anything about the comment that he is talking about here where you said, Are you aware of how much money is given to the DNC by these individuals. Now, do you recall saying that to him?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, that assertion, as I understand it, by Mr. Eckstein did not appear in his affidavit filed in the civil litigation. It is my understanding that that assertion was made for the first time several months ago in the context of Thompson committee hearings.
Mr. BURTON. Yes, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary BABBITT. I have no recollection of such a discussion.
Mr. BURTON. So you are saying that Mr. Eckstein was in error when he said that?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I can only tell you that I have no recollection of that, of such a discussion.
Mr. BURTON. But you recall part of the statement. In your opening remarks you referred to about half of what Mr. Eckstein alleged was said, but the part that alludes to do you know how much these Indian tribes have given in contributions, you do not recall. You say you recall half of it but not the other half?
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Secretary BABBITT. I have no recollection of such a discussion.
Mr. BURTON. Now, Mr. Secretary, you initially denied this account in your July 14, 1995, meeting with Mr. Eckstein in this letter to Senator McCain on August 30, 1996; didn't you?
Secretary BABBITT. No, I did not. That is not correct.
Mr. BURTON. Well, you said, ''I must regretfully dispute Mr. Eckstein's assertion that I told him that Mr. Ickes instructed me to issue a decision in this matter without delay.'' That is a direct quote from your letter.
Secretary BABBITT. Well, let me, if I may, Mr. Chairman. First of all——
Mr. BURTON. Let me put up on the screen, if I might, so everyone can see it, that is exhibit 337A–1 through A–2.
[Exhibit 337 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 412 TO 413 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. My letter of August 30th was in response to Senator McCain's letter of July 19th. Now, here is what Senator McCain asked me in the July 19th letter. He says: Mr. Eckstein has sworn that you told him that Ickes had called you and told you the decision had to be issued that day.
Now, I did not tell him that Ickes had called me. I did not tell him that Ickes had told me that the decision had to be issued that day. And in my response to Senator McCain, I said, I must regretfully dispute Mr. Eckstein's assertion that I told him that Mr. Ickes instructed me, et cetera.
Mr. BURTON. That is a fine line you are drawing there.
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, that is not a fine line. It is not a fine line at all. Senator McCain is saying: Did you tell him that Ickes had called you. The answer is, I did not. Did you say that Ickes told me that the decision had to be issued that day? No. And that is not a very fine line. It is a bright one.
Mr. BURTON. Well, so now your story is that you did say something——
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, that is not my story now. That is contained in a letter that was written on August 30, 1996.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Secretary, if you would let me conclude my questions and then I will allow you adequate time for answering. If you wouldn't interrupt me, I will try not to interrupt you.
Now, your story is that you did say something to this effect, and in particular you stated in an October 10, 1997, letter to Senator Thompson, ''I do believe Mr. Eckstein's recollection that I said something to the effect that Mr. Ickes wanted a decision is correct.''
Now, you said that. That is exhibit 345B–1 and 2. Do you recall that?
[Exhibit 345 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 414 TO 415 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, sir.
Mr. BURTON. And then during your testimony on October 30, 1997, you stated, ''I do not recall exactly what was said. On reflection, I probably said that Mr. Ickes . . . wanted the Department to decide the matter promptly.'' That is exhibit 366–2. And in your Senate testimony, you explained this change in your story as just an excuse to get Mr. Eckstein out of your office; isn't that correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. In my testimony, in the Thompson letter, I said that Mr. Ickes—my best recollection of what I said to Eckstein is that Ickes wanted or expected a decision promptly. Now, that is not in conflict with my response to Senator McCain.
Mr. BURTON. And you don't recall saying anything about the money that Indian tribes contributed; you don't recall anything about that?
Secretary BABBITT. I do not recall a discussion to that effect.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Eckstein was your close personal friend and campaign manager and confidant and he obviously just made that up.
Secretary BABBITT. I do not recall a discussion to that effect.
Mr. BURTON. Yet, you are aware that Mr. Eckstein testified that you made that statement about Harold Ickes at the beginning of your meeting and he continued to stay in your office; isn't that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I don't recall exactly when the issue of Harold Ickes arose. I can tell you that I made an excuse to ease—I had told Mr. Eckstein I couldn't do anything for him. I made an excuse to the effect that, Look, I have got to get this done; Ickes expects or wants me to make a decision promptly.
Mr. BURTON. But in your Senate testimony, you indicated that it was the end of the meeting when you stood up and he was leaving that——
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I did not indicate that. Which Senate testimony are you referring to?
Mr. BURTON. Well, was it at the beginning or the end of the meeting that you made this comment to Mr. Ickes; do you recall?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I do not recall.
Mr. BURTON. Is it still your testimony today that the only reason you mentioned Harold Ickes was to get Mr. Eckstein out of your office?
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Secretary BABBITT. That is correct, to—I made an excuse. Obviously, I regret having made that excuse, but that is what it was, nothing more.
Mr. BURTON. But you lied to your friend?
Secretary BABBITT. I made an excuse to——
Mr. BURTON. Was it truthful? Did you talk to Mr. Ickes? Was it truthful that Mr. Ickes asked you to do anything on this? If you didn't have any contact, then you misled your friend.
Secretary BABBITT. In the McCain letter, I was asked whether Ickes had called me and told me the decision had to be answered. My response to Senator McCain was, I dispute that; I didn't say that. That is my letter of August 30, 1996, and it is my testimony today.
Mr. BURTON. So of all the people at the White House whose names you could have invoked, such as Chief of Staff Panetta or others in leadership there, anybody else, you chose Harold Ickes to invoke. And why did you pick Harold Ickes' name?
Secretary BABBITT. Simply because Harold Ickes was my liaison on these kinds of Interior matters at the White House.
Mr. BURTON. And he was deeply involved in the fund-raising aspect of the White House and the Democratic National Committee.
You are aware that Mr. Ickes' office had been asked by numerous sources to influence this decision; are you not?
Secretary BABBITT. As a result of the testimony in these proceedings, yes, I am aware of that.
Mr. BURTON. And you are aware that Mr. Ickes was contacted by DNC Chairman Don Fowler who pleaded the case for the Hudson Casino opponents? That was in the May 5 memo, exhibit No. 310. I direct your attention to the top of the memo which denotes Democrat or DNC supporters oppose the project. DNC supporters oppose the project.
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[Exhibit 310 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 416 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Yes. I see the memo. I am not sure—I don't believe I have seen this memo before. I know it is in the record. But this is one of these endless communications outside the Interior process and I have, therefore, not spent much time with them. I may have read this. I don't think I have.
Mr. BURTON. Are you aware that Mr. Ickes was contacted by Mr. Schneider at or around May 16, 1995? Who asked that Mr. Ickes contact the Interior Department on behalf of the opposing tribes? That is exhibit No. 346. Mr. O'Connor testified to that effect yesterday.
Secretary BABBITT. I am sorry, testified to what effect?
Mr. BURTON. Mr. O'Connor testified to the effect that Mr. Ickes was contacted by his partner, Mr. Schneider, on or about May 16, 1995, and asked that he contact Mr. Ickes——
Secretary BABBITT. I think I can say, without having seen the memo, that I have no knowledge of that.
Mr. BURTON. It is interesting, though, that this is a real coincidence that Mr. Schneider and Mr. Fowler and others were talking to Ickes about this matter and even the President asked that Mr. Ickes look into it. Mr. Ickes was asked by a number of people to look into this and talked to the Interior Department about it, and you mentioned to your former partner and friend and campaign manager that Mr. Ickes was asking that this thing be denied. And it just seems like a real coincidence, of all the people at the White House, that he is the one you mentioned to Mr. Eckstein. Don't you think that is an unusual coincidence?
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, you can manufacture all the conspiracies you want. The plain fact is that at the end of the day the facts are the facts. I have just given them to you.
Mr. BURTON. Are you aware of a May 18, 1995, memo to Harold Ickes from his staff which indicated that the Interior Department staff had made the decision to reject the casino application in a May 17, 1995, memo?
Mr. LESHY. Could you give us an exhibit number, please?
Mr. BURTON. That is exhibit 312, pardon me.
[Exhibit 312 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 417 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, I believe I saw this memo for the first time in the course of the Thompson committee investigation.
Mr. BURTON. Do you know why a decision that was supposedly not made until 2 months later was being represented to Harold Ickes as having been essentially decided?
Secretary BABBITT. Where does it say that?
Mr. BURTON. The date of the memo is May 17, the memo you have before you, or May 18, and that memo to Harold Ickes from his staff indicated that the Interior Department had made the decision. This was from his staff. It says, ''Staff met last night and came up with a preliminary decision, which will likely not be final for another month. The staff believe it is probably a bad idea to create the trust land to allow the establishment of the casino. Their reasons are as follows:'' And then it goes on. But this memo was 2 months after the decision was made. Can you explain that?
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, sure. You have heard testimony from George Skibine, from Tom Hartman, from Mike Anderson, from John Duffy, from other officials who have described in great detail the process of a consensus-based discussion that moved this decision through the process toward the final decision made by Mike Anderson.
Mr. BURTON. What I don't understand, Mr. Secretary, is that this was a confidential memo and the Indian tribes that were making the application who should have been involved in the process to try to correct any problems that may have occurred weren't even aware of it. And yet it appears as though from this memo that was sent to Mr. Ickes, for what reason I know not, other than to inform him, that the application was probably going to be declined. The decision had already been made or was about to be made and it wasn't made known until 2 months later. The Indian tribes that were going to be turned down weren't even made aware of it or given an opportunity, which should have been the case, according to the law as I understand it and weren't informed about this. Why is that?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, you are incorrect. Those facts are simply not supported in the record.
Mr. BURTON. Explain, if I am incorrect.
Secretary BABBITT. You have heard testimony from George Skibine, and I believe others, that the tribes were consulted with. They met with officials in the Department during that time and those issues were discussed. That is clearly laid out in the record.
Mr. BURTON. Well, the tribes in question weren't even involved in the meeting for 6 weeks.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, George Skibine testified to that very issue just crystal clear. He said, as I recall, how he came to the Department, how those letters went out, and to the substantive course of consultation.
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Mr. BURTON. The Indian tribes that testified before us said they were not involved in any meetings. They did not know about that until 6——
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, the record clearly shows to the contrary.
Mr. BURTON. The record, I don't believe, shows that. I will not go into all the details, but the Skibine testimony does not reflect that.
Are you aware that Mr. Ickes has little memory of any of these contacts or events?
Secretary BABBITT. I have not discussed this matter with Harold Ickes and I did not watch his testimony to the Thompson committee. Has he testified to this committee?
Mr. BURTON. No, the reason he did not testify to this committee, and I will answer my colleague, Mr. Waxman's comments that were made, is because he was deposed by the Senate. We did have access to those depositions. He testified. So we pretty much had the information we wanted from Mr. Ickes. We didn't want to be any more redundant, and my colleagues on the other side have been concerned about redundancy, so we wanted to accommodate them.
Skibine said, incidentally, this is a question, but prior to the rejection of the application, that is the easy way to do it, to tell people in advance what the problems are and to let them cure them? And his answer was, Yes, we could have done that. That is not the way I did this first application. That is not the way we did it at this point.
So as far as informing them——
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I disagree. The record——
Mr. BURTON. This is Mr. Skibine's testimony. That is a direct quote from Mr. Skibine.
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Secretary BABBITT. The record clearly shows that these folks had ample opportunity to discuss their application with Department officials.
Now, in addition to that, in the record there is a transcript of my discussion with the Wisconsin tribes, I believe in early April, the Listening Conference that I held in Wisconsin. These are regular events that I hold statewide with Indian tribes on an irregular basis.
The Wisconsin Listening Conference involved a general discussion of this issue, and, from my perspective, I clearly laid out in my remarks, and there is a transcript of them, that the issue with off-reservation gaming was the issue of community support. I said, this Department is not willing to cram casinos down the throats of unwilling communities. I explained it in some detail. Just personally.
Mr. BURTON. Let me move on because we have a limited amount of time. If you could keep your answers as concise as possible, it would help us expedite this.
Are you aware that Mr. Fowler sometimes remembers little about these events, except that he contacted someone unknown at the Interior Department. Would you happen to have learned from anyone who that person he contacted might be?
Secretary BABBITT. I have asked that question, and the answer is that we have not been able to document a call by Fowler to which someone actually responded and talked with Mr. Fowler. I can tell you that it was not me.
Mr. BURTON. See, one of the things that is troubling to us is Mr. Ickes doesn't remember. Mr. Fowler doesn't remember. You don't know anybody over at the Department that was contacted, and yet Mr. Fowler says he did contact someone. So it is troubling when we are trying to get at the facts when people have this memory loss.
Now, let me give you some examples of the coincidences here. Yesterday, Mr. O'Connor, DNC trustee and lobbyist for the wealthy tribes opposing this application, testified that on July 14, 1995, the day the rejection letter was sent out on the Hudson Casino application, and that is exhibit 328, his billing records for that day, which is exhibit 356–45, reflect his reference to fund-raising strategy. And he says, ''Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe and DNC Chairman Don Fowler.''
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Doesn't that seem like a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Secretary, that he refers to all of them, same day, July 14th, that this meeting took place?
[Exhibits 328 and 356–45 follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 418 TO 421 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, half the lobbyists in this town claim credit for the sunrise at least once a week. And it is pretty clear to me, I have not seen—those things were happening outside the Department. And I have, and had, no knowledge of what is going on outside the Department. But it doesn't seem unusual for a lobbyist to get set to claim credit as the sun comes over the horizon.
Mr. BURTON. Are you aware that Mr. Ickes was a central person at the White House overseeing fund-raising for the DNC in the Clinton/Gore 1996 campaign?
Secretary BABBITT. I believe that I was aware that Harold Ickes was the White House person managing the campaign, was the person managing the campaign, in the White House managing the campaign, yes, I was aware of that.
Mr. BURTON. So you were aware that Mr. Ickes was deeply involved in the fund-raising aspect of the campaign of the DNC?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I was aware that he was involved in the management of the campaign.
Mr. BURTON. Now, on the day that you invoked Mr. Ickes' name, and Mr. Eckstein said that you asked him if he knew how much money these people raised, this was just 1 day after Mr. O'Connor's partner and longtime friend of the President, Tom Schneider, held a fund-raiser for Clinton/Gore 1996. This fund-raiser netted close to half a million dollars, $420,000, to be exact, and this is just another coincidence you would assert, I presume?
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Secretary BABBITT. I was not aware of that fund-raiser.
Mr. BURTON. Just so there is no confusion, Mr. Secretary, your testimony before this committee is that neither Harold Ickes nor Don Fowler contacted you at any time alerting you to the political considerations in this decision and that the decision to reject the application for a casino at the dog track was based solely on the merits by career officials at the Interior Department. Is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct. I had no contact on this matter with Ickes or Fowler. Who was the third one?
Mr. BURTON. I beg your pardon, sir?
Secretary BABBITT. You gave me three names. I said I had no contact with Ickes. I had none with Fowler.
Mr. BURTON. I mentioned Ickes and Fowler.
Secretary BABBITT. I have had no communications, had no communication with them. This decision was the right decision. It was made in the right way, and it was made for the right reasons.
Mr. BURTON. In light of the testimony we have heard over the 3 days of our hearings, I would like to question you in regard to some of the representations that you made in your opening statement. Essentially, you said that the decision was made by career officials of the Department of the Interior, not influenced in any way by the political concerns; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. The decision was made by Michael Anderson. He is a Presidential appointee.
Mr. BURTON. He is a political appointee?
Secretary BABBITT. The decision was made by Michael Anderson, a political appointee, yes.
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Mr. BURTON. In your testimony, I drew from that that the career employees at the Interior Department, were making most of the representations and most of the recommendations, like Mr. Skibine.
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, I think the intent of the testimony, I suppose I should look at the language, was to emphasize that at the career level in the Department, George Skibine.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Anderson is the one that made the final decision and signed it. He was a political appointee of the President?
Secretary BABBITT. Sure. He did that on the recommendation of Skibine.
Mr. BURTON. In fact, one of the chiefs of the tribes testified before this committee about Mr. Anderson's political activities for the Clinton campaign in 1992, while he was with the American Congress of Indians. Are you aware of that?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't believe that I even knew Michael Anderson until he came to the Department. I believe that I was aware when he came to the Department that he had been an official with the National Congress of American Indians, but that is the extent of my biographical knowledge of Michael Anderson prior to recent events and testimony.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Secretary, you repeated before this committee the same statement that you made before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, that ''The Department based its decision solely on the criteria set forth in Section 20 of the Indian Regulatory Gaming Act.'' In fact, are you aware that Mr. Skibine, the career Interior Department official who did not sign the rejection letter, testified last week that your statement was incorrect?
Secretary BABBITT. When I said that the decision was based on the criteria contained in IGRA, in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, essentially the same criteria are contained in the decisionmaking process in both. Those criteria apply and, I think that is quite clear from the letter of decision. Those criteria, detriment to the community, benefit to the tribe, are the same ones that are used on either side.
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Mr. BURTON. In fact, you had to rely on a 1934 act to use your discretion to reject this application rather than solely relying upon section 20; isn't that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, the decision letter speaks for itself, and the answer is that the decision letter relies on both.
Mr. BURTON. And you are aware that the career officials had recommended against using section 20 in the rejection rationale, but your counsel, Mr. Duffy, who now works for your old law firm, insisted that section 20 be cited in the rejection letter?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I am mystified by how this discussion enters your conspiracy theory. The fact is that there was a lively debate. The record shows a lively debate in the Department about the grounds for decision. Either would be an adequate ground.
I believe that the people who have testified here have explained what that debate was about. I would be happy to try to recollect their testimony, but it is out there and it is on the record. It is crystal clear.
Mr. BURTON. Let us go to some of the facts, then. In July 1995, this is exhibit 323, an e-mail communication from Kevin Meisner to George Skibine, and it was dated July 6, 1995, quote, ''The bald objections of surrounding communities, including Indian tribes are not enough evidence of detriment to the surrounding communities to find under section 20 of the IGRA that the acquisition for the gaming will be detrimental to the surrounding communities.''
With respect to your assertion in your statement that a career civil servant's recommendation was not overruled, I would refer you to exhibit 317A, which is a June 8, 1995, draft recommending approval of the application, which specifically states, ''The staff recommends that the Secretary, based on the following, determine that the proposed acquisition would not be detrimental to the surrounding community.''
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In fact, the ultimate rejection letter of July 14 did overrule this career civil servant's recommendation; didn't it?
[Exhibits 323 and 317A follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 422 TO 439 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, going back to the, let us see, this is exhibit 323.
Mr. BURTON. 317A.
Secretary BABBITT. This was from Kevin Meisner.
Mr. BURTON. We had two there: Exhibit 323E was an e-mail from Kevin Meisner to George Skibine. That was July 6, 1995. And the last one I alluded to was exhibit 317A.
Secretary BABBITT. I am not speaking from my personal knowledge. I am speaking from these documents and what I understand has already been said on the record. I believe that is quite clear, that Meisner's view of this was rejected in the Solicitor's Office by Bob Anderson and I think John Duffy talked about this yesterday as well.
Mr. BURTON. Bob Anderson and John Duffy both were political appointees; were they not?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. BURTON. And John Duffy and your former chief of staff both left your staff after the decision was made, one before and one after the decision was made to kill this application for the tribes in question, and they went to work for your old law firm and they both now represent the Shakopee tribe, which is one of the beneficiaries of this decision; is that not correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry. Are you talking about this document or is that a question directed about Duffy and Collier?
Mr. BURTON. Let me just state quickly something that I think needs to be said. Mr. Anderson was a political appointee, Mr. Collier was a political appointee, and Mr. Duffy was a political appointee. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Duffy were involved in the decisionmaking process. Mr. Duffy and Mr. Collier left your employ at the Department, went to work for your old law firm. They now represent the Shakopee tribes and they are making a lot of money from the tribes that benefited from this decision. That is one of the things that concerns me a great deal.
Let me proceed on.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, could I respond to that?
Mr. BURTON. You can in just a moment.
Does it trouble you, Mr. Secretary that——
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I think in fairness the witness ought to be able to respond to that. I think he is the one that is testifying and you are the one asking questions.
Mr. BURTON. The Chair just stated very clearly that he will be able to respond.
Mr. TIERNEY. Sometime separated from your question.
Mr. BURTON. Just a moment. I am running out of time.
Mr. TIERNEY. We will give you time, but I think he ought to have time to respond to your question when your question is made, not sometime separated later.
Mr. BURTON. The Chair has ruled that he will have time to respond to the question and he will do it in just a moment. Be patient.
Does it trouble you, in addition to the question I just asked, does it trouble you, Mr. Secretary, that a judge appointed by President Carter has noted, ''that there is considerable evidence that suggests that improper political pressure may have influenced agency decisionmaking?'' That is exhibit C–106.
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And also, since I will let you answer both questions, I will conclude with this one, Judge Crabb also noted the unusual brevity of the July 14, 1995, decision when she wrote, ''The Indian Gaming Management Staff's first report in early February 1995 was 26 pages and the second one, dated June 8, 1995, was 17 pages. Plaintiffs pointed out also that in making a decision on a similar trust application filed by the Sault Sainte Marie Indians, the Department issued a 29-page decision, considerably longer than the 3-page decision in this case.'' In fact, this decision did little to explain the rationale for denying the application, didn't it, Mr. Secretary?
[The chart referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 440 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Let's see, I think I have three questions——
Mr. BURTON. Yes, sir, you do.
Secretary BABBITT [continuing]. To respond to.
With respect to the brevity of the decision document, Mr. Chairman, I think it is clear and comprehensible, if you want to compare that to Department practice, I would suggest that you look at Secretary Lujan's decision denying the Santee Sioux application in quite comparable circumstances. That decision, dated January 23, 1992, is here. So I would respectfully suggest that before anyone buys into a brevity conspiracy that you might sort of look at the practices in the Department.
Now, with respect to the Crabb opinion, Mr. Chairman, I think it is enormously misleading to continually throw this opinion up in the way you do for this reason: Judge Crabb looked at the allegations that these gambling guys are making in the pleadings in the lawsuit and looked at the paper and said, I must make a ruling that the court will hear testimony on these issues. That is what it is all about. She is saying, these gambling company allegations on their face raise issues that require testimony.
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Now, what is the difference between that and here? The difference is very simple. You have been hearing testimony for 2 weeks, and what I am saying is that any fair construction of the record that has been laid out here in the last 2 weeks could only lead reasonable people to one conclusion, and that is the right decision made in the right way for the right reasons.
Mr. BURTON. Let me, just before I yield to my colleague——
Secretary BABBITT. I am sorry. There was a third question.
Mr. BURTON. Sure, go ahead.
Secretary BABBITT. Which I would like to respond to. And that is the issue of Duffy and Collier. I did not hear their testimony to you yesterday. But I have had it reported to me and I would summarize their response. Congress explicitly, by legislation, authorized this kind of representation and in fact it was legal and entirely appropriate under the rules laid down by this Congress.
Now, let me tell you that this first came to my attention, this matter, in April 1993, when a former Secretary of the Interior, a Republican named Manuel Lujan came to the Department lobbying for an Indian tribe, the Mescalero Apachees on a casino issue which had previously been under his jurisdiction at the Department of the Interior.
Now, I didn't rush after Secretary Lujan or out to the press and say, this is an outrageous example of wrongdoing because I respect Secretary Lujan. He was acting legally and properly. And the inference that just because somebody goes to represent a tribe automatically casts that suspicion, I suggest you call Manny Lujan in here and give him the kind of treatment that you have been giving Duffy and Collier.
Mr. BURTON. Before I yield to my colleague, let me just say you have used the term ''conspiracy'' a number of times, Mr. Secretary. I don't believe that Judge Crabb would be involved in that and her statement, which is on the screen, I think speaks for itself.
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Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like that statement to stay up on the screen because there is something really quite dishonest that is going on here. At the end there are three dots. Three dots usually mean she said something else. What that exhibit does not say is what else she said. And I want to read from her opinion.
''However, whereas here there is considerable evidence that suggests that improper political pressure may have influenced agency decisionmaking,'' she goes on to say, ''it is necessary to allow extra record discovery to uncover whether that is true.'' The next sentence is, ''Many of the events of which plaintiffs complain could be considered innocent in and of themselves.''
What she had said in this opinion is that based on these allegations she was going to allow them to take depositions and undertake discovery. So I want that to be looked at in its entirety because that quote is being misused. If you listen to how it is misused, it is misused when the chairman says, a Carter appointee, a Democrat. Well, I don't think it makes any difference whether she was appointed by a Democrat or Republican. She is a judge. She had to make a decision not on the merits of whether there was considerable interference, but only whether she was going to allow people to look at that issue and gather evidence on it. So let's get that record straight.
Mr. Babbitt, this is our last of 4 days of hearings. Some of the people who are here today may be here for the first time. Others may not be aware of what we have heard in testimony consistently on this matter. We had decisionmakers. You are the one that signs the papers because you are the Secretary, like we sign our letters. But the truth of the matter is we have aides that write those letters or draft our record statements as you have aides who have to look at the facts and make a decision and recommendations up the line and maybe it has your imprimatur as the final decisionmaker, but others get involved. And we have had the people who were the career officials in the Department testify before us and they said they had to consider this measure, this request for a casino, on the merits and they did that and they made their recommendations.
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Mr. Skibine, I think, is a 20-year career person. He looked at it, the merits and said, this application for a casino should be denied. Then his superior looked at his statement and one of his superiors said, well, I agree with your decision, but I think it ought to be denied on other grounds than the one you suggested. And then you said to us there was a debate as to what grounds to turn it down, not whether to turn it down or not, but what grounds to turn it down. And then that went to Mr. Hartman and to Mr. Anderson.
Mr. Anderson is a political appointee, but let's don't misunderstand what political appointee means. When you have a new administration, as is possible every 4 years with the election of a President, the President appoints the Secretaries for the Departments, as you were appointed by President Clinton. Some of the people under you were appointed by the President and then under them are career people. So the political people who are now required to make these decisions on the substantive issues before them in the Department of Interior got the recommendations from the career people and signed off on them.
I want to run a videotape. It was not very artfully put together. It was quickly put together, but sometimes reading testimony isn't as good as seeing the people respond on the record. So if we could get that videotape, I would like you to see it. It is going to come on in a minute and it is going to show the questions.
[Videotape shown].
Mr. WAXMAN. That was Mr. Skibine.
[Videotape continues.]
Mr. WAXMAN. Those were the statements on the record. They involved career officials and then people who were appointed as political appointees above them. They have all testified here under oath that there was no political interference. The decision was based on the merits. I am pleased the chairman said he doesn't impugn their integrity. I think he has no basis to impugn their integrity. That is the record of these hearings.
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A decision was made on the merits without political interference, but this hearing suggests that that must be wrong. It suggests it must be wrong because we knew there were people working the political process to get a different decision. Now, there are people working in the political process to get the decision that was made. But the fact that people work in the political process doesn't mean that that affected the decision. That is the key issue.
Let me just get you, for the record, Mr. Babbitt. After reviewing the testimony we just saw on the videotape, and I know you reviewed it when you looked at the record, do you have any reason whatsoever to dispute the sworn testimony of these Interior officials?
Secretary BABBITT. I have no reason to dispute their testimony. I believe that the decision was made on the merits and in the right fashion and for the right reasons.
Mr. WAXMAN. Now, let's explore the theory that is being pursued in this investigation that the White House influenced the Department's decision in the Hudson Casino matter. Did anyone in the White House ever contact you personally about the Hudson Casino application?
Secretary BABBITT. I never had a contact or discussion with anyone in the White House.
Mr. WAXMAN. You never talked with the Vice President or anyone on his staff about the Hudson Casino issue, did you?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. You never talked to Harold Ickes about the Hudson application?
Secretary BABBITT. I have not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you ever have any direct contact with anyone in Mr. Ickes office about the Hudson Casino matter?
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Secretary BABBITT. I have not.
Mr. WAXMAN. We have seen two documents and heard testimony describing routine status inquiries from two of Mr. Ickes' junior assistants to Heather Sibbison, who worked in your office for John Duffy. Did Ms. Sibbison ever inform of you these inquiries?
Secretary BABBITT. I was not informed of those inquiries, I believe, for the right reasons. They were utterly routine inquiries. The White House is avalanched with letters and requests from all kinds of people. The members of this committee and this Congress are among the most prolific letter writers to the White House.
Mr. WAXMAN. There is a reason for it because we are avalanched by people who are working the political process, some of whom gave us contributions; some of whom the Members hope will give a contribution. They want to know what the status of things are.
Secretary BABBITT. The White House has to have some way to answer this avalanche. The way they do it is by making staff level inquiries. It seems to me the record is quite clear about that.
Mr. WAXMAN. Staff level inquiry means they ask what the status is of the case?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes. In this case, I think a staff assistant and a college intern or a college student intern.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did Mr. Duffy or anyone else inform you about these inquiries? Ms. Sibbison did not.
Secretary BABBITT. They did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did anyone at all at the Department inform you that Mr. Ickes or Mr. Ickes' office had a view on the substance or timing of this Hudson decision?
Secretary BABBITT. No, they did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did anyone at all at the Department inform you that anyone else in the White House had a view on the substance or timing of the Hudson decision?
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Secretary BABBITT. No, I have no recollection of any kind of contact from the White House at all, none.
Mr. WAXMAN. Now, the chairman said we didn't need to take Mr. Ickes' deposition. It would have been redundant. That wasn't the reason why. We have had redundant depositions of everybody else involved in this case. But what he hasn't said is what Mr. Ickes said in his deposition.
What Mr. Ickes said in his deposition, not given to us, but given to another committee, is that he had no information about this. He did not do anything about it. So we have Mr. Ickes under oath saying he didn't make the contact from the White House and we have you and all the people in the Interior Department saying they never got this contact. There is a gap between those who are supposed to be influencing you so they say they didn't do it, and you, who are supposed to be influenced, said you didn't get the message.
Now, Fred Havenick came here the other day and on our first day of hearings and he reported a conversation he had with Terry McAuliffe who, according to Mr. Havenick, Mr. McAuliffe took credit for killing the casino deal thinking apparently that Mr. Havenick wanted the casino killed even though Mr. Havenick wanted the casino approved. Mr. McAuliffe denies that this conversation ever occurred. Did Terry McAuliffe ever contact you about the Hudson application?
Secretary BABBITT. I have never spoken with Terry McAuliffe. I think I may have met him across the years. I am not sure I would recognize him if he walked into the room. In any event, I have never discussed this issue with Terry McAuliffe.
Mr. WAXMAN. Are you aware of Mr. McAuliffe or anyone working for Mr. McAuliffe contacting anyone in the Department of Interior on this issue?
Secretary BABBITT. I am not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Now, some have suggested that the Interior Department's decision was influenced by contacts by the Democratic National Committee or outside lobbyists. We have already explored the White House. Now we are looking at the Democratic National Committee and lobbyists. Did Don Fowler or anyone else at the DNC speak with you about the Hudson application?
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Secretary BABBITT. I have never had a communication from the Democratic National Committee about this matter.
Mr. WAXMAN. Has anyone at the Department of Interior told you of any contacts by Mr. Fowler or others at the DNC on the Hudson matter?
Secretary BABBITT. They have not.
Mr. WAXMAN. And did you have any knowledge at the time of the decision that Indian tribes opposed to the casino had made campaign contributions or would make future campaign contributions?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. We have seen some evidence that lobbyists opposed to the casino made partisan political arguments to Mr. Fowler and to others. Were you aware of any of those arguments prior to July 14, 1995, the day of the decision?
Secretary BABBITT. These issues were all, I have subsequently learned, being worked outside the Department. The fact is that I had no knowledge of that process.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you meet with any lobbyist opposed to the casino project?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. In fact, the only lobbyist you met with on this issue was Paul Eckstein who represented Fred Havenick and Galaxy Gaming; isn't that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct. And that is what has apparently led me to have this quality time with this committee.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Eckstein is an old friend of yours and associate of yours in politics and business, he was hired by Mr. Havenick to try to get you to go along with Mr. Havenick's desire to have this casino approved. Now, when Mr. Eckstein came in to see you, you knew the decision was going to be against his client.
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Secretary BABBITT. That is correct, yes.
Mr. WAXMAN. I suppose when a friend comes in to ask you to go his client's way, you had two choices. You could say to him, sorry, pal, I don't agree with you on the merits and I am going to, we are going to go against you. Or you can do what a lot, like a lot of people do, say, well, it is going against you, but it is not my fault. It is not a stand up kind of thing to do, and it is probably a little embarrassing for you. It is not criminal. It seems to me you chose that latter course. Is that what happened?
Secretary BABBITT. I regret it, obviously. I could have said, the answer is, no, I am not going to intervene in this process. That is the end of it. In retrospect, obviously, I could have extended the time, I could have intervened in this process and extended the time. I had the authority to do it. What I was doing was making an excuse for something that seemed, I suppose from some perspectives, a fairly, you know, innocuous request, to extend the time. I was not prepared to do that and I made an excuse.
Mr. WAXMAN. It is a human thing to do. We have on the record of these hearings lobbyists who try to take credit for things they didn't do. You were trying to divert blame for something your Department was doing. It is done all the time. I guess it is called a white lie. It is an excuse.
Let me ask you about Tom Collier, your former chief of staff, and John Duffy, your former counselor. They testified yesterday that they never had any substantive discussions with you on the Hudson matter. Michael Anderson, Deputy Assistant Secretary, who made the final decision, and George Skibine, the career civil servant who recommended denial of the application, also testified that they never discussed the Hudson Casino matter with you. That was their testimony. Is their testimony correct?
Secretary BABBITT. I believe that is correct. Let me just add a postscript to that. This decision had been delegated and my policy in a decisionmaking context like this is to let the decisionmakers do it. And if there is a substantial divergence within the staff, the chances are it may bubble back up, if there is a policy decision which the staff cannot resolve. The reason that I was never drawn into a discussion of this case is because that never happened. There was virtual unanimity among the staff. There wasn't any reason for this to come to my attention.
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Mr. WAXMAN. So the people who were on the staff and looking at the issue were clear in their determination on the merits to deny the casino. Is that what they wanted?
Secretary BABBITT. I am sure from time to time I, you know, had a casual report that this matter was progressing. I was probably given some information when I went to the Listening Conference in April. But there wasn't any need to get into the specific issues. My concern was the policy issues and they were in agreement as to how that policy was to be applied in this case.
Mr. WAXMAN. Hilda Manuel worked for you in the Department. She wasn't allowed to testify in the public hearing, but she gave a deposition and it is clear why she wasn't allowed to testify in a public hearing because in her deposition she said she talked to you and you said to her, I don't want to get involved in this. Let the people at the career level and all the others that work for me reach a conclusion on this. I am not going to get involved. Do you recall telling her that?
Secretary BABBITT. I do not recall that discussion. But I certainly accept it.
Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Just so—let me ask some more questions. We ought to just pin this stuff down, get it on the record just so we get a clear sense of your knowledge of the decisionmaking process. Do you remember attending an April 1995 Wisconsin tribal dialog in which the Hudson decision came up?
Secretary BABBITT. I am certain I was there. I don't have a lot of recollection of the actual meeting. I think it was on a day which I was headed up to the Menominee reservation that afternoon, but at any rate, I was there at that meeting in Wisconsin. It was a tribal Listening Conference.
Mr. WAXMAN. You made some general remarks at the dialog; is that right?
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Secretary BABBITT. Yes, although my knowledge of those remarks is exclusively a result of having seen that transcript.
Mr. WAXMAN. At the time of the meeting, did you have a detailed knowledge of the Hudson application?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not. I may have been, you know, sort of informed that there was an application in the process, that it was controversial, that it involved off-reservation gaming and that was—I am inferring that. I think that is a logical inference that I went there with that kind of level of knowledge.
Mr. WAXMAN. Would it be correct to say that you had no substantive involvement in this whole Hudson decision?
Secretary BABBITT. I had no substantive involvement in this decision at all.
Mr. WAXMAN. Who made the final decision?
Secretary BABBITT. The final decision was made by Michael Anderson.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you tell Mr. Anderson how he should decide the application?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't believe I ever discussed this issue at all with Michael Anderson.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you give Mr. Anderson any such instructions through John Duffy, Heather Sibbison or anyone else in the Department of the Interior?
Secretary BABBITT. No, I did not.
Mr. WAXMAN. Did you suggest or even intimate to anyone at the Interior Department that the Hudson application should be denied?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not.
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Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I have asked every which way. I have tried to take every possibility and make sure we have got this on the record. We have no evidence that the White House contacted you. We have clear statements that the people who presumably might have didn't. We have statements from you that you weren't contacted. We have statements from everybody involved in the decision. They made the decision on the merits without political interference. And so what we have here on this fourth day of hearings is more innuendo, innuendo that maybe there must have been something wrong because political contributions were made by the people who got their way. And that they even had a lobbyist.
Of course the other side made contributions and had a lobbyist. It is a strange coincidence that some of the people involved in the decision went to work for a law firm and represented some of the same tribes that were against this particular matter, referring to Mr. Collier and Mr. Duffy, but they testified yesterday that they went to work for this law firm. There is nothing wrong with it. They checked it out through the ethics process. Maybe we ought to tighten up the laws in this regard, but the revolving door, you indicated to us, even Secretary Lujan went through that revolving door. People go through the revolving door in this town. We would like to see it otherwise.
On the other hand, some people who go through the revolving door represent clients because they know about the issues that they spent their career working on in Government. But that doesn't mean there is anything wrong, certainly anything criminally wrong. There might have been something wrong but not criminally wrong. So what we have is innuendo. When you have the facts, the facts don't substantiate the innuendo.
I don't know how much time I have left. I have 8 minutes. I want to yield to Mr. Kanjorski some time on this.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Waxman. I just want to reiterate. They didn't go to work for this law firm. They went back to work for this law firm. Both individuals testified that they came from this law firm. So it is not unusual to work for a prestigious law firm and come to Washington and serve and then return to that law firm.
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Mr. Secretary, you do entertain and up until this moment, you have always entertained in this city a solid reputation for professional integrity, veracity and independence. It is unfortunate that so often some of us are able to construct incredible conspiracies that do raise questions even in the simplest of minds that maybe there is some smoke there. And if there is, maybe there is some fire there and calls upon individuals like yourself to come before a congressional committee or even worse before the media and have to prove a negative.
I have some sympathy for that. But while we were sitting here listening to this conversation of when this happened and what happened, I was thinking back that on occasions, I have had the occasion to spend time with you, and I would just love to show how little you remember of the conversations we had. And I think I could prove to the American people that so many of us in public life get to meet innumerable people in any one day and literally thousands and thousands of people in any one year have what appear to them to be very substantive conversations which they may recall in almost totality when we are called upon either to refresh our minds or to make mental notes of what happened have little or no recall, and that for the purposes of protecting ourselves very often we have people with us that keep daily journals or notes just so that we can refresh something that may have happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. But when it gets beyond that point, it gets awfully foggy even for the notetakers.
The only reason I believe that anyone could raise a question of what should be responded to here is this problem of your law partner, former law partner, former law school mate who is a lobbyist who I think, I am going to give my opinion, I think he took advantage, unusual advantage of a friendship, but that is not to say that all of us have not had friends that have taken advantage of a friendship when we were in public life.
I think there is no one on this committee that hasn't been called upon to have a meeting or had someone bring up at a meeting a decision or position you were going to take that you felt it was none of their business and in fact perhaps raised the level of being a conflict that they even brought it up. We have been faced with that problem of how you extricate yourself from that position. Whether or not you remember the total conversation with Mr. Eckstein or not, I can understand that. I hope the American people can.
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As I understand it, it happened more than 2 years ago. It was an extraordinary thing because you were, up until that point, you had not been involved at all, but here was a man insisting on the very last day to get the last grip, to get in to see his old friend that he had served as a fund-raiser for and a campaign manager over 24 years. So you saw him and then he raised this question, but you sat there, wanted to figure out a way to respond to him without insulting him, without embarrassing him and yet in the end, on the other hand, as I understand your testimony today, by not even taking the slightest change that you could have, you could have certainly said I will delay it for a week meaning nothing and that would have satisfied a friend and perhaps saved you some embarrassment, but you chose the methodology that we all choose at one time or another. Any of us that say we don't tell little white lies, if that is what they are called or exaggerate excuses or putting up the name, have someone else to take the fall for us, that we are just not being correct. I know that if I can't get something done, it is either the President's fault or the Cabinet officer's fault or the majority's fault or something, but we will certainly, as politicians we find it very difficult to admit that fault ourselves.
Putting all things aside, when you met with Mr. Eckstein, were you comfortable or uncomfortable?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, it was an uncomfortable situation. In the exercise of good judgment, I should have declined. First of all, I should have declined the meeting. You know, it was the first time in the course of this whole thing that I had met with any advocate or lobbyist of any kind, first time. The decision had actually, it had been made. I don't know whether it had been signed, but the decision had been made. This was a post decision meeting you know, attempting to—he was attempting to effectively get it stretched out, and that's obviously an uncomfortable situation. That is not to justify the way I handled it. It was a mistake.
Mr. KANJORSKI. The majority, in order to show something in their conspiracy theory, have shown a lot of memoranda here and other things, one being—one goes back to May that the staff for Harold Ickes, they prepared for his purposes, indicating how the decision process had been made. If anybody paid close attention to the testimony over the last 4 days, I think they would have realized that once the process was sent from the region to the national level, almost everybody on the national—everybody did agree on the national level that this was not going to be approved, and it stretched over a period of 3 or 4 months, and I don't think it was a secret that it wasn't going to be approved. It was only then whether section 20 or section 465 were going to be used for the reasons of denying the application, and that, in fact, the writer of the decision, Saturn, said that he wrote the decision sometime in early June, even though it wasn't published until July, almost a month later, and he then went on vacation and only came back several weeks after vacation to have a final cleanup. Obviously, if the decision was drafted in early June, it would not have been surprising that people would know in late May what the ultimate decision would be, or where the thrust of the decision was, saying there was no disagreement.
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In any of that period of time, you could have changed that thinking. You could have interposed yourself with your staff or those decisionmakers, or talked to the White House or talked to anyone else, and yet you didn't. Your testimony today is absolutely in no way did you have direct or indirect input on the decision made on this application. And it was handled in a professional method by your staff; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Wise.
Mr. WISE. How much time is there, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. BURTON. How much time remaining?
Mr. WAXMAN. I will yield the balance of my time.
Mr. BURTON. A little over a minute, Mr. Wise.
Mr. WAXMAN. I will yield to you next time.
Mr. WISE. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, I am kind of caught by something. Were you aware or have you been aware after the fact that the local opposition was intense, including, I believe, the Governor of the State of Wisconsin?
Secretary BABBITT. I was aware of that after the fact. Now, let me just say for clarity that in reviewing the file, there is a newspaper clip from—and it's in the record, from my visit to Wisconsin in the spring—in the fall of 1994, in which I was asked about the role of the Governor in responding. Now, apart from that, I had no reason to discuss the Governor or be involved or know of his decision.
Mr. WISE. The letters I have seen suggest that the majority leader of the Wisconsin State Senate, who happens to be, as I understand it, a member of the Republican party; both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democratic Members of the House of Representatives and Congressional Delegation, including Representative Gunderson, who represented that district at the time, opposed it, and I see my time is getting short, so let me just read an excerpt and then I will wait until it rolls back around to me again.
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In a letter from Representative Gunderson, he was out of office then, but in a letter to Senator Glenn as hearings were being held over there, Representative Gunderson notes, I sent a letter to the Secretary shortly thereafter stating my opposition. As I recall, the letter indicated that the decision to take the dog track into trust would be severely quote, ''detrimental to the community and thus ill-advised.'' It is important for the committee, the Senate committee, to understand the depth of feeling in opposition to the casino at that time. It is also my impression that the opposition would be greater today. The only merit in expanding the reservation for casino purposes was to try and salvage something for the huge investment in the dog track facility.
That was a letter from the Republican—then Republican representative who represented that district concerning this matter.
So I will return to that when my time comes back. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Wise. Mr. Horn, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I believe you feel that the senior civil servant was the one that made this decision, Mr. Skibine, and that was not a political appointee, I believe. Am I correct in that?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I don't think that's correct. The decision letter, and the decision itself, was made by Michael Anderson. But the record shows, I think——
Mr. HORN. We all agree he is a political appointee.
Secretary BABBITT. Clearly.
Mr. HORN. I am bringing up Mr. Skibine, because we did depose him and I think he is a member of the Solicitor's Office now as a civil servant. I want to refer to exhibit 363. There are eight letters there that testify under oath that Mr. Skibine, when he came to explain the decision, said the following, and he said, ''that staff had approved the application, but when it went up to the Secretary's office, politics took over.'' And you will find that repeated in various things, but basically, that's it. Exhibit 363, 363–1 through 7.
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Now, I want to move—I guess I would say is Mr. Skibine right on that, politics did take over?
[Exhibit 363 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 441 TO 448 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I watched the exchange in this committee when Mr. Skibine was asked about this, and I must say, I don't think any fair-minded person could doubt the veracity of his answer.
Now, there were affidavits submitted from a number of other participants at that meeting clearly substantiating Mr. Skibine's testimony, and I watched that quite carefully. I just don't think there is any doubt——
Mr. HORN. Thank you. There is no doubt that he said that and they say it word for word.
Let me move to another exhibit, 314, and I am looking primarily at 314–3 and 4. Now, this four-page exhibit is written by Mr. Scott Dacey, who is the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Green Bay Casino of the Oneida tribe and who is working in opposition to turning over to the poorer Wisconsin tribes the Hudson Dog Track Casino.
Now, he described meetings of May 23rd and May 24th. At the end he says, Mike Anderson, who we all agree was the political appointee that made the decision, said to me, ''after our meeting,'' that—this is the bottom of the page, ''that they are trying to keep this issue on the merits and they will try to thread the needle, on this request.''
Would you agree that this is what they were doing and agree with Mr. Anderson's comment?
[Exhibit 314 follows:]
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INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 449 TO 452 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I have not had a chance——
Mr. HORN. Bottom of the page, bottom of page 3, ''Mike Anderson said to me,'' this is again Dacey, the lobbyist for the Wisconsin tribe that didn't want any competition either, just like the Minnesota tribes.
Well, I can't waste my time, and I guess I will withdraw the question of you. But here we have Anderson saying that, and if we turn to page 4, Dacey, based on his conversation with Anderson says to his client, which is Debbie Doxtator, chairwoman of the Oneida Business Committee, he says, things might change when the politicians like Babbitt and Duffy become involved, but without the law on their side, it will be difficult to kill the deal.
In other words, Anderson sort of implied that the law was on their side: ''Should Babbitt come out against Hudson, he will likely find his excuse in Section 151 of the Code of Federal Regulations. I would strongly suggest we look into this area of the law to help Babbitt reach his decision.''
Now, are you aware of any contacts by Mr. Dacey or representatives of the Oneida tribe on this subject?
Secretary BABBITT. No, I am not, and looking at this, it looks to me like another one of these sunrise deals, a lobbyist makes a statement saying it is going to be impossible to make the sun rise, but when it does, I will have done it.
Mr. HORN. OK. Let's then move down the line here to the memo from one of Harold Ickes' staffers to another of Harold Ickes' staffers. It has been referred to a few times. It is 317 is the memo, and if you would just take a look at that, some would say it is a status report. Others would say, obviously, there had to be a lot of talking somewhere to get that status report. And I just wondered what you think of that.
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Secretary BABBITT. Heather Sibbison, who you did not invite to testify, in her deposition, I believe the deposition was given to the Thompson committee, discussed this in some detail, I think, quite convincingly, and rather than attempt to recapitulate her discussion of this, I would simply say, I read her statements in the record and I think they are very persuasive.
Mr. HORN. I worked in my past incarnation as an assistant to a Cabinet Secretary, and I am curious whether your people talked to you or you talked to your people, because I listened in and sat in on some of these various depositions, and they all had sort of ''I can't recollect disease,'' which is very widespread in this town due to the water or something, and I am just curious. Did they ever stick their heads in and say, chief, we got a hot one coming up here? What are we going to do about it?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, Congressman, I preside over a Department with 65,000 employees.
Mr. HORN. Well, you are saying—did they or didn't they come into your office is what I am after.
Secretary BABBITT. There is nothing unusual about these specific adjudicatory matters being handled entirely outside of my purview. That has been the case with these.
Now, I am certain that——
Mr. HORN. Here is what they said.
Secretary BABBITT. On a casual basis—I would like to finish, if I may.
Mr. HORN. OK. I know we filibuster on some of these, knowing we have limited time, but let me just read so we make sure you are responding to this. Is a by-product—what they say in this memo as Harold Ickes' staffers who checked, obviously, with your Department and your office is a by-product of the wealthier tribes lobbying against the application, and then the fact is, this important, this memo is, which was drafted nearly 6 weeks before the rejection of the application, also said they will probably decline without offering much of an explanation. That was referring to what the decision would be in the Department. So this wasn't news to the White House that they got it from somewhere, and I would think usually they pick up the phone and call the Secretary or the Secretary's top assistant. But we can't get anybody to keep telling us——
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Secretary BABBITT. Oh, come on, come on, no way, no way. The avalanche of stuff that comes into the White House where people need information to respond and otherwise, is always handled at a routine level. People don't call me up from the White House or anywhere else—I mean come on. There are—I have things to do during the day, with all due respect, and it ain't this.
Mr. HORN. Heather Sibbison is assistant to Duffy. Duffy is your counselor. The way staff responds to these is, they say, what's the boss think about this? And either they stick their head in or you let them know where you are.
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I—that just isn't the way you run an agency of 65,000 employees on a matter like this. I would have a line a half mile long outside my office all day long.
Mr. HORN. When it's a White House——
21Secretary BABBITT. Yes, of course.
Mr. HORN. When it's a White House call, I think usually the Secretary's informed.
Secretary BABBITT. You got to be kidding. You got to be kidding.
Mr. HORN. Really?
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Horn, would you yield just for a moment?
Mr. HORN. No, I won't yield. I want to finish up here, and you will have time.
Let me move into another area here.
Turning to the very important question of opposition from the community, you have testified this was very important, and you have also been very public with your statements that your Department will not force off-reservation casinos on unwilling communities, and we know about the Wisconsin bipartisan political opposition. But I guess I am curious, you have emphasized the importance of the opposition, and did that really make the difference in this decision, this community opposition? Did that make the difference, or were there other factors?
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Secretary BABBITT. The decision itself signed by Michael Anderson, it seems to me, is a pretty good starting point for this.
Mr. HORN. OK. Now, let me ask you, if that's a good starting point, if more citizens supported the Hudson Casino than opposed it, would it be a significant factor?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, let me give you my view of this opposition issue, and suggest that there are—you know, there are differing shades of—these are all relatively new issues, and there is not a lot of settled case law. You want my opinion? I think the important thing in assessing local opposition is not to count names on petitions, although there certainly is some evidence.
Mr. HORN. Well, it's my time——
Secretary BABBITT. May I finish? I would like to finish, if I may.
Mr. HORN. I want to get this point in before——
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to finish my answer.
Mr. HORN. You can answer on another 5 minutes.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman from California has the time. I think he just wants to finish with one more question.
Mr. WISE. Mr. Chairman, our side has no objection to letting the time be extended so that a witness can properly answer a question.
Mr. BURTON. And we will grant the witness the time to answer. I have not declined one time letting him answer. He will be able to answer the question fully.
Mr. Horn.
Mr. HORN. I have in my mind a petition signed by over 1,000 people which wasn't found in the record until fairly recently, which isn't in the, what was provided the court by Interior in their 14-volume record, quote, ''of all the significant decisionmaking material for this matter,'' and I just wonder how this petition, which supports the casino, doesn't happen to be in the record that is filed with the Federal court? And that bothers me, and that is why I was curious how much we care about people that were supportive of the casino.
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So I just wonder if you are aware of this with 1,412 signatures. This is the petition. We found, as mentioned by the chairman, boxes mysteriously come up here after people have been deposed.
Secretary BABBITT. I take exception to that. I really do. We have made an enormous and extensive effort to respond and I think that any—I just think that is an unwarranted characterization. I really do.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Babbitt, Secretary Babbitt, you have the opportunity to answer the question.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. BURTON. I hope you will address the one issue he raised there at the end about the signatures on the petition not being included in your record.
Secretary BABBITT. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would have to respond to that in writing, obviously. I don't have any independent facts, but I would be happy to do that.
Mr. BURTON. Why would you have to respond to that in writing? You have counsel with you and you have staff people who have that information. It is well-documented.
Secretary BABBITT. Because I have no idea what the document is, where it came from, who sent it, where it was found.
Mr. BURTON. I don't want to belabor this point, but there were over 1,400 who signed this petition, and it was not included in the record. It was extremely important, because we are talking about opposing views on this. It is a significant part of the discussion. So would you please try to refer to it and answer that question?
Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.
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Mr. BURTON. I would be happy to answer your parliamentary inquiry.
Mr. BARRETT. Do we have copies to use that as an exhibit?
Mr. BURTON. I think we passed that out yesterday, but if not, we will get that for you right now, a copy of the petition for every Member.
Secretary BABBITT. There is nothing on the face of the document that indicates that it ever came to the Interior Department. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. I would be happy to respond, but I can't tell you anything from just looking at the document.
Mr. BURTON. But the petition was not included in the record. We will check and see if it was forwarded to the Department. If it wasn't, we would like to have an answer in writing as to why it was not included in the record.
Secretary BABBITT. I would be happy to do that.
Mr. BURTON. Do you want to answer the rest of the question, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes. The issue of how you judge community opposition, I think, is an important issue, and here is my view. I believe that the only realistic way to do this is to refer to local elected officials. I don't think the law contemplates that we should carry out a poll or, you know, do this by saying, well, petitions against have 10 more signatures than petitions for. I think the clear intent of this statute is that we should give great deference to the views of the local governments and the local officials that are chosen in communities to deal with these kinds of issues.
Now, in this case, there were three of those communities. One was Hudson where the site was located. The city council, in my judgment, is the place to look for community opinion. They passed a resolution in opposition. The second place to look is the town of Troy. Troy is adjacent. It surrounds the track on three sides. We looked to the town council of Troy. They were unanimously opposed. The third community within the checklist used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was the St. Croix tribe. They, too, had registered their official opposition.
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Now, that, to me, is the proper and appropriate approach. Now, there are many others. The Wisconsin Attorney General, Congressmen, legislators, their views are all entitled to weight, as are the signers of petitions. But in my judgment, the local governments are the place to begin this analysis, and they were all against it.
Mr. HORN. My time is up. I will continue it when time comes again.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Kanjorski, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are going to pass over seniority here to Mr. Barrett who has been so conscientious and studious and who is from Wisconsin so he can have the first 5 minutes.
Mr. BARRETT. Thank you.
First of all, thank you for being here. I think you made the correct decision. I think you made the decision for the correct reasons. I think it is important to look at local opposition, and this was an issue for me, because there are 400 dog tracks in the State of Wisconsin, and I foresaw the scenario of each of those dog tracks in becoming a target for gaming, and that is something that the people of the State of Wisconsin did not want.
Whether it was Indian gaming or not Indian gaming, there was a constitutional amendment that addressed this issue specifically. There were balanced questions within the State that addressed this issue specifically, so I think you did make the right decision.
Let me ask you a question, though, about your meeting with Mr. Eckstein. You have sat before this committee, you referred to it as quality time with us, and we appreciate having you here. You had the opportunity for quality time in the Senate as well. Let's say that you had granted Mr. Eckstein's request. Where do you think you would be sitting right now?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I would be sitting here—look, if I had granted his request, the allegation would have been that having stayed out of the process for the entire course of this, all of a sudden, a lobbyist, a lawyer lobbyist hired by a casino company trying to change the result by invoking a personal friendship succeeds, and I wasn't prepared to do that, and——
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Mr. BARRETT. And I think you would be sitting here today, sort of maybe in retrospect you could have marked this day off that this is the day you would be sitting before this committee regardless of what decision you made.
This is the book with the documents. This is the smoking guns. This is the time sheets, the depositions, the memos. Did you make this decision based on political considerations, or was this decision made——
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, the answer—now, let me just say that I think a fair-minded person looking at the record of this would say, you know, the folks at the Department of the Interior really did an outstanding job of managing this issue and in making the decision. The process really works. There were all kinds of people floating around on both sides. I mean, this rich tribe-poor tribe, basically the Florida gaming guys are as big and determined and scuzzy as the guys on the other side, and they were all swarming all over this process, and the fact is that our people at the Interior Department kept a quiet zone free of all of this in which the decision was made.
Mr. BARRETT. I would like to ask you another question, Mr. Secretary, and this is a question that deals with the practices within the Department and deals with our action as Congress. As you indicated, your predecessor, Mr. Lujan, had been back to lobby your Department. We know that Mr. Collier and Mr. Duffy have done so.
When I heard that, I thought, this is not right. I was told that that provision was put in the law to allow Indians to have access, or tribes to have access to people with expertise. The issue was raised or objected to that representation by three Indian tribes. Do you think it is time for us to revisit that issue?
Secretary BABBITT. The answer is, yes. I think it could be revisited. I don't think that revisiting necessarily yields an automatic predetermined answer, for this reason: There are a fair number of Indian tribes who now have the resources to hire counsel and that certainly includes most of the gaming tribes, and this provision surely is not necessary in that context.
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The other 95 percent of the Indian tribes in this country are just nearly as poor as they were in 1975, and there are places, small tribes, which will have a tough time paying lawyers and getting counsel to get off the learning curve. There are a lot of places where Indian law is an arcane specialty. And I think some of the conditions which prompted this law still apply, but clearly there are a number of areas where it doesn't.
Mr. BARRETT. I would like to work with you and with the chairman of the committee to do that. I think my time has expired. I yield back to Mr. Kanjorski. Again, thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. KANJORSKI. I recognize Mr. Wise.
Mr. WISE. Mr. Secretary, I want to continue where we left off and that was about the local opposition and particularly that of elected officials who represent their constituencies. The majority leader—I have seen a letter, I don't know whether you have, where the majority leader of the Wisconsin State Senate had written a letter in opposition to this project moving forward.
I mentioned at the time that the then-elected representatives in the House delegation included Representative Toby Roth and Representative Steve Gunderson, who represented the district where it would have been located, both stating their opposition, and I believe other members of the delegation, Democrats did as well. There is a letter that I have seen where State Representative Sheila Harsdorf, herself a Republican, had gotten a petition signed by 29 other elected State legislators, Senate and House Members, Republican and Democrat, opposing this. The fact of the matter is that there was extensive opposition by the elected leadership of the State of Wisconsin; is that not true?
Secretary BABBITT. That is absolutely clear.
Mr. WISE. In fact, I am kind of struck. The Governor of Wisconsin is Republican, the majority leader is Republican, the House Members at the time who opposed it were Republican, State Representative Harsdorf is Republican. I kind of wonder—you might be here as a tool for the Republican party by the way that you ruled. Maybe that is what this investigation ought to be about.
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Let me ask you this, as well. You have stated that you had no contact with Mr. Ickes on this matter; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. WISE. And Mr. Ickes, as I understand it, in a deposition in the Senate has stated that he had no contact with you. My question to you is, would you be just as happy to have Mr. Ickes testify here today?
Secretary BABBITT. Sure.
Mr. WISE. And would you feel perfectly confident in having him testify in front of this committee?
Secretary BABBITT. Sure.
Mr. WISE. To confirm what you have said?
Secretary BABBITT. Absolutely.
Mr. WISE. I guess my question is why is he not here today and why hasn't he been called to testify before this committee, and I think the reason is that he will confirm what he has said in the Senate, that there is a problem—in this investigation that the majority has taken forth, there is a big gap right here and they can't establish that there has been any contact, because there hadn't been.
Now, I want to also echo something Mr. Barrett brought up, because I am struck by this. Element No. 1 is, there is intense local opposition certainly stated. As you go through all the exhibits by elected officials in the State of Wisconsin, including the State representatives and Senators and House Members to the Federal delegation, the majority leader of the State Senate and so on, intense local opposition to this project, No. 1. No. 2 is your friend and former associate, Mr. Eckstein, when he came in, came in representing the opposite point of view from what you ruled, didn't he?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
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Mr. WISE. He was the only—is it your testimony that he was the only advocate on either side that got in your door?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. WISE. And your agency, or your Department then ended up ruling counter to what he wanted; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I don't—I have yet—I don't think there is a single member of this committee that I have heard during this entire course of hearings say that they disagreed with the Department's decision. I have not heard one member of this committee say that.
Mr. WISE. And so I guess—and then finally, you have said that there was no contact with Mr. Ickes in the White House; Mr. Ickes has said in deposition that there was no contact with you. I am struck, what are we doing here? And had you ruled the opposite way in the face of intense opposition from the State house on down in Wisconsin, basically Republican, much of it Republican dominated, had you ruled the opposite way when your friend and former associate, the only advocate to get in wanted you to rule the opposite way, we would be here today, as Mr. Barrett said, conducting the same hearing, but it would be reversed. It would be, why did you give it in to Mr. Eckstein? Why did you ignore the overwhelming local opposition in Wisconsin? I just, I am struck by this, that we are here, Mr. Babbitt, and I regret that we are here under these circumstances and that you are here. But I think it is good that we have had this hearing and we can get this out, because I think it is an important matter.
Finally, as I close, Secretary Babbitt, you have not testified on this, and I am not asking you to comment. I will say this: apparently there was money that was contributed to the Democratic committee from—on both sides of this. I suspect there has been significant money contributed to both parties, Republican and Democrat, by the gaming advocates from all over the country, and this is another compelling reason, wherever you fall out, that this Congress ought to be voting this year on campaign finance reform and eliminating soft money.
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Mr. Chairman, I would just like to suggest, as the President suggested in his State of the Union message the other night, that the best thing that we could do is to have the Republican and Democratic leaderships to bring a bill up on the floor of the House this year and we can eliminate this kind of situation ever having to come before this committee again. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Souder, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to clear up something before I started my questioning, because several times you have referred to conspiracy, as have Members on the minority side. Do you think I am part of a conspiracy?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I have never met you before; I have never spoken with you. You don't look conspiratorial to me.
Mr. SOUDER. I want to confess that I do have a staff member that went to Pepperdine Law School. I am hoping to make one of the charts somewhere along the line.
Do you think Janet Reno was part of a conspiracy when she wanted to have a preliminary inquiry into this?
Secretary BABBITT. No.
Mr. SOUDER. I think that you are concerned when aspersions are cast even directly on yourself, and I would appreciate the same concern for us. We have a duty here on this committee, because as the Democratic Members have pointed out on the tobacco question, as they have pointed out on general campaign finance, there is a deep concern in this country that when people put lots of money into one party and when they hire people who were at the Democratic National Treasury meeting with the Democratic national chairman, meet with people from the President's Re-elect Committee, when they see memos going out that in fact, influence may have been there, I hope, I honestly hope that you and everybody in the Department are completely innocent and we will never learn that there have been mistruths told. But our obligation as elected officials is to pursue this even if sometimes it comes to badgering or seeming to badger, seeming to ask these questions numerous times, because that is our obligation as elected officials. I hope you appreciate that.
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I wanted to followup with the question as to whether applicant tribes are fully informed if their application is flawed. Do you consider an application process to be flawed if, indeed, the tribes aren't fully consulted in a meaningful way?
Secretary BABBITT. I think the law requires a consultation, yes.
Mr. SOUDER. And you said several times that you met with tribal members or their representatives. Did you ever say yourself that the Department of Interior has identified a potentially fatal flaw in their application and you need to do X or Y to correct it?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I think that if you look at the transcript of my remarks at the Listening Conference, there is some pretty clear notice in that. It was not directed to the specifics of this, but it was a discussion of the issue, and I said very clearly to every, every participant who came to that in the State of Wisconsin that I—that our policy was not to do these cram-downs, and that absent support from the local community, we were not in the business of doing that.
Now, the difficulty here is this: the difficulty is the gambling company, because don't you see, they were anchored in a community that didn't want them, and I mean what could be done about it?
Normally what would be done about it is that the tribes would do a little forum shopping and look around, and there probably are communities that would be happy to have this, but the tribes didn't have that choice because these guys were anchored in a community that didn't want them, the opposition was hardening. I mean, what was there to be worked out?
Mr. SOUDER. We certainly had testimony that, in fact, the community was divided early; it certainly seemed to have consensus late. The only unanimous opposition really was the Minnesota Indian tribes. But I want to get back to my line of questioning.
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To your knowledge, did anyone in the Department specifically say you need to do this to get your application changed? In other words, you need to prove this from the town of Hudson, or was part of this that they had to win the approval of the Minnesota tribes, which was impossible?
Secretary BABBITT. I was not part of the give and take of this process, so the answer to your question is, I don't have any recollection of that, and I shouldn't have, because I was not part of the process.
Now, if you look at the record that this committee has compiled over the last 2 weeks, I think there is solid evidence of interaction with these tribes with the applicants and that they had adequate notice.
Mr. SUNUNU. Would you yield for a moment, Mr. Souder?
Mr. SOUDER. OK. Go ahead.
Mr. SUNUNU. I would only draw your attention, Mr. Secretary, to the record, to the testimony of Mr. Skibine in response to the question: Was there communication from your office about specific problems with their application? Mr. Skibine, a dedicated career civil servant, responded in writing: I don't think there were.
Mr. SOUDER. And I would like to, claiming back my time, have exhibit 353–2 put up on the screen, and I would like to read that, and also from exhibit 335.
Mr. Skibine was explaining that the July 14 rejection letter constituted a form of notice of the alleged deficiencies in the Hudson application; he was representing that the rejection letter was a form of consultation.
In one of our exhibits, committee counsel asked him, ''Question: But prior to the rejection of the application, that is an easy way to do on it, to tell the people in advance what the problems are and let them cure it? Answer: Yes, we could have done that. That is not the way I did the first application. That is not the way we did it at this point.''
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Earlier in the deposition he was asked, ''Question: . . . Here were three poor Indian tribes that had presented applications to the Department of the Interior, and you were making a determination as to whether to approve the application or deny the application. If you as director of the IGMS staff, identified a particular problem that might lead to the rejection of an application, did you consider it important to communicate that directly to the applicant tribes to give them an opportunity to cure the problem? Answer: Good question. I don't think that I did that on this application, the first application I considered as head of the gaming office. If I were to do it again different now, you know, it might be different. It might be something I would consider doing, but at the time I didn't do it.''
Now, were you aware that——
Mr. LESHY. Congressman, what you were just reading from is not 352–3.
Mr. SOUDER. 352, the first one; the second one is 351.
Mr. LESHY. 351.
Mr. SOUDER. Do you have any comment on that? Because I think the record shows that Mr. Skibine was saying that there were many things, but in this particular case, while there was early consultation, he did not once in Washington have direct contact on the specifics with the Wisconsin tribe.
Mr. LESHY. I am sorry. These are not marked. Are they both Mr. Skibine's deposition?
Mr. SOUDER. Yes. No, his testimony. The second one was—yes, they are both depositions, excuse me.
Mr. LESHY. All right.
Mr. SOUDER. I have one other point while you are looking at that, and this is exhibit 335. This is an analysis of the Hudson case by the Department of Justice lawyer David Jones. He states, We are primarily concerned about our ability to show that the plaintiffs were told about and given an opportunity to remedy the problems which the Department ultimately found were outcome determinative. Area directors are told to give applicants an opportunity to cure problems. It would be hard to argue persuasively that applicants lose this opportunity once the central office begins its review. The administrative record, as far as we can tell, contains no record of Department meetings or communications with the applicant tribes in which the Department's concerns were addressed to plaintiff.
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In other words, when they were talking to the tribes at the local level, the application was moving, but once it moved to Washington where it does appear fairly unanimity, they stopped talking to the affected tribes.
That is the deposition testimony of Mr. Skibine, it is the concern of the Department of Justice. Have you seen this analysis before and what is your comment on it?
[Exhibit 335 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 453 TO 455 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I have not seen the analysis before, and I guess, you know, I am reluctant to characterize a record that's just being sort of thrown up at me. The answer—I am not prepared to, you know, characterize the record.
I would say two things. There was obviously a fair amount, as I read the record, of verbal communication going back and forth. That was very important to an assessment of this. Second, I can tell you that having read the transcript of my Listening Conference remarks, I would say there was some pretty good notice right there.
Mr. SOUDER. The specific thing, as I understand it, is to try to work, particularly with tribes that aren't in the major metropolitan areas. In that area, having lived up there, there is only one big city, Duluth, which already has one big casino in downtown. There are not a lot of options for the poorer tribes and they need some flexibility, and partly I would think that—well, I didn't favor the Indian gaming laws and believe this stuff is being stretched, which is why I said I believe you made the right decision, even though it was kind of on new grounds. The debate on how you made the decision is important, because this type of question comes up if you cite one clause and it doesn't if you cite another, and that is partly why there was this internal debate as to how the Department was going to handle this. Because the appearance, and that is what we have been trying to establish here, is what it looks like—is that on the particular grounds of mileage and the Arthur Andersen study that this would have gone forth—but the political opposition, the dog track referendum the first time actually was supported by the community of Hudson. It was a different tribe, admittedly; it wasn't this particular casino that a tribe was supporting.
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Then there was a change in mayor, change in the community; the local Hudson community changed. What was constant was the Minnesota tribes. They realized they were in trouble after the local decision and started pouring money into the Democratic party nationally.
Admittedly, this is an appearance. We haven't established this. Even going up to the President and indirectly to the Vice President of the United States, and suddenly there is a change even in the rationale, and that is what we are trying to get to the bottom of, and it is important if they were consulted after the application got to Washington.
Secretary BABBITT. Well, obviously the record speaks for itself on this.
Mr. SUNUNU. Point of inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman will state his point of inquiry.
Mr. SUNUNU. It sounds as if the record of this listening session, which the Secretary is suggesting was an opportunity for the tribes to cure defects in their application, is very important. Do we have the transcript from that listening session as part of the documentation or part of the exhibit record here?
Mr. BURTON. Let me check with staff. Is it the deposition or the listening record that he is talking about? The deposition is here, but he is talking about the listening record that was made at these meetings with Indian tribes. I presume that is what he is talking about.
Mr. LESHY. Yes. I believe we supplied that transcript to the committee a few weeks ago. It is a very thick document, April 8, 1995.
Mr. BURTON. April 8, 1995. Would the staff get that for Mr. Sununu and anybody else that would like to have it.
Mr. SUNUNU. Given that it is such a thick document, it would certainly be helpful if the Secretary or counsel could identify specific examples in that record that were attempts to identify defects in the application. Thank you.
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Mr. SOUDER. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, just for the record, I listened to Mr. Souder's opening remarks where he took umbrage with the Secretary. There is a requirement, an obligation on the part of the Congress and the majority to pursue this, and I agree. But then I reiterate the question Mr. Waxman has made: Why isn't there an obligation to pursue the question of $50 billion, $50 billion in special tax breaks to the largest contributor to the Republican party, the tobacco industry, and that was lobbied and put together by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the majority leader of the Senate, in the 11th hour, in the dark of the evening when no one knew about it, and by the lobbyists' efforts of the former chairman of the Republican party, Haley Barbour? Why aren't we investigating that? I think we have an obligation to pursue that, too.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Mr. Wise for 1 minute.
Mr. WISE. Thank you.
I would just point out, Mr. Secretary, you may not have had time to examine this petition of support that we have all just received ostensibly with 1,400 names or something on it. I find it interesting that, we, the undersigned, as residents of the greater Hudson, WI, area, do hereby affirm our support.
It goes on to say—then you turn to the second page and the requirement before you sign, you must be a qualified, registered voter living within the greater area of Hudson, WI, or you must have lived within the greater area of Hudson, WI, for the last 10 days.
I just turn to the first page and note with interest, I have to go pretty far down before I find one person from Wisconsin. Most are from Minnesota, a fine State, and I know right across the line, but most are from Minnesota, many from St. Paul.
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So I question whether this is an outpouring of local support from the citizens of Wisconsin. I just note that for the record. Thank you.
Mr. SANDERS. Would the gentleman yield, briefly?
Mr. WISE. Yes.
Mr. SANDERS. In terms of the petition that you were looking at that we have in front of us, wasn't that alleged that that petition was not in fact part of the record that was considered by the Secretary's office?
Mr. WISE. That is my understanding of the allegation.
Mr. SANDERS. In fact, unless I am missing something right here, it is absolutely part of the record.
Mr. LESHY. I am informed by my staff that this was part of the 14 volume administrative record, so I believe the Congressman was in error.
Mr. SANDERS. So in other words, the suggestion that it wasn't part of the record is not correct?
Mr. LESHY. That is correct.
Mr. KANJORSKI. On that point, Mr. Chairman, you mean a member of this committee represented that this petition wasn't a part of the record and now we find that it was part of the administrative record?
Mr. BURTON. You are referring now to the petition that had signatures?
Mr. KANJORSKI. The 1,400 names that were denied supposedly from the administrative record. Mr. Horn suggested in his direct examination that it wasn't part of the administrative record and now we hear in fact it was.
Mr. BURTON. I don't think he said the administrative record; I think he was talking about the—it hadn't been submitted as part of the record to the Federal court.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, the Federal court case, the Secretary is not involved in that. He only is involved in having prepared the record, the administrative record of the application pending before the Secretary of the Interior, not in the defense.
Mr. LESHY. Mr. Chairman, it actually was part of the administrative record filed in the Federal court. The copy that I was given here does not have the so-called Bates Stamp number on it. I am told that the Bates Stamp number on the administrative record, you can find it in the administrative record; it starts at 2404. So it was part of the administrative record filed with the Federal court. It was also given to this committee.
I should also say that there are other petitions in there bearing the signatures of twice as many people as this one going in the opposite way.
Mr. BURTON. Let me get some clarification on this. We will not take it out of your time. Excuse me just a moment.
We will check on this, but it is the understanding of our counsel that in the 14 volumes that were submitted to the court, it was not in there. If that is incorrect, we will set the record straight. We will check on that.
Mr. Kanjorski is recognized.
Mr. KANJORSKI. We will recognize Mrs. Maloney for 5 minutes.
Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, the last time I saw you in New York we were touring a historic monument, Grant's Tomb, and there were scores of press following you around, because the next day they were going to announce who the Democratic nominee was going to be for the Supreme Court and many people thought that that nominee was going to be you. Do you remember, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, I do. That seems like a long time ago, and I don't think that that is ever coming my way again.
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Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I must say that after sitting here for 4 days, and in reviewing all of the documents and looking at all the memorandum, it appears that you are truly in a no-win situation. You are sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't.
I hate to think what would have happened if you had ruled in favor of the request of your lobbyist friend, Mr. Eckstein, who wanted you to delay a decision. I hate to think what would have happened if you had overruled the opinion of practically every local community and elected official who was opposed to the project. I can imagine what the hearings would have been like then.
But as you testified, and as Mr. Skibine testified, and as we saw on tape today, instead of listening to your lobbyist friend, you listened to your career staff and based your decision professionally on their research and on their unified decision in opposition.
But I would like to go back to the meeting that you had with Mr. Paul Eckstein. He is an old friend of yours; he was a former friend from law school; he was a former friend in your law practice. He supported you in your campaigns for Governor and for President of the United States, but the truth is when he came to you on behalf of his clients, you did not intervene on his behalf. Is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mrs. MALONEY. You didn't use your influence to help your old friend, and you made a decision based on what your staff recommended to you. And Mr. Eckstein's clients, his clients wanted you to approve a project that every member of the Wisconsin delegation opposed, that every member of the Minnesota delegation opposed, that the Wisconsin attorney general opposed, and the local community opposed. So if you had told your staff to approve this application, then there really would have probably been a reason to hold these hearings. Instead, you did the right thing, as you said; you based your decision on the facts and made it for the right reason.
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I would like to ask you, Mr. Secretary, since it has been raised so many times in this hearing, do you think or do you believe that in any way campaign contributions in any way determined the outcome of this matter?
Secretary BABBITT. Congresswoman, I think the record is crystal clear as to how this decision was made, who the decisionmakers were, how they went about their job, and it was made on the merits with no outside influence relating to improper political activity or campaign contributions.
Mrs. MALONEY. It has been widely reported that the tribes that opposed the application made a contribution to the Democratic National Committee. The majority of this particular contribution was so-called soft money, and as you know, the President of the United States in his State of the Union called for a ban on soft money.
Do you think that it would help eliminate concerns about purchasing, say, policy or influence over policy? Do you think it would help if we banned soft money and just got money out of the system so that it didn't have any type of role or appearance of impropriety?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, yes, of course, I think that would make a major difference.
Now, let me add, I was listening when Michael Anderson testified, and I would remind you of a comment that he made. He said, you know, Indian tribes have the same right as other Americans to make contributions under existing law, and I would just sort of underline that to keep this thing in perspective. The issue is not campaign contributions; it is improper campaign contributions.
But, Congresswoman, if I could take 30 seconds, I would like to correct the record, or at least make sure there is no ambiguity in the record. When Mr. Sununu and I talked about the Wisconsin Listening Conference, he terminated that exchange by saying, You were there at the Listening Conference to identify defects. Well, I wasn't there to identify defects. This was a general discussion, but this issue was discussed, but it was not in response to any particular effort to deal with that particular application. Thank you.
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Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Secretary, would you elaborate on how your Department makes decisions on land trusts or gaming? What is the role of community and local input? Do you put more of a focus on reservation casino gambling? Does that get more consideration than off-reservation? In this case, if the tribe was 185 miles away and partnered with a casino developer from Florida, do you look at the local participation and really the distance? I mean, to me it would have been a factor, the fact, not to mention your environmental record, the fact that the scenic riverway was going to be affected by this and many people were concerned about the environmental impact.
Could you elaborate on the process and the factors that would go into a professional decision?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, the issue and the process of finding no detriment to the surrounding community, as is required under the law, it seems to me goes to a number of factors. Certainly, the distance is an important factor, and we have discussed that in the record, that you know, it's a case for the applicants, a lot easier, when it is adjacent to the reservation than it is when it is 150 miles away.
The detriment issue has many facets. Now, some part of it is economic detriment, and that, of course, was the subject of the Hartman memo. That was an economic analysis.
It is my own view that detriment goes beyond just sort of an economic count sheet, and in fact, the opinion here shows that because there are other kinds of detriments that go to the quality of life in the community.
Now, I don't know how the Department can go out and measure quality of life impacts as part of detriment, and it seems to me that that makes the case very much for listening carefully and indulging a presumption in favor of the people who are best able to judge that, particularly, the elected leadership of the community.
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Mr. BURTON. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
It is now just a little before 1. I know. I can hear the Secretary's stomach growling from here, at least I thought that was what I heard.
I would appreciate it if the Members would try to be back here at 1:30. We will break briefly for a sandwich. Try to be back promptly at 1:30 so we can expedite the hearing and get it concluded early this afternoon.
[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the committee recessed to reconvene 1:30 p.m., this same day.]
Mr. BURTON. The committee will reconvene. Welcome back, Mr. Secretary. We will now continue with the questioning with Mr. Barr of Georgia for 10 minutes.
Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see, Mr. Secretary, that Mr. Souder is here so I don't think we ought to get into a discussion of whether or not he looks conspiratorial. I might disagree with you on that. I will also not ask you for the record whether I look conspiratorial. I do appreciate your——
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, having traveled to California and back with you in 1 day in the last 30, you manifestly do not.
Mr. BARR. For the Sonny Bono funeral, let the record reflect. I do appreciate your being here and for the record I don't think you look conspiratorial either. There are obviously very serious matters that we are trying to get to the bottom of here and this whole matter has a very long history, beginning at least in 1993 in October with the request to the Department of the Interior, then, the 1994 decision by the BIA area office in Minneapolis approving the request and then things get kind of sticky.
As you know, in April 1995, Mr. Patrick O'Connor, who this committee heard from at length yesterday, became involved. Mr. Clinton becomes involved to some extent, if nothing else, being asked by O'Connor and then that sets in motion a whole series of events that stretch over the next couple of years. We have already discussed some of the admonitions by people in the government, including in the Interior Department and over at the White House urging folks to be very, very careful of this mess.
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We have exhibit 304, the April 24, 1995, memo to Cheryl Mills. We have also the April 24, 1995, memorandum for Harold Ickes from a Ms. Avent. Both of those, obviously, with 20/20 hindsight raised a very legitimate concern that this is really a hot potato and every effort ought to be made to keep politics out of it. Unfortunately, some folks may not have heeded that advice. That is what really brings us here today.
You did discuss earlier, Mr. Secretary, staff, routine staff requests from the White House and so forth. One name that did not come up, I know that Mr. Waxman mentioned some names also with regard to whether or not certain people had contacted your office or you personally. Leon Panetta was not a name that was mentioned. Were you or your office ever contacted by Mr. Panetta with regard to this entire matter?
[Exhibit 304 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 456 TO 458 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. No. I never communicated with Leon Panetta on this matter.
Mr. BARR. Based on your knowledge of the White House and this particular administration and the people that are involved in it, which obviously is more extensive than mine, if the President of the United States had expressed an interest to his chief of staff to inquire into a matter that fell within the purview of a particular department, would that particular department or indeed the Secretary be notified that the President has expressed an interest in this, what is going on? Would that be in the normal course of events?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, that is an awfully broad hypothetical question. I guess acknowledging that, the answer would probably be, it is not the sort of thing that would come to my attention as a generic matter. I think that there is a tendency to underestimate the sort of Niagara of information and stuff that goes on in the executive branch of Government.
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Mr. BARR. I am not talking about Niagara. I am talking about a laser beam. I am not talking about routine staff requests. I am talking about requests, and we have copies of this, if we could, a notation, a handwritten notation from the President of the United States. That is not a routine staff request, at least I would presume that it isn't, directed to Mr. Panetta stating ''What's the deal on the Wisconsin tribe Indian dispute?''
We don't have a date on this, but according to the earlier efforts by the White House to keep this document confidential, the date that they put on it is apparently shortly before the election of 1996. This is a request by the President regarding a matter that we know on the public record he had been made aware of 2 years earlier and he asked a very specific question about a very specific matter within the jurisdiction of your office. And you are saying that that would not be the sort of thing that would be brought to your attention.
Secretary BABBITT. I think that is correct.
Mr. BARR. Whose attention in the Department of the Interior would a direct specific request from the President be brought to?
Secretary BABBITT. Again, this is all obviously hypothetical. My guess is that a memo like this——
Mr. BARR. This isn't hypothetical. This is an actual document.
Secretary BABBITT. My answer is hypothetical because I don't know the facts. I think normally an inquiry of this type would drift way down through the White House to some pretty low staff level where that staffer in a typical matter would call some staffer at the Interior Department. This is not an inquiry that would prompt anyone to call me. The issue is presumably some facts. The facts are out there, down there somewhere.
Mr. BARR. That would——
Secretary BABBITT. In my judgment.
Mr. BARR. That would raise very serious questions in my mind about how this administration operates. I mean not necessarily just in your Department, but the White House. Here we have a specific request from the President about a very sensitive matter. We know it is sensitive because the record is replete with memos going back and forth saying this is a hot potato, this is something very important. We have one memo saying keep the President out of this. And yet the President makes a specific request to a specific person about the specific matter and you are saying in your view this would have been handled by some low level person as a routine inquiry?
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Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, there is one way to deal with this and that is to ask Leon. I would suggest you might try that.
Mr. BARR. Well—what you are saying is in your view, one, you have no knowledge of this; correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Leon Panetta, I worked with Leon for, what, 3 or 4 years. He never called me about information requests like this. These are busy people. They have got things to do. They ship them down and——
Mr. BARR. That is my point. The President is a very busy person and one wonders why he would send this note were it not something of some importance to him. Would you speculate on why this was so important to the President that it demanded his personal attention shortly before the election of 1996?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I have no knowledge or information or ideas on that subject.
Mr. BARR. When was the very first time that this matter was brought to your attention?
Secretary BABBITT. Which matter?
Mr. BARR. This whole matter of the Hudson Dog Track problem? The very first time.
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, the earliest recollection that I have from looking back across the record, I believe would be the trip that I took to Wisconsin in the fall of 1994. Congressman, let me just say that my staff has said to me that the memo that you are showing me here is, is this a 1996 memo?
Mr. BARR. The White House did not want this made public, but it is public now, not, I mean before this point. They asserted privilege, apparently something that could not be sustained. According to their information which they furnished us, they have a date on it, fall 1996. Now, if they are wrong——
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Secretary BABBITT. This is a year after the decision was made.
Mr. BARR. Right. But the President specifically asked about this and apparently it was never brought to your attention at that time. And that doesn't strike you as odd.
Secretary BABBITT. No.
Mr. BARR. OK. A lot of things do strike a number of people as odd, though, about this, this case, including the Attorney General of the United States of America and including a U.S. District Court judge, neither of whom anybody could say with a straight face would be part of any right wing conspiracy or probably any other kind of conspiracy.
The opinion, and we do have copies of the opinion, which I presume you all are familiar with, goes through in tremendous detail why this Federal judge is concerned. And I know our colleagues on the other side trivialize this opinion. It should not be. One should trivialize it at their own risk. It is a very specific opinion for a very specific purpose in unusual language because of its bluntness and the detail that the judge places in it.
The judge in that case originally had ruled in the opposite, as she did here. She says though on reflection and on much more careful review of the evidence, some very disturbing questions are raised in her mind about impropriety, including in your office. And I would respectfully invite your attention to this opinion which I think is probably a lot more problematic for you than your appearance here today because this is a district court judge, not just a Member of Congress. But this judge is very, very specific in terms of why these questions are very serious and need to be looked into and I think she is right on point.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Waxman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to Mr. Cummings.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member. Let us go back to this memo, Secretary Babbitt, the memo that Mr. Barr just referred to. Counsel tells me that there was no privilege asserted by the President with regard to this matter and Mr. Barr, I am sure, he will address that when it comes back around to him because I don't want the public to be misled on that. No. 2, it is my understanding that the decision in regard to this matter was made around July 14, 1995; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Isn't it a fact that the document that Mr. Barr just spent so much time talking about is dated October 23, 1996? Are you familiar? Do you have the document?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, that is my understanding.
Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted to make sure we were very clear on that. Let us go back to that document that he spent so much time with a few moments ago. It says, ''Leon, what's the deal on the Wisconsin tribe Indian dispute?'' And it is signed, BC. I guess we can kind of assume those are the President's initials. But it sounds like he didn't know what the hell was going on. That is a year after, more than a year after.
Secretary BABBITT. I think that is a fair reading of this document.
Mr. CUMMINGS. It seems consistent with everything that you have said already. But let me go back to something else. You were speaking a little bit earlier. I listened to you very carefully. There were some things that you said as I listened to you, I said to myself, if any other decision had been made, you would have been damned, because you gave several elements that went into this decision. No. 1, you talked about the distance from the tribe, you talked about one out of nine decisions, I think. What did you say about one out of nine?
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Secretary BABBITT. Since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was enacted, I think in 1988, there have been nine applications processed under that act and only one casino is up and operating as an off-reservation casino authorized under this act.
Mr. CUMMINGS. And that had unique facts to it; is that right? That had, the one that was OKed had unique facts to it; is that right?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, the one that was approved is in Milwaukee and the important thing about it is it had the support of the local community.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. I knew it was something.
So you had all of these elements. You had distance from the tribe. You had a precedent, pretty much, that only one out of nine had been approved and it had been approved with the consent of the local folk. Here you had the community against it; is that right? So that I am down to element No. 3 now and it was bipartisan, not only was it Democrats but it was Republicans and Congressmen and everybody else were against it; is that right?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Pretty much. You said, No. 4, that no Members of the Congress were for it, to your knowledge; is that right?
Secretary BABBITT. The record is absolutely devoid of any support from any Member of Congress. Now, I have been working this committee today to find some support here, and apparently there is none here either.
Mr. CUMMINGS. I don't think you are going to find any here, which is interesting.
Let us go on to No. 5. The fifth element that went into this, you said there were deficiencies in the application; is that right?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. And then you went on to say that Skibine, his decision was consistent with the final decision; is that correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. So you have got—this is just off the top of my head from what I have heard, you have got six elements, all of which are consistent with the decision that finally came out. If you had found in the other direction, God knows what would have happened to you. I mean, it is very interesting that you have got all of these factors, and I am very impressed with the one out of nine. The reason why I am so impressed with that is because apparently there was a pattern that was set and you all appeared to have been pretty consistent with that pattern.
Let me go back to something else. Last week we had occasion to listen to a few of your 65,000 employees. When I say a few, two or three, maybe four. And as I sat there and I listened to those folks, I was extremely impressed with their integrity and the fact that they made it very, very clear that their decisions were based upon very sound judgment, that they were based upon things that were completely independent of you, the impression that I got, or the President. And I mean now that you sit here, and you are under oath, can you, I mean, and I am pretty sure you are probably pretty much familiar with their testimony, is it your testimony today, Mr. Secretary, that those decisions that were made by Mr. Skibine and I think Mr. Anderson—is he the last person that signs off?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. It had nothing to do with President Clinton? It sounds like it didn't have very much to do with you, either.
Secretary BABBITT. That is true.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, you talked a little bit earlier about delegation of authority. And you said something about that if you didn't delegate, that you would have a long line of people at your door every day. And then a few moments ago someone on the other side talked about the whole question of your delegation, that is delegating authority. And the question became that if the White House were interested in this, why isn't the Secretary, why didn't the Secretary know that the White House is calling? I think you kind of chuckled a little bit and said, you know, that doesn't happen that way.
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Can you tell us the way it does happen? The mere fact that the White House calls, someone from the White House, maybe that message never gets to you, is that what your testimony was a little bit earlier?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, yes, 99 percent of the communications from the White House never reach me and are never brought to my attention. And the reason is that there is an enormous flow of information and information requests in the Government, and the people who work in the White House know that the worst place to get an answer is from me at the top because the people who have the facts are down there and the normal channels, therefore, go down like that, across and then back up.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. My time is up. I yield back the balance.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Mr. Kucinich, 5 minutes.
Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to continue on, Mr. Secretary, I want to continue on the track that my colleague, Mr. Cummings, has just started. And that is that I want to clarify the record about the Department's decisionmaking process.
As several Interior Department officials have testified in their depositions, when those officials referred to a decision by the Secretary, it is shorthand for a decision by the Department of the Interior. They would say that the Secretary decided not to take the land into trust or the Secretary decided to reject an application and so forth, but what they mean is that that decision was being made to whatever official the responsibility or had been made by to whatever official the responsibility had been delegated to; is that——
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you this, just to go over this territory again to be sure: Did you personally make a decision to reject the Hudson application?
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Secretary BABBITT. No, I did not.
Mr. KUCINICH. In fact, you had delegated decisions on casino applications to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. KUCINICH. And in the Hudson case, the Assistant Secretary Ada Deer had recused herself because of the relationship with the applicant tribes; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. She recused herself. I believe the grounds for the recusal were, as I recall her testimony, that she had made a campaign contribution to the—one of the leaders of one of the applicant tribes and that she was uncomfortable as a member of the Oneida tribe in Wisconsin in dealing with a Wisconsin issue that was so controversial. I am sorry. She was in Menominee, of course.
Mr. KUCINICH. So the decisionmaker, the person who actually signed the letter, was the Deputy Assistant Secretary Michael Anderson.
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. KUCINICH. And the decision to reject the application was made on the recommendation of the career staff, the Indian gaming recommendation staff?
Secretary BABBITT. Among others, yes.
Mr. KUCINICH. So did you have any role whatsoever?
Secretary BABBITT. No. Now, let me just say——
Mr. KUCINICH. That is whatsoever in the actual decision to reject the Hudson application.
Secretary BABBITT. No, I did not.
Mr. KUCINICH. Now, I want to go back for a moment to a point that my friend, Congressman Barr, raised because I think bringing up the date of the memo with the initials ''BC'' on it is relevant and I think the Congressman's attention to that matter is germane. However, it is also germane to look at the dates that were involved.
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What was the date of this memo which is marked ''BC''? ''What's the deal on the Wisconsin tribe Indian dispute?'' What is the date of that?
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I can't discern a date from the face of the memo. Mr. Barr said that I believe this was from the fall of 1996.
Mr. KUCINICH. Let's say it was around October 23, 1996. We know the date of the decision was July 14, 1995. So this memo, as Congressman Cummings points out, was more than a year later. That changes the context certainly. But we also know that Mr. Havenick was up here testifying, and Terry McAuliffe of course disputes whether there was a conversation between the two of them, but that conversation happened on August 15, 1996.
So I am going to suggest to members of the committee that it is quite possible that Mr. Havenick, who is a strong advocate for his case, was able to make his feelings known through legal action, so much so that it reached right to the White House and that, in fact, the President's memo might be because of action that Mr. Havenick started and not because of any action that started on behalf of the other side. So I thank the Secretary.
I yield back.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Sununu is recognized.
Mr. SUNUNU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. You don't believe that I am part of a conspiracy against you or the Department of the Interior or the President; do you?
Secretary BABBITT. I would not even accuse you of being part of a New Hampshire conspiracy much less this one.
Mr. SUNUNU. Thank you very much.
In your testimony you have commended the work of the dedicated civil servants, the career staff at Interior working under Mr. Skibine, and I would agree. They, and particularly Mr. Skibine, is to be credited with the quality of his testimony and certainly the duration. You feel that their recommendation in this case was very important, correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. They are—that is the whole purpose of the Indian gaming office, is to receive these applications and to process them.
Mr. SUNUNU. Would it be appropriate for political appointees to overrule their recommendation, if it was a unanimous recommendation on a point of policy?
Secretary BABBITT. The decisionmaking authority by virtue of my delegation is vested in the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Now, if the Assistant Secretary for—were the Assistant Secretary to disagree with a recommendation from the gaming office, that would almost certainly be elevated to my attention.
Mr. SUNUNU. Thank you very much. That is very important.
I want to draw your attention to some very substantive exhibits and the substantive issue of justifying the application under section 20, a section 20 finding of no detriment to the community.
I would just like to cite several key documents or read briefly from them. I think you are very familiar with them.
On June 8—these are all documents from the career staff—exhibit 303A–8, a memo from Mr. Hartman states, ''The staff recommends that the Secretary, based on the following, determine that the proposed acquisition would not be detrimental to the surrounding community.'' Second, Mr. Skibine, head of gaming, in his e-mail on June 6 states, ''We want to avoid making a determination under section 20 of the IGRA.''
[Exhibit 303 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 459 TO 474 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. LESHY. Could you give me the exhibit numbers? You are going a little fast.
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Mr. SUNUNU. The exhibit number there is 303A–8, and exhibit 316 is the second. The third, exhibit 320, is an e-mail dated June 28 from Mr. Skibine. Again, Indian gaming is also drafting a proposed memorandum to the Commissioner concluding that the acquisition is not detrimental to the surrounding community under section 20.
And finally, Mr. Skibine's testimony to this committee under oath, I wanted to avoid invoking section 20. All the way up until his final e-mail that I cited on June 28th, Mr. Skibine and all the staff at gaming believed firmly there was no justification for turning down this application on the basis of section 20 that there was a detriment to the community. But between June 28 and the decision memo on July 14th, that recommendation of George Skibine and the career staff was overruled. They, the career staff, were overruled. And in the final rejection, section 20 was cited.
I will just quote briefly from that, exhibit 328–2, the rejection letter: ''We believe the proposed acquisition would be detrimental within the meaning of section 20.''
Who overruled all the dedicated career civil servants at Indian gaming?
[Exhibits 316 and 320 follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 475 TO 476 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. I think that is an inaccurate characterization of all of these documents. I don't accept that characterization.
Mr. SUNUNU. I don't think it is an inaccurate characterization of Mr. Skibine's testimony, ''I wanted to avoid invoking section 20.'' Nor his e-mail, ''We want to avoid invoking section 20.''
Secretary BABBITT. Well, there was a—the decision was based on both section 20 and the Indian Reorganization Act, and Mr. Skibine has in fact stated that he agrees with that decision.
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Mr. SUNUNU. The facts state that he objected to invoking section 20. And I will further quote from Mr. Skibine.
Secretary BABBITT. I don't think he did object to section 20.
Mr. SUNUNU. He states in his testimony under oath and the documents I just presented to you, ''I wanted to avoid invoking section 20,'' as late as June 28th. In his testimony to us he further said, ''There were some in the Department that felt the record justified a decision under section 20.'' When asked, Who would they be? His reply, ''They would be the ones that were up from the chain of command,'' political appointees.
Who overruled, Mr. Skibine?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I think John Duffy addressed this yesterday. There was, in my understanding, a pretty spirited discussion. I absolutely reject this idea that anybody overruled anything. The record doesn't support that, not an iota of evidence to suggest that.
Mr. SUNUNU. Let me say, the evidence does support it directly, and it is related to Mr. Duffy. An e-mail dated July 6, 1995, exhibit 324, written by Troy Woodward, it states clearly, final paragraph, ''The upshot of the meeting was that Duffy wants the letter rewritten to include a further reason for denying to take the land into trust under Section 20.'' It was, in fact, on or about July 6 that the decision was made to overrule Mr. Skibine. It was made by Mr. Duffy and he suggested that they rewrite the decision.
[Exhibit 324 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 477 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. I don't think anybody overruled anybody. I think that the record clearly shows that this decision was based on both section 20 and the Indian Reorganization Act and that the participants all concurred in basing it on both statutes.
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Mr. SUNUNU. The decision does cite section 20, but the decision to cite section 20 was made by political appointees and not by Indian gaming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Who on your side—Mr. Kanjorski is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KANJORSKI. To carry on that, let the record show that Mr. Skibine testified that he prepared the draft of the final decision before leaving for vacation sometime on June 12 or 13th. And if, in fact, there was a decision by Mr. Duffy to include section 20, that was really going out with a hand to allow the petitioner to have the right of appeal and judicial review. If that had not been included, they would have lost that right. So there wasn't any detriment to the dog track owners. It was to their benefit.
Secretary BABBITT. I, frankly, don't understand which conspiracy theory the section 20 is. The conspiracy is because, in fact, as you suggest, grounding it on section 20 was more favorable to the applicants.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Now, let's go along with conspiracy, Mr. Secretary. I have been going through this record here a little bit. You wouldn't be here today if your former law school roommate, law partner and friend, hadn't imposed his right to meet with you that fatal few days before this decision. I am not going to ask you to characterize your thoughts on Mr. Eckstein, but I think, one, Mr. Eckstein should be here. I don't know why someone with such important testimony hasn't been called before this committee, because the thing that upsets me is that in his testimony in 1997, for the first time Mr. Eckstein gets this October 30, 1997. He has this tremendous recollection that you indicated these things about political contributions and $500.
Now, it gets curiouser and curiouser because then in that deposition he says he certainly told Mr. Goff about that conversation the day that it was done, July 14, 1995. He thinks he told Mr. Moody, Jim Moody, a former Member of Congress, who was a lobbyist for his organization, and he thinks he told Mr. Havenick.
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Now, why that is important is that conversation is probably the most significant statement of words that would justify any inference of political influence. And yet Mr. Eckstein, a lawyer, the owner of the dog track, and his chief publicist, who also had knowledge of this, did not mention in their affidavit in the suit they brought in January 1996 to overset the application or the decision; they never mentioned it until the October 30, 1997, testimony.
Now, why that is curious to me is it seems as we go on with this case there is tremendous recall that is occurring that seems to be beneficial to the appellants here. Mr. Havenick came before the committee, and by chance he remembers a tremendous conversation between the President's chief fund-raiser, Mr. McAuliffe, that he mentions to him at a fund-raiser at Mr. Berlin's home, or one of Mr. Berlin's fund-raisers, and for some reason they have all these high-priced lobbyists, high-priced lawyers, are in Federal district court in Wisconsin fighting this tremendous case, and none of them seem to have any recollection of the most important evidence that could have helped their case until after the decision, the court coming down and saying, we will take extra administrative record discovery testimony to prove or to set aside this decision. And then all of a sudden, after 2 years of silence, new recollections occur.
Let me say that in the Wisconsin State Journal, Mr. Goff, after having been told this 2 years before, but then after the testimony in October 1997, he said, We consider this report to be the biggest piece of news in 2 years. I don't know, he had this information for 2 years before that. He didn't think it was very good news until at a Senate deposition in October 30, 1997, it came out.
I just wonder, I am not going to ask you to hypothesize on your friend who asked your indulgence that day, but I have got to say, in my mind that a well-trained lawyer is either Harvard or Yale, Mr. Secretary, I am not sure. Harvard or Yale; isn't it?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, Harvard.
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Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Eckstein didn't recognize the significance or the importance of that conversation in your office a day or two before the decision was had in the pursuit of their appeal case in Wisconsin for a period of more than 2 1/2 years. That sounds incredible to me.
I think that, we talked about conspiracies here, and I just want to reiterate what is happening as I see it, Mr. Secretary. People are grabbing notes and paper and thrashing around to hang anything. Here we have a conspiracy being constructed on the other side by the President of the United States and his Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta, some year and 3 months after the decision is already made. Mr. Panetta sends the President a memo on a trip, late October, into Wisconsin, just before the election, a year and 3 months after the decision. The President apparently reads the memo and he says, what is the deal on the Wisconsin Indian tribe dispute, back to Leon. So obviously the White House and the President were avidly involved.
It is a year and 3 months after the decision was already made. It is out of the hands of the Secretary. It is into the courts by more than a year and a half, and the President still doesn't know anything about it. Yet we are to believe that this was one of the highest items handled in the campaign of 1996, and that everybody was involved in it because of this tremendous fund-raising opportunity.
I think what we have here is evidence that when people thrash around to find conspiracy or find conclusions, they can knit together the most unreasonable materials to make their scarf, if you will.
I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Shadegg.
Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Gee, the word ''conspiracy'' certainly came back here in the last few minutes.
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It is appropriate for each of us, Mr. Secretary, to draw different inferences from this record. Your adamant assertion that the political appointees in the office did not overrule the career people, I believe, is clearly wrong under this record. And my colleague Mr. Sununu read some of these e-mails. He did not read all of them.
I would draw your attention to exhibit 327–2, an e-mail which I think very well illustrates this point. It is one of the culminating e-mails, although the same point is made in a later e-mail. It is written and it says, ''Apparently Bob Anderson did review the letter late Monday. I checked with him Tuesday and he thought that since Duffy wanted the Section 20 finding so badly, that we would let the letter go'' in—that is why we let it go in the letter. Then he goes on and says, ''I still think that there was not enough evidence for a section 20 finding.''
In your opening statement, Mr. Secretary, you repeatedly called this a consensus process, a consensus decision that resulted—or a consensus discussion that resulted in this decision. That, I think, Mr. Secretary, does not show a consensus.
But let's move to another area that I want to focus on in my questioning.
Secretary BABBITT. Could I just respond to that?
Mr. SHADEGG. Sure.
Secretary BABBITT. I fail to understand what it is you are all driving at. There was consensus on the decision.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Secretary, with all respect, my time is limited.
Secretary BABBITT. The decision was based on both section 5 and section 20.
Mr. SHADEGG. Two people are saying they disagree. One of them overruled them, one higher up level.
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Secretary BABBITT. They agreed on the result. There is——
Mr. SHADEGG. That is not the issue. The issue is whether they agreed, the whole line of questioning——
Secretary BABBITT. If I could respond. There is obviously a lively discussion going on, once people have agreed on the result, about how it is you base the decision and the relative role of section 20 versus the Indian Reorganization Act. Fine. What does it add up to?
Mr. SHADEGG. My time is limited. I think the record shows that they disagreed, and the e-mails show that.
I really would like to focus on a different issue. I think you have referred repeatedly to the record in this case. I want to point out that a part of this record is conduct by Mr. Ickes, which I would hope you would disassociate yourself with. Loretta Avent, and I hope you have seen these memos, wrote a memo to Mr. Ickes, it is exhibit 305–1, in which she makes a clear case that this decision is to be made on the merits. It is to be based on the rule of law, and the White House should in no way get involved, and that it would be political dynamite for the White House to get involved. She writes that memo, and she sends it to Mr. Ickes.
[Exhibit 305 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 478 TO 479 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Ickes's response to that memo is not to agree with her; not to respond and say, yes, I concur; not in any way to accede to this prudent advice, but, rather, to immediately pick up the phone and call the lobbyist that wants to insert politics into this matter and to assign two, at least two, of his deputies to communicate with your Department about this.
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Mr. Ickes then gets a letter, which we discussed at length yesterday, exhibit 311A, from Mr. O'Connor, the lobbyist, who seeks to inject Republican versus Democrat policies into this debate and say that the decision should go in favor of his clients because they are Democrats, and Democrats who gave money.
Mr. Ickes does not respond to this letter by saying there is—it would be improper to let politics or past contributions or future contributions to affect this decision. What Mr. Ickes does is to continue to stay involved, to continue to communicate with his staff, and indeed to have a yet subsequent conversation with a member of Mr. O'Connor's law firm, Mr. Schneider, in which he says, I will take care of it, in response to Mr. Schneider's request that he handle this.
My question to you, Mr. Babbitt, is, don't you believe that Mr. Ickes should have handled this dramatically different, and would you be in the spot you are in right now if, for example, he had responded to this and said, you are right, we should stay out of this; he had written back to Mr. O'Connor and said, Mr. O'Connor, politics doesn't belong in this; or if at a minimum he had warned his staffers, whom he then directed to communicate with your Department, to put a memo in the file, to send a memo over to your Department saying, we are getting political pressure on this, but we want you to do it on the merits? I think he put you in a terrible position, and I think his conduct was wrong. And I would like your response to that.
[Exhibit 311 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 480 TO 482 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. Well, you can assemble those facts and characterize his conduct that way. I don't. I think that in fairness you should direct these questions to Mr. Ickes. My responsibility is internal to the Interior Department. I am not, you know, on this wider ground that I discussed in my testimony this morning.
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Mr. SHADEGG. Your staff communicates with his staff.
Secretary BABBITT. We have been through that 100 times. When there are information requests, they have got to go somewhere. And I don't draw the conclusion that you do.
Mr. SHADEGG. My conclusion is that he could have built a record which would have protected you in this instance by saying, I don't want to affect the merits. He could have sent a note back to Mrs. Avent saying, you are right. He could have sent a note to Mr. O'Connor. I would like to believe, Mr. Secretary, you would have done those things.
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I appreciate your comments. I guess I am at a loss to comment on a world of what ifs.
Mr. SHADEGG. My time has expired.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I find very interesting the comments about consultation and whether this is a consensus process.
We have heard some of the other side suggest repeatedly that the Interior Department officials failed to consult with representatives of the applicant tribes. The majority makes this assertion despite clear deposition testimony to the contrary given by the career civil servants.
For example, when Thomas Hartman was asked whether there had been consultation with the applicant tribes, he testified, and I quote, ''It was done extensively at the area office. They kind of work hand in glove there.'' Mr. Hartman went on to say, ''In our office we did''—when the application was at the central office, ''we met with the applicant tribes and representatives several times and discussed various issues both on the best interests and the not detrimental portions of the two-part test. So we consulted with them even while it was in central office.''
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You know, when we talk about this consultation process, I just wonder, and consensus process, it seems as if it would be kind of difficult to cure community opposition. I mean, all of us up here are elected officials. Many of us served on a local level. Opposition by communities is usually pretty—they pretty much dig in pretty deep. They have strong opinions. I am just wondering if the consultation process or this consensus process, is that something difficult to overcome from what you know; that is, when a community is against something?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Cummings, I appreciate the question. I think it is very important to deal with this consultation process, to remember that beyond the written record there was a continuing flow of oral communication back and forth and consultation, and that it is a mistake to jump to a conclusion that there was not adequate consultation just from reading documents. You must have the oral communication and the give and take.
Now, this issue of community opposition, it seems to me, stands out from the very beginning. And what happened is the opposition actually hardened as the application progressed. And I don't see how anybody could miss that.
Now, what they do about it is another matter, because there wasn't much flexibility here to go to, you know, some other part of the county, somewhere else. It was absolutely anchored in this dog track.
Now, let me also add that there is a letter in the record from the three applicant tribes dated June 7. It is in the record. It says they have had an opportunity to review the comments submitted through May 17, 1995, on the application. Now, I haven't gone back to review all the comments, but I have a pretty good idea what those comments were. A lot of them were this issue of community opposition. It is not as if they didn't know about it. They had a chance to review it. They wrote back and acknowledged it.
Mr. CUMMINGS. What is the date of that document?
Secretary BABBITT. That letter is dated June 7, 1995.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. 1995.
You know, it is interesting, too—did you have something else?
Secretary BABBITT. It just says, we urge that you promptly process the application, and we are willing to meet with you to discuss your concerns.
Mr. CUMMINGS. It is interesting, too, Mr. Skibine, who again, I reiterate, I have much respect for, his testimony, he gave similar testimony that I talked about earlier about consultation with applicant tribes. When asked whether the proponents and opponents of the proposed casino had an opportunity to submit their views for the record until a final decision was made, Mr. Skibine responded, yes, they did. Mr. Skibine went on to say, and I quote, ''We met with them on several occasions where the purpose of their meeting was to try to discuss the merits of their application, and I think that we were given access to additional comments that were filed between February 8 and April 30, 1995, and I think they submitted something in writing at some point.''
Did you have something else?
Secretary BABBITT. I think what was submitted in writing was the letter I just read.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me move on to something else that I find very interesting. Secretary Babbitt, according to the testimony we have heard during these 4 days of hearings, there were many lobbyists trying to influence the Department's decision.
The opponent tribes had lobbyists, and Mr. Havenick had lobbyists. In fact, it was Mr. Havenick, the dog track owner, who hired Paul Eckstein, your friend and former colleague, in hopes that he would be able to convince you to approve the application; isn't that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. I believe that's correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Despite Mr. Havenick's efforts to go to the top, Mr. Eckstein was unable to persuade you to get directly involved in the Hudson application; isn't that correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Earlier the majority referred to a memo from Scott Dacey, one of the opponent tribe lobbyists. The majority referred to a small part of the memo that looks incriminating. But also, in that memo, it says that Mr. Dacey spoke with Michael Anderson, who had the final decision, and that Mr. Anderson told him that the Department was going to quote, ''keep this on the merits,'' which meant that they were not going to outside influences, that they were going to stay strictly on the merits.
Are you familiar with that?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, sir.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Does that surprise you that that is what Mr. Anderson would have said?
Secretary BABBITT. No, because I think that's clearly what the record shows for the entire process.
Mr. CUMMINGS. And I take it that you wanted a certain distance from certain kinds of decisions or I guess you wouldn't have delegated, would you?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, as a general matter, I am not involved in specific decisions that relate to contests between parties for specific authority, whether it's a permit, a transfer, a contract, because there are literally thousands of these decisions made, and you know, you can't efficiently sort of sit around in all these case-by-case decisions, and that is the reason that most of them are delegated, including this particular type of decision.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Hastert.
Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I just want to come at this from a little different angle. I have followed your career for a long time. Indeed, I look at you as an honorable man. You came out of college, served in the Peace Corps in South America; is that correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. Well, it was a community organization.
Mr. HASTERT. And studied economics in Peru, and then went on to be the Governor of the great State of Arizona. You have had quite a credible career. I just am a little bit amazed that you would buy into this thing of conspiracy. You have to look at the views and what has happened, and I would hope that we would all agree that there is no conspiracy here. We see facts different, and we are trying to build on that.
I would like to ask you a couple of questions, first of all. Would you agree, at least from the data that we have, that on September 14, 1994, there was, by the Department of Interior document, a finding of no significant impact, and it was prepared by the Ashland office? That was a local office, and they approved basically the recommendation that there was no negative impact. And then on November 15, 1994, the area office recommendation in Minneapolis said that there was no negative impact, and that application for a Class III gaming facility at Hudson satisfies section 20 of IGRA, and that was basically approved. Then on April 20, 1995, the area office recommendation in Minneapolis and the Bureau of Indian Affairs basically said again, under section 20, they would approve it, that there is no negative impact.
Then there is a draft memo from the Indian Gaming Management Staff, and the staff recommends that the Secretary, based on the following, determine that the proposed acquisition would not be detrimental to the surrounding community, and that was under section 20. And then, there is a draft memo we have, undated, from George Skibine to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, and the staff recommends that the Secretary, based on the following, determine that the proposed acquisition would not be detrimental to the surrounding community.
In fact, even the surrounding community, we talk about the overwhelming people that were against it. Well, there were basically 71 letters from Wisconsin folks, 19 letters from Minnesota and 37 letters from people in other States that were against it. But for it, we had 69 letters from Wisconsin and 19 letters from other States, and a number of people, including State senators and mayors and county supervisors, and other folks that were for this thing in Hudson, WI. So we don't really see an overwhelming give or take. I would say that is what the record shows.
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My question is, and I think it was unfair to you this morning, former Chairman Waxman was here and started talking about white lies, and you say, well, what I said might have been a white lie. Well, I wouldn't ever want to portray it in that sense. But quite frankly, we have to try to sit here and determine what are white lies, and what are gray lies, and what are brown lies and what are black lies. I just want to ask you this—ask as an old friend of yours, as a law partner, do you think he is an honest man; in your opinion?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. HASTERT. And then, with your saying this morning from Mr. Waxman that what you said to him could have been a white lie because we all do it and this type of stuff, could Eckstein actually be telling the truth when he said that you said in effect that the Indians gave a lot of money, around a half a million dollars, to squash the application?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't think that's——
Mr. HASTERT. That was a characterization about what you said what he said.
Secretary BABBITT. Description of what he said.
Mr. HASTERT. That is a characterization of what he said.
Secretary BABBITT. Yes, but I don't think that's accurate.
Mr. HASTERT. Well, I don't think that is word for word. Do you want me to read it word for word? Sure, I would be happy to do that.
Word for word is, according to the record of the Thompson investigation, Patrick O'Connor's letter to the Secretary: And I personally was offended by it; I couldn't believe that anyone would take the allegations in that letter seriously. And the Secretary said at some point when we were standing up, asked me rhetorically, do you know how much—I believe it was these tribes, but I cannot be clear, is the words to me, what ''those tribes'' meant, referred to, whether it was some specific tribes or tribes of gaming facilities on their reservations—had contributed to either the Democratic party or the Democratic candidates of the DNC. I can't be certain of that, but I am certain that he asked the general rhetorical question, and I said, I don't have the slightest idea. And he said, responded by saying, well, it's on the order of a half a million dollars, something like that.
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Secretary BABBITT. I don't have any recollection of that conversation.
Mr. HASTERT. That was his testimony. Do you think he could have been telling the truth?
Secretary BABBITT. I can tell you that I have no recollection of that conversation. That's it.
Mr. HASTERT. Fine. That is great.
I just want to say that, I don't think there is any scheme, and I don't think that there is any—but we have to look at issues, and the issues are that, you know, the application was approved at the local level on 20, on section 20. Lobbyists close to the President were hired; Harold Ickes became involved; a decision to reject, under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, is made. We changed the section. They went to a different section, and Mr. Skibine in his testimony said that that is the first time in his recollection and probably in history that they went to a different section to make that decision.
So, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being here, and I certainly—in your shoes, it is a tough thing to do. You are an honorable man. But we have to make some conclusions from the facts that we have before us, from the testimony that was given in this committee, in other committees, especially in the other body, and we would like to come down to the bottom of this thing and find out just what the connections were, and that is all we are trying to do is our job. I appreciate your testimony.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would also like to voice an agreement with my colleague in saying that we believe that the Secretary is an honorable man, and I know also there is such concurrence in this committee that the right decision was made, so we are making progress in agreeing on some things here.
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Now, part of the problem in gathering information is you can have different interpretations of facts. People look at the world in different ways. We recently heard an interpretation of contacts between Mr. Ickes and the Interior Department staff. I have heard many different interpretations by Members and the nature of those contacts.
I would just like to point out to the chairman that sitting in the audience behind the Secretary is his assistant, Heather Sibbison, and she was the person, if I am correct, who responded to the status request from the White House, so rather than—we could actually be spared the burden, and it is a burden, of characterizing what happened during those contacts. We actually have an opportunity now, if the Chair would be so pleased, to hear directly from Ms. Sibbison. Would the Chair—do you have any willingness at all to hear what she has to say?
Mr. BURTON. We have deposed Ms. Sibbison, and we have the information that we needed for this hearing. The problem we have is we had to schedule the hearings over a 4-day period, and we had to make sure that everything fit into that schedule. So—but we did depose her, and we have the information that we think we need.
Mr. KUCINICH. I am sure it is helpful to have deposed her, and I would just say as a Member of this committee I think it would be helpful to the committee if we had the advantage of listening to her testimony. But again the Chair has the authority to do that, and I understand that, and we understand that.
Now, I have heard many Members reassure us they are not on a witch-hunt, they just want to find the facts, and I am at a loss to understand why she hasn't been called, because she could tell us the simple truth, which I believe is that the calls from the White House were status inquiries from low-level staffers and volunteers. You know, it would be nice to hear from her, it would be nice to hear from Mr. Ickes, from Hilda Manuel, Congressman Gunderson, Governor Tommy Thompson. I feel like we are having a party here, but we are not inviting all the guests.
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Now, there are a few other points here just to put in the record. We know again that the decision came down in 1995, I believe it was in July, and we also have here from the record the briefing papers for the President on September 1, 1996, where in this it points out that—this is the paper right here, Mr. Babbitt—where it points out that the administration has been criticized for the Department of Interior decision that affects Indian gambling in northwest Wisconsin. One tribe was denied permission to expand its casino and sued the United States, alleging among other things that the White House staff improperly influenced the Department of Interior's decision. And this is, it says, Bob—I can't make out the last name—DNC finance counsel, represented the aggrieved tribe.
Now, that is that direct quote. Now that is part of the record which briefed the President. Then, as a result of getting this briefing, the President then writes, and again, this is a year later, what is the deal on the Wisconsin Indian dispute? He writes this to Leon Panetta. On October 21, 1996, Leon Panetta responds to the President's memo, saying, in response to a note, a background memo for your visit to the Green Bay/Milwaukee area, you inquired about the status of a dispute between the Interior Department and the Native American tribe in Wisconsin. And then it goes on to talk about an attached memo. These are all, I believe, in the record right now. I just wanted to make sure that the sequence was clarified.
Now, I would like to turn my attention, Mr. Secretary, to some other testimony. This committee has heard from the dog track owner who needs a casino to save his business, and we have also heard from representatives of Indian tribes what the dog track owner needs in order to bring a request for an off-reservation casino. Now, we know for the record that the Department of Interior, in evaluating the dog track owner's business proposal, had to consider a preponderance of evidence that the community around the dog track opposed the casino.
Here is what I am wondering. I am someone who is very concerned about the effects of government policy on local communities. I was wondering, what would have been the policy if the Department had decided to allow tribes to go 80 to 200 miles off their reservation to open a casino against local opposition?
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Secretary BABBITT. Well, had the Department in these—on these facts approved this, there would have been a firestorm not only in the community, but in the U.S. Congress, and I think John Duffy—I did not hear his testimony yesterday, but I know that this was a concern of his all along, and it may, in fact, account for some of this ongoing discussion about section 20 versus the Indian Reorganization Act, because we were very concerned to administer this act in a way that was consistent with what we think Congress intended, and Congress could not have intended to, you know, have us administer this act in a way that would simply create a firestorm every time one of these things came down the road.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. If you want to go another round, we can.
The gentleman from California, would you yield to me briefly?
Mr. HORN. Certainly.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman is yielding to me briefly.
It is my understanding, Mr. Secretary, that there was a case involving an Indian casino that was put in trust some 300 miles from the tribal lands in Greektown, I think it was, in Detroit, MI?
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, that's the Sault Ste. Marie Detroit case, and it had strong local support.
Mr. BURTON. But it was 300 miles away.
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you.
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am curious, Mr. Secretary. I read your statement very carefully last night and again this morning, but when you delivered this statement, it was quite different. Was that gone over by people in the White House, a rewrite? We had rather colorful language there. I think even ''conspiracies'' might have come up. Did you consult anybody in the White House? Did they clear it?
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Secretary BABBITT. I have consulted no one in the White House about this.
Secretary BABBITT. How about in the Department of the Interior?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, certainly.
Mr. HORN. I mean, it is a complete rewrite.
Secretary BABBITT. I appreciate your appreciation of the eloquence of the statement. Those words are not exclusively my handiwork. I listened to the testimony over the 2 days, last week, and for that matter yesterday, and put this statement to bed over my dining room table about 5:30 last night.
Mr. HORN. Did you have the help of anybody that is an expert political consultant or an expert lawyer; Mr. Cutler, your own lawyer, and so forth?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, I have retained counsel, and they certainly review documents that I submit under oath to this committee, you bet.
Mr. HORN. Well, I hear in the news sometimes a rather well-known political consultant to the White House says, this is war, we have got a war room, and I am just curious if you found the war room between when I started the first draft and read the final remarks, because that is where it sounds like the conspiracy is going on. But I was a little curious, and whoever did write your speech deserves a high payment——
Secretary BABBITT. Thank you.
Mr. HORN [continuing]. Because it was well done.
Now, I am not going to ask you if I am part of the conspiracy or not. I notice a number of my colleagues have asked that, but I can assure you I am not part of the conspiracy. What I am curious about here is the basic thing where, where in the law is community opposition listed as a consideration when taking land in trust? Maybe the Solicitor can help you on that one.
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Secretary BABBITT. It's section 20. It says either community detriment or detriment to the community, I am not sure which.
Mr. HORN. So you are interpreting detriment to the community as the community opposition?
Secretary BABBITT. The decision, I think—the text of Michael Anderson's decision does a good job of explaining detriment to the community. It certainly involves economic detriment, but not exclusively. It goes to these other issues of congestion, community vision, quality of life. All of those things, I think, are included within the meaning and intention of the word ''detriment.''
Mr. HORN. How about people in the community that just don't like Indians? I happen to like Indians, and I can think——
Secretary BABBITT. That clearly does not qualify.
Mr. HORN. No. It was mentioned this morning that, stated that materials supporting the Hudson application has been left out of the record submitted to the Federal court in Wisconsin. Over the lunch break we reviewed the 14-volume record furnished to the court, and my statements happen to be correct. There are only two pages of the petition signatures in the 14 volumes. There are representations that there are an additional 152 pages somewhere else. If they are there, we can't find them.
Secretary BABBITT. Well, we are getting close. We have at least agreed on two pages.
Mr. HORN. No, to more than that. You do have two pages in there, however. However, the document I gave the Secretary earlier shows that this appears to be incorrect.
It is not the place to decide the issue, however, and, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask to send the original document from which I was speaking to the Federal court, as well as the Attorney General's Task Force, so that we have all of it before them, and we will leave it to them to worry about.
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Mr. BURTON. Would you yield to me briefly?
Mr. LESHY. Mr. Chairman, could I explain in response to the question about did we submit the full petition? I am told that Mr. Hartman actually converted the petition signatures that were in handwriting into a computer printout, and that is in the administrative record. The form of the petition that the Congressman submitted this morning is in the administrative record; it is just in type script for more legible reading than in handwritten form.
Mr. BURTON. Add a minute back on the clock.
Counsel, I have told every witness who testified that they are allowed to communicate with their counsel, but the counsel is not to respond to the committee. You are to respond to your client and he is to respond to the committee, and so if you have an objection or something, you are proper to make it, but I wish you would make it through Mr. Babbitt.
Let me just say, since we are now back on the time, you said that there was detriment to the community. Let me just say that there was a dog track already there. They had 8,000 parking spots. The estimate was only 4,000 of those parking spots were going to be utilized, so that you weren't going to have the impact that you would have had with the dog track that was already there. The environmental impact study had been approved at the local level, and the environmental impact study when the dog track was first put there had been approved some time back. So gambling was already in the area.
Now, regarding the economic impact on the community, the tribes in question had already agreed to give $1.1 or $1.2 million to the local community to take care of the infrastructure problems, and the sewage problems, and other problems that might arise. So when you talk about detriment to the community, I would like to understand what you mean, because there was already a gambling facility there, had 8,000 parking spots, only 4,000 of which were going to be utilized. They had already reached an agreement with the community on the infrastructure problem by giving them a guarantee they would pay them for it, so what was the detriment to the community?
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Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I was watching when you had this dialog with Michael Anderson last week.
Mr. BURTON. Right.
Secretary BABBITT. And there was a rather thorough discussion of it. I would add only this. I got to tell you, I don't think it is exclusively for you and me to sit around haggling about detriment to the community. I think the city council of Hudson, WI, is the correct presumptive place.
Mr. BURTON. There was a referendum that passed prior to that, Mr. Secretary. So there is a mixed bag there. Let me just say——
Secretary BABBITT. There may well have been changing attitudes during that, but during the time that this was under discussion, the fact is that the Hudson city council had on record a resolution adamantly opposing this application.
Mr. BURTON. Four to two, four to two, and it was after the referendum passed.
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. BURTON. Let me just say this to you, Mr. Secretary. That is a subjective judgment on the part of what we believe to be political appointees who may have been influenced by political contributions, and that is what we are trying to get at. Mr. Duffy, if you read the record you see that he was involved deeply in the decisionmaking process. Mr. Skibine mentions that in his memo, which you guys tried to claim privilege on, which we did put in the record and is in the public domain, because people have a right to know. Mr. Skibine says very clearly that Mr. Duffy, a political appointee who is now benefiting at a law firm, who is now prevailing at a tribe, the Shakopees, he was involved in that decision, so it is a subjective thing. It really bothers me that you keep saying there is a detriment to the community when there is no real evidence to verify that.
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I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. HORN. Thank you. That's all, Mr. Chairman. I think you are absolutely right on the track.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Barr. Mr. Miller.
Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding. Let me, if I may, yield my time right now to Mr. Barr.
Mr. BARR. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, I would like to go back to the court opinion to which we were referring to earlier and which is a part of the record, the opinion of Judge Crabb in this case. As I indicated, although there is a continuing effort to trivialize the opinion, the judge, I think, was very specific and very deliberative in the words that she used. Yes, we all understand, those of us who are familiar with court proceedings, and I know you are, that this document does not represent the results of a trial on the merits of the case. That comes at a prior time, but the burden that was to be met by the plaintiffs in this case; that is, the Indian tribes, the defendants being yourself and the other Government officials, was a very high one, because they, the plaintiffs, were seeking to go beyond normal discovery proceedings, and the presumption of the court is not to allow that.
And that is indeed the judge's initial decision, was that on page 4, plaintiffs had not met their evidentiary burden, and therefore, the court granted defendant's motion not to allow more extensive discovery to go into the allegations of improprieties that plaintiffs believe were relevant to their presentation of the case. The court correctly indicated that a strong showing requirement would be necessary before she would rule in plaintiff's behalf. She did that. And the reason that she did that is because she believed, after reviewing evidence extensively, that the plaintiffs, indeed, met their burden, and as part of her background, as you can see from reading through the opinion, as I presume you have certainly, she made some very important comments about conspiracy theories.
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We have been talking about that, and by coincidence, the judge addresses that. And she says at the top of page 6, ''Although I am reluctant to accept conspiracy theories of government, it would be naive to think that abuses of power never take place where the government agencies never accede to strong political pressure. Drawing on all reasonable inferences from the undisputed facts in plaintiff's favor, I believe there is a distinct possibility that improper political influence affected Anderson's decision on plaintiff's application.''
The court then moves through a detailed analysis of the evidence that sustains her conclusion and plaintiff's request, including possible contacts between John Duffy and others in the Department of the Interior and plaintiffs in February 1995, without notice to the plaintiffs, which is unusual. Not only is it unusual, the Government had a duty, she uses that word, ''a duty,'' to consult with plaintiffs pursuant to 25 U.S.C. Section 2719 B(1)a. She concludes, ''This is not my conclusion, it is the court's. The delay suggests that the Department did not contact plaintiffs because it was not interested in allowing plaintiffs to remedy the problems.''
Later on, she contrasts that with another application in a different case, the Mashantucket Pequot decision, which she believes at the bottom of page 8 of her decision is relevant to plaintiff's attempt, in this case, to show political impropriety. She says that in that case, the Pequot tribe case, the Department, that is the Department of the Interior, approved the tribe's application even though there was strong local opposition because the tribe had made a good faith effort to address those concerns.
Thus, she says, local opposition is not always fatal to an application like plaintiff's. She finds that the Department's willingness in the subsequent decision, that is May 1996, to approve an application that evokes strong local opposition when it found that such opposition was fatal to plaintiff's application in this case, she found that to be in her words, ''disconcerting.''
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She also, at great length, and I would again direct your attention, I know you are familiar with these letters, the meetings reflected in letters and memos with Don Fowler, the Democratic National Committee chairman, meetings with Harold Ickes, in 1995, exhibits we have already seen, exhibit No.s 310, 311–1, which clearly raised the possibility that political influence did come to bear in this case.
So I think the judge, certainly not in anticipation of these hearings, but consistent with these hearings, has raised in her mind through the extensive evidence that she has reviewed the very same questions, the very same concerns and come to the very same conclusion that this does not pass the smell test, and I would again respectfully urge careful study of the judge's ruling. I thank the Chair.
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, could I respond to that?
Mr. BARR. I certainly have no problem with that. I am at the chairman's discretion on the timing.
Secretary BABBITT. I am inclined to go through that point by point, but perhaps what I can do——
Mr. BURTON. Pardon me. Of course you can respond, Mr. Secretary. We will give you all the time you need.
Secretary BABBITT. Thank you. Once again, the judge's ruling, as I understand it, is on a motion to expand discovery beyond the written record, and that, in fact, involves a fairly low threshold in which she is viewing the allegations as she says in the plaintiff's——
Mr. BARR. We would agree it is a fairly high burden on those seeking to get extensive discovery.
Secretary BABBITT. I would actually disagree.
Mr. BARR. OK. You and I have a different reading of the rules of civil procedure.
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Secretary BABBITT. The rules of discovery of beyond a written record is hardly an unusual thing to do. Of course, this is precisely what has happened here in this committee and it is precisely what happened in the Thompson committee. You have had the occasion to make a record of testimony that has nowhere appeared in her court.
Now, let me just give you one or two examples. The opinion talks about the delay in contacting plaintiffs. George Skibine was questioned about that and he testified in very clear and convincing fashion as to what that was all about. The Crabb opinion deals with the issue of a Hartman memorandum. That issue has scarcely been mentioned today and the reason is that after weeks of bandying about conspiracies over the Hartman memo, Skibine and Hartman sat side by side and explained what that was about.
It didn't keep a couple people here today from once again mischaracterizing it, but the issue has been absolutely, unequivocally laid to rest. Judge Crabb, on the basis of the plaintiff's allegations, raises the issue of Ada Deer's disqualification. That was an earlier conspiracy theory being peddled by the Thompson committee. Ada Deer has testified clearly and unequivocally about her recusal.
Now, in aid of this committee, you have at least dropped that one. I didn't have to deal with that one today.
Now, last, a word about the Pequot allegation. The fact is, that the Mashantucket Pequot trust issue did not even involve the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. It didn't even apply. It was a piece of land adjacent to the reservation, taken into trust for a parking lot.
Well, enough. I just suggest that this committee ought to pay more attention not to what's being alleged in preliminary discovery in a Federal court, but what has been laid out here in extenso for the last 4 days.
Mr. BARR. I am paying attention to the words of the U.S. District Court judge, Mr. Secretary, and I would also note for the record that one piece of evidence that she did not have before her was your subsequent testimony and explanations and Mr. Eckstein's.
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Mr. BURTON. Mr. Barr, your time has expired.
Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for spending the time that you have spent today in answering so candidly the many questions put before you. I might just add as a little followup on the most recent conversation that having spent 20 years as a trial lawyer that I would agree that your perception that the judge is at a very threshold stage of discovery and with our expanded discovery today do not have much of a burden to put that matter on further fact-finding and in essence, after having listened to much over the last 4 days as the facts develop, I don't think that these hearings are necessarily bent about putting matters to rest.
You are, Mr. Secretary, by now familiar with the fact that Heather Sibbison, a staff member of Interior, was the person who would have had contact, if any, with the White House.
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. TIERNEY. And what level of a staff person is Ms. Sibbison?
Secretary BABBITT. She was hired as an assistant to John Duffy.
Mr. TIERNEY. Do you now know that she was questioned under oath at a deposition some time ago?
Secretary BABBITT. I have read her deposition.
Mr. TIERNEY. Then have you read the part where Ms. Sibbison was asked, and I quote, ''You testified earlier about a conversation or two that you had with Jennifer O'Connor at the White House.'' And Jennifer O'Connor, of course, was an aide to Harold Ickes, as I understand it.
''Is it your recollection that she was merely making a status inquiry into the application?'' Ms. Sibbison answered: ''That was my understanding, yes.'' Question: ''And it wasn't that the White House was giving its opinion on the application?'' Her answer was, that is ''Correct.'' The question was, or ''Dictating an outcome?'' Ms. Sibbison's answer was, ''She expressed no opinion as to the outcome or made no request regarding the outcome.'' The question: ''Did the White House dictate a date the decision had to be made by?'' Ms. Sibbison's answer was, ''Absolutely not. The date had absolutely nothing to do with the White House.''
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Now, I just made those quotes, Mr. Secretary, because I understand Ms. Sibbison has not and probably will not be called before this committee as a witness, and so I use that as somewhat of a basis of my comment that I think this hearing has been far from putting things to rest.
Is that your understanding of the colloquy that went between the questioner on the staff and Ms. Sibbison?
Secretary BABBITT. That is my understanding, but there are two parties who could shed light on that. Jennifer O'Connor and Heather Sibbison.
Mr. TIERNEY. And neither of them have been called by this committee; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. TIERNEY. To your knowledge, would that have been the only contact on this matter between your Department at any level and the White House at any level?
Secretary BABBITT. I believe that the contacts discussed in the Sibbison deposition are, to my knowledge, to my knowledge throughout this entire proceeding, record, and my recollection, the only contacts with anyone from the White House.
Mr. TIERNEY. Well, if you will suffer a couple of comments, Mr. Secretary, it has long been my opinion that the American people really want this committee to spend its time looking into campaign finance reform, because it is not just soft money, but hard money and the perception of all of the impact that that may have on our political system is a cause of great concern to the American people. But instead, we choose to spend our time in other ways. We don't look into the tobacco issue. We do look into situations where it's a stretch as long as there are Democrats that might be involved. It seems to have come down to a question of credibility, so if I could close my time, Mr. Secretary, just by asking you for a little bit of your background, sir. How long have you been in public service?
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Secretary BABBITT. For approximately 23 years.
Mr. TIERNEY. And at what level did you first begin as a public servant?
Secretary BABBITT. I was elected Attorney General of Arizona.
Mr. TIERNEY. How many years did you hold that position?
Secretary BABBITT. For about, it was about 3 years.
Mr. TIERNEY. And what happened after that?
Secretary BABBITT. My—the Governor was appointed to become the Ambassador of Argentina. The Lieutenant Governor died of a heart attack in the middle of the night and I was next. So I became Governor.
Mr. TIERNEY. And how long did you serve as Governor?
Secretary BABBITT. For about 9 years.
Mr. TIERNEY. How many terms was that?
Secretary BABBITT. Two plus.
Mr. TIERNEY. And after were you Governor, sir?
Secretary BABBITT. I ran in the Democratic primaries in 1987 and 1988.
Mr. TIERNEY. For?
Secretary BABBITT. President.
Mr. TIERNEY. And after that?
Secretary BABBITT. I went home.
Mr. TIERNEY. And now you have recently been serving in the Interior; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. TIERNEY. During any of those times that you held office and had to campaign with that office, did you obviously have to get involved with raising funds for your campaign?
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Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. TIERNEY. At any time that you held any of those public offices, did you ever make a decision with regard to policy based on any matter having to do with contributions made to your campaign during the elections?
Secretary BABBITT. Not to my recollection, no.
Mr. TIERNEY. And sir, with regard to the matter that is before the committee these past 4 days, in any way, did any action that you took with regard to this casino issue have to do with contributions made to any individual of the Democratic party?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not participate in the decision, and I was not involved in any way in raising funds.
Mr. TIERNEY. In fact, somebody else wrote that decision for you, is that correct, for the Department?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, yes. I think the record shows that the decision, as signed by Michael Anderson, was drafted by George Skibine and then reworked, as I understand the record, edited and reworked by John Duffy and various other people who were in the process to work—and Michael Anderson, for that matter.
Mr. TIERNEY. So if you were going to have any undue influence on the results of those people's work, you would have had to go to each of them to get them to do something that they might not otherwise be inclined to do, and then, of course, they have all testified before this committee and we would have heard about it; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Secretary, I thank you for your time here today and for your service to the country.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Barr.
Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Just very briefly, to conclude and finish up the thought in going through the court's opinion, the date of the court's opinion is March 19, 1997, and the date of Mr. Eckstein's deposition is September 30, 1997, so the court obviously did not have before it Mr. Eckstein's deposition, including his references, and we have already discussed today, found on page 53 of his deposition, that, ''the Secretary said at some point when we were standing up, asked me rhetorically, Do you know how much, I believe it was these tribes, had contributed to either the Democratic party or Democratic candidates or the DNC? I said, I don't have the slightest idea, and he responded by saying, well, it's on the order of half a million dollars, something like that.''
I suspect that particularly that that portion of the court's opinion at page 8 where she discusses Mr. Eckstein and the inferences and the evidence that suspect her to believe political foul play would probably not be weakened had this deposition been available to her. It may have been made available since then, I am not sure. But my only point is that this opinion, based on extensive, though obviously incomplete, since we have additional evidence since the date of this opinion, reaches some very disturbing and I think very credible conclusions.
I would yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hastert.
Mr. HASTERT. Well, the gentleman is from Illinois, but I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia yielding me time.
Just two very brief points that I want to make. We talked about the local interest and why people were for or against and whether there were 69 people for it or 72 people against, pretty close. And the city council voted for it and then against it, but the issue was that there is a whole procedure that they followed according to section 20. And they were following section 20, and that was saying approved, approved, approved, approved, approved, and all of a sudden, Mr. Skibine became the administrator in this situation, and all of a sudden he got a message some place, because he even said it was approved once and then reached back into another whole section to actually say that this thing is not approved. So there is a real change in course, and I would question that.
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The second thing I wanted to ask——
Mr. LESHY. Could I ask a question? Is this an exhibit?
Mr. BURTON. You cannot ask a question.
Mr. LESHY. Is this an exhibit?
Mr. BURTON. You cannot ask a question.
Mr. LESHY. Can the witness refer to what's on the screen?
Mr. HASTERT. Well, I would refer to basically the exhibit C–104, if you wish to know.
[Exhibit C–104 follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 483 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. LESHY. Do we have that?
Mr. BURTON. You have that.
Mr. HASTERT. I would like to continue on with basically one other question.
Mr. Secretary, the gentleman from Georgia talked about this discussion, I talked about the discussion that Mr. Eckstein had, the testimony that he gave before Mr. Thompson, which basically said that you thought that the Indians gave within the range of a half a million dollars and that was important.
Do you want me to reread it? You know what we are talking about. You don't want me to reread that; do you? I don't need to reread that?
The basis of the question is, we said maybe we got caught up in white lies today, the other side mentioned that several times, and you said, well, maybe that happened.
If the fact that it was truthful testimony by Mr. Eckstein, how did you know it was a half a million dollars? Somebody had to tell you.
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Secretary BABBITT. Well——
Mr. HASTERT. I know you didn't remember that.
Secretary BABBITT. I have testified that I have no recollection of that discussion.
Mr. HASTERT. But don't you think it is an uncanny coincidence? How would he have known if somebody like you hadn't told him?
Secretary BABBITT. I am sorry, I don't understand the question.
Mr. HASTERT. Well, I think the question stands for itself. I understand why you don't understand the question, and I yield back.
Mr. BARR. Thank you.
For the record, since we have indicated the various background of various individuals to whom we have been referring, I would like for the record to note that Mr. Eckstein, who gave a sworn deposition, including portions of that I read just a few moments ago under oath is, according to his bio, a lifelong registered Democrat, one of those bioed in the Best Lawyers in America Reference Book, Harvard Law School, 1965. He was a co-prosecutor for former Arizona Governor, Evan Mecham in the impeachment. He is a managing partner of a major Phoenix law firm and has a very, very extensive and very distinguished career, as has the Secretary. So I would like to, since we have referred to statements that he has made under oath and used his name today, I want the record to reflect the man's distinguished background so that there is no inference that because nobody has referred to his distinguished background, his testimony under oath would be suspect.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. You had an additional 30 seconds because of counsel's interruption.
Mr. BARR. I yield that to the gentleman from California, Mr. Horn.
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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, your counsel, to be charitable about it, misrepresented the record in terms of that document when he said it was referred to the court. We got the document finally and what is in the court's binder is not that document. Here is the difference: 797 cards, letters and petition signatures are on that computerized document to which your counsel, the Solicitor of Interior, I think, referred, and we have in the original document, which is not in the court record, 1,413 petition signatures. In other words, counsel is saying it was all the same and it is just some were typed and Xeroxed and what not and some were in hand, and that means 616 people were left out. And I don't particularly appreciate that misrepresentation and I would like, Mr. Chairman, if I might, unanimous consent that this part of the record go right after the incident that I recall when the lawyer advised the cabinet officer and misrepresented it.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. LESHY. I am told by staff that Mr. Hartman, who had the handwritten signatures converted to type script, eliminated duplicate signatures so that these 716 or however many there were taken out were actually in there twice.
Mr. BURTON. Counsel, I don't know if you understand what I said a while ago, but I want to refresh your memory. If Mr. Babbitt wants to respond, that is fine, and you are at liberty to tell Mr. Babbitt and Mr. Babbitt can respond to the committee. You are not a sworn witness, so if you have something to say I hope you will say it through your client.
Mr. WAXMAN. Reserving the right to object to the unanimous consent request.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. WAXMAN. Was the request that we place some document in a particular place in the record? Is that what you suggested?
Mr. HORN. No. I just simply want this addition that it was misrepresentation put after the incident when we were exchanging comments.
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Mr. WAXMAN. You want to put something in the record that there was misrepresentation?
Mr. HORN. I am talking about the fact that the counsel misrepresented the document, and said, oh, we have everything in the record. Well, they don't have everything in the record. They need the original document in the record and that is all we are asking.
Mr. WAXMAN. I don't understand what your unanimous consent is. To what?
Mr. BURTON. He is asking——
Mr. HORN. This section of the record, including your remarks right now, and put it back where the issue came up.
Mr. SOUDER. Reserving the right to object——
Mr. WAXMAN. I am still recognized on my reservation.
Mr. SOUDER. I mean if you are going to object, I would like to make a statement.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman from California has a reservation.
Mr. WAXMAN. I am trying to understand what the request is. You want to put some document in the record, but you have claimed it provides evidence in some way that there is a misrepresentation by counsel, that is your conclusion, but then if we are going to say that, then we ought to have the opportunity for counsel to insert some statement in the record in response to it, since he is being denied the opportunity here. Would the gentleman agree to that?
Mr. HORN. No. Counsel did respond to it, claiming that they had dropped duplicates, and all I am saying is that was not the original discussion. The original discussion was, everything is there but some of it is typed up.
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Mr. BURTON. Well, if the gentleman would suspend, let me just say I think we can resolve this by saying that I think this part of the record will reflect the discussion and the entire document will be placed in the record at this point. Obviously, we would like to have it in earlier, but if Mr. Waxman objects, it will be put into the record anyhow.
Do you object? If not, it will be in the record at this point.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, it doesn't make much difference whether I object or not, it looks like. I am going to object to the unanimous consent request. If you want to put something in the record, go ahead and see if you can do it, if you think it fits in the record, but it seems to me that we ought to be fair. If we are going to put something in the record with accusations, we ought to be able to let somebody respond in the record to give their point of view. And I don't know why the gentleman from California would be unwilling to go along with that. He can put his point of view in there and the document and then let the counsel put a statement in there.
Mr. HORN. Right. And that discussion we are just having now would simply be moved several paragraphs back and put with the other discussion. But it doesn't matter to me, if you want to just leave it here. It is just that people could read that part of the record and think that that is the end of it, and what I am saying is, I would like a complete part of the record where it is all together.
Mr. WAXMAN. I object.
Mr. BURTON. It will be entered into the record at this point, then.
The gentleman's time has expired. Who is next on your side? Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have been back and forth between this committee and another one where we are looking at tobacco policy. You said the Commerce Committee was looking at campaign finance investigations, of course they are not, and I have been very involved in that issue, so I am going to have to be over there a good part of the time. So I want to make some concluding statements of my own on this whole investigation.
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Recently the New Republic magazine analyzed the culture of investigation. Their story, entitled, ''Prosecutorial Indiscretion and the Criminalization of Politics,'' they made the obvious point, we should expose corruption and wrongdoing, and we all agree with that, but the article's main point is that we have a criminalization of our politics and Government. We now focus on the insignificant and not real corruption.
I think Justice Scalia, and I think I am fair in recalling his statement on the issue of an independent counsel, he argued that we used to have crimes and then we would try to find out who committed them. Now we have individuals and we try to find out if they committed a crime.
I think it is absolutely clear to me that there was extensive lobby on this issue of this Hudson Dog Track being turned into a casino, and it is clear to me that this is true on almost every issue we have in Washington where there is debate in the Congress, debate in the Department of Interior, or anywhere elsewhere the decision is going to be made. But the key point, however, is that political contributions did not influence the Hudson Casino decision. That decision was made on the merits, and political pressure did not affect the decisionmaking process or those who actually made the decision. I think that is absolutely key and we should not lose sight of it.
We have one other peculiar factor in this case, and that is the meeting Secretary Babbitt had with Mr. Eckstein, and Secretary Babbitt clearly could have, and I think should have, handled this meeting in a better way. He is embarrassed about it, and I think appropriately. But we ought not to be appointing independent counsel for clumsy behavior. We shouldn't be holding meetings of Congress, four meetings of Congress on something that didn't amount to anything. I think that Mr. Babbitt has had to own up to his embarrassment in this situation, and I think that is the price you have to make sometimes for things you did that you in retrospect might have handled differently. But it would be a travesty if we had an independent counsel in this matter as some people have suggested. It seems to me that there is no grounds for an independent counsel, but a lot of people now want independent counsels for everything, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, and it seems that it would be more appropriate punishment, which has already been exacted, that Mr. Babbitt as Secretary of the Interior have to participate in this hearing, as he did in the Senate hearing, as he may have to in the Natural Resources Committee hearing, and have to answer over and over and over again about how he handled that statement to Mr. Eckstein. That is an appropriate penalty for clumsiness. But I don't think clumsiness is the same thing as doing anything criminal.
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I wanted to make those points. I want to make them very clearly. I think we have a lot of questions right now about what independent counsels ought to be doing, when they are appropriate, when they are not. In my view, it would be absolutely a travesty to have one under this situation. Nothing criminal has been—not even credible evidence has been established, in my opinion.
I yield to Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Secretary, are you clairvoyant?
Secretary BABBITT. No.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, it seems that your former law partner and law school buddy thought you were clairvoyant, because in July 1995, when he had that meeting in your office, he claims that you rhetorically asked the question, Do you have any idea what these tribes contribute to the Democrats? And then he recalls that you said, $500,000. That is very interesting, because you had to be clairvoyant for almost a year to a year-and-a-half under the majority Member's memo of contribution of these Indian tribes to the Democratic National Committee. The overwhelming amount of the $350,000 was made more than 15 months after that meeting.
Now, Mr. Eckstein either is exceptionally clairvoyant or you are clairvoyant, or Mr. Eckstein is recalling information 2 years after his statement was made based on relatively recent information that he could have put together through the FEC records, because no contributions, other than a very small, minimal amount of several hundred dollars had been made by these tribes to any Democrat in that cycle prior to the meeting held in your office.
Secretary BABBITT. No. I simply do not recollect this discussion which has now been alleged, brought forward more than 2 years later. I have listened very carefully to the allegation. I'm still not certain. Because as I was listening once again to the deposition, it seems to me he was not clear in his rendition what tribes. And I think his rendition was in the past tense. But I would have to go back to the deposition to hear that.
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Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired. I'll take my time now.
I'm going to give you my summary of this the way I view it. Mr. Eckstein testified under oath that Secretary Babbitt told him that Harold Ickes wanted the decision made without delay. Mr. Eckstein also testified that Secretary Babbitt asked him if he knew how much money the Indian tribes had donated to the DNC and told him it was about a half-a-million dollars.
Now, on July 13, a law partner, Mr. Schneider of O'Connor and Hannan, who was a lobbyist for the majority tribes that won, including the Shakopees and others, raised $420,000. It wasn't 2 years later. It was within a short period of time of that; $420,000. Mr. Eckstein has never wavered from his account of the events. Mr. Babbitt at first said that neither accusation was true. He said flat out it wasn't true at first. A year later he changed his story.
Secretary BABBITT. I disagree with that characterization. Let me just register my disagreement with that characterization.
Mr. BURTON. Put the time back on the clock. This is not a question, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Eckstein has never wavered from his account of the events. Mr. Babbitt at first said, according to Mr. Eckstein, that neither accusation was true.
A year later, he changed his story. He said that he did invoke Harold Ickes' name, but that he wasn't telling the truth. But he doesn't recall the comment about the half-a-million dollars. He recalls half of his statement.
On the day that the rejection was issued, the lead lobbyist for the wealthy opposing tribes noted in his billing records that he needed to get together with Harold Ickes at the White House to discuss fund-raising strategies the day that the rejection was issued.
Over the next 18 months, in addition to the $420,000 that Mr. Schneider raised, the seven wealthy tribes that opposed the casino at Hudson contributed over $350,000 to the DNC. There was a great deal of evidence to suggest that Harold Ickes did have an interest in the matter which lent credibility to Mr. Eckstein's statement.
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Mr. Ickes' assistant called Mr. Babbitt's assistant three times to get information about this application. Mr. Ickes was lobbied twice about the dog track by Tom Schneider, a close friend of the President's and a major Democrat fund-raiser. Mr. Ickes told Mr. Schneider he would followup on it.
On May 17, the applicant tribes met with Interior Department staff and were not informed of any problems with the application. That night a group of staff had a private meeting and decided that the application would not be approved. The next day, Mr. Ickes got a memo from his assistant informing him that Interior was virtually certain to reject the application. This was 2 months before the decision was issued.
Mr. Ickes was clearly being kept informed as the process moved forward. Why? If Mr. Ickes wasn't in the loop, why was he asking for information about this? Mr. Babbitt said he told Mr. Eckstein or Mr. Eckstein said Babbitt told him that it was because Ickes was interested. Mr. Babbitt said that that was a made-up story.
Nevertheless, Mr. Ickes did get a memo 2 months before the decision was made public in April 1995. Patrick O'Connor, the lead lobbyist for the wealthy tribes, personally lobbied the President on the dog track issue in Minneapolis. Bruce Lindsey, one of the President's most trusted advisers called from Air Force One to a White House staffer and told him to return O'Connor's calls.
The White House staffer wrote a very strong memo stating that this was very risky and political poison. Patrick O'Connor and his partner, Tom Schneider, lobbied the President, Ickes, Don Fowler of the DNC, Terry McAuliffe, the chief fund-raiser for the Clinton/Gore campaign, the Minnesota delegation and Vice President Gore's most trusted advisers.
Mr. O'Connor and Larry Kitto sent a letter out and I will quote from the letter. ''As witnessed in the fight to stop the Hudson Dog Track proposal, the Office of the President can and will work on our behalf when asked to do so.'' This was a fund-raising letter for both the President and the Vice President asking for $1,000 from individuals in the tribes.
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The Justice Department lawyer, who was representing the Interior Department in the civil suit, wrote in a memo that he had reviewed the entire administrative record. The Department had not followed its own procedure or law and he recommended that they settle the lawsuit. The Interior Department never consulted with the applicant tribes to give them a chance to correct any flaws in their application, and that is required by law and they didn't do it.
The Department extended the comment period on the application for 2 months and kept it a secret from the applicant tribes. The Federal judge overseeing the civil suit ruled that there was considerable evidence of improper political interference. We have received eight sworn affidavits attesting that George Skibine, the career employee in charge of the Indian Gaming Staff, met with a group of supporters of the casino in Wisconsin in 1996, and told them that the career staff wanted to approve the application, but when it got to the political appointees, they rejected it. You said it differently here, but this was sworn by eight people.
Two of Secretary Babbitt's senior staffers, Tom Collier, his chief of staff, and his counsel, John Duffy, left the Department and got lucrative positions at his former law firm, one of whom was there before, representing the wealthiest of the tribes, the Shakopees, that benefited from the decision to reject the casino.
John Duffy was one of the key decisionmakers, as the evidence clearly shows. Five times career Interior Department staff wrote lengthy detailed reports stating there was no evidence of detriment to the local community. Yet Michael Anderson, the political appointee who signed the rejecting letter cited detriments to the local community, and we, I think, have proved here that wasn't the case.
When Skibine was deposed, he conceded there was no evidence of concrete detriment to the local community and that the application could not be rejected based on the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The dog track was already there. There was already a gambling facility there. It had already been approved by the local community. It had passed environmental muster. Yet, they said that it was going to be a detriment to the community even though the Indian tribes had made a deal with the community to give them $1.1 million to take care of the infrastructure problems.
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Last week, Fred Havenick testified that Terry McAuliffe, the top Clinton/Gore finance person told him, inadvertently, I might add, that he had killed the deal while Mr. McAuliffe had apparently denied Mr. Havenick's representations, Mr. O'Connor did testify to discussing fund-raising with Mr. McAuliffe and O'Connor's billing records reflect discussions of fund-raising strategies with Ickes, Fowler and McAuliffe on the day that the application was rejected.
No evidence; all circumstantial. In a May 25, 1995, memo, a lobbyist for the opposing tribes wrote that the career people, including Michael Anderson, with whom he met on May 22, wanted to, quote, ''Keep the issue on the merits, but things might change when the politicians like Babbitt and Duffy become involved. But without the law on their side, it will be difficult to kill the deal.'' That is a statement from a lobbyist trying to kill the deal himself, who met with Michael Anderson, who eventually signed the letter. Even the lobbyist opposing this deal didn't think the law was on his side.
This is just some of the information. And so I hope that there is an independent counsel that looks into this. Now, you talk about criminal activity. Maybe there is no criminal activity. But the appointment of an independent counsel is not just to prove criminal activity. It is to investigate alleged criminal activities. We have enough evidence, I think, here in these hearings to prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that there ought to be somebody to investigate this very thoroughly. We cannot indict anybody in this body. All we can do is expose the information to the American people. That is what we are trying to do. But the independent counsel or the Justice Department needs to look into this to see if there was criminal activity because a poor Indian tribe was hurt, while a large and wealthy Indian tribe was not hurt.
Just a second, I'll finish. I'll give you extra time. If there was a miscarriage of justice it needs to be corrected and those who broke the law, if there was a law broken, need to be held accountable. This is a Nation of laws and not of men. I know that people who come before this body have said time and again, we didn't do anything wrong, but there certainly are enough questions here that the American people ought to demand a thorough investigation by the Justice Department or an independent counsel.
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Who's next on your side? Mrs. Maloney.
Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, you've just repeated at great length the very same things you said at the very beginning of this hearing. All I can say is that if you are bound on a conspiracy and oblivious to the facts, I hardly know where to begin. But the record of this proceeding is absolutely at variance with the allegations you just made.
Mr. BURTON. We will see.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, that was a fine statement you made. Yet, the evidence that we gathered in the past 4 days of hearings contradicts practically everything you said, the evidence that is on the record here that was gathered by this committee's hearings. I just want to put in the record the majority Member's memo on, ''contributions'' and add my voice to Mr. Kanjorski's at the meeting with Mr. Eckstein, all of these contributions came in afterwards. How did he know that this was going to happen? Was he a clairvoyant, as he said?
I would like to raise a particular person's name who has been raised many times today, and I raise it because he happens to be a former constituent from the district that I am honored to represent, and that is Mr. Harold Ickes. I just want to make it very crystal clear, Mr. Secretary, and I want to ask you one last time, you have answered many times, but I want to be very clear. Harold Ickes never contacted you either directly or indirectly, personally or through staff on the Hudson Casino matter; is that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mrs. MALONEY. Second, and neither he nor anyone else in the White House gave you instructions on the timing or substance of the Hudson Casino matter.
Secretary BABBITT. That is correct.
Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to go back to a point that some of my Republican colleagues have raised over and over and over again today, the Republicans have tried to make the case that the lower level career employees thought there wasn't enough proof, that the project would be detrimental to the community to rely on section 20. But with the political community, the business leaders expressing the belief that the project will be detrimental to their community, isn't there a strong presumption that it would, indeed, be detrimental, Mr. Secretary?
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Secretary BABBITT. Well, I believe the record shows that detriment within the meaning of section 20 and to the extent that is applied to the Indian Reorganization Act is a great deal more than simply a calculator analysis of economic detriment. I believe that that's at the center of the discussion that clearly went along in May and June in this process, is attempting to reach a consensus about the meaning of detriment.
My view of this was, is and will continue to be that detriment is measured in terms of economic loss, in terms of perceptions about traffic, the nature of the community, quality of life and all of the other issues that were uppermost in the minds of the local leaders when they opposed it.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Secretary, the point that I pose is one of the most important, is the fact that the elected representatives on all levels of government, city, State and Federal, the entire Wisconsin delegation, Republican and Democratic, the Minnesota delegation, opposed the project.
Now, I would never venture to speak for another Member of Congress or for the Wisconsin or Minnesota delegation. But I can speak for the New York delegation. I can tell you that if the Department of Interior had overruled a unanimous bipartisan position of the New York delegation, you would have never heard the end of it. We would have had you and the President down in our communities in New York State reviewing and talking to the people, explaining why some bureaucrat overruled their opinion. To me, that is very important. People represent a point of view. They represent people. These people were saying they didn't want it. So I ask, Mr. Chairman, what is the fuss about? What is the fuss about? We had a project that everyone was uniformly opposed to, except for a tribe that was 185 miles away that was partnered with a casino developer from Florida. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about every level of government, environmental problems, all kinds of problems.
I can tell you, Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, if your agency had ruled against the express opinion of the New York delegation, we would have taken the issue to the floor of Congress. And I believe that our brothers and sisters in Congress, both Democratic and Republican, would have joined with us in a vote to protect the interest and the opinion of the people that are affected, the people from the district where the casino was proposed. I must tell you, this is very personally important to me, because I confront the same situation now in my own district.
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Someone is trying to bring in gambling, into my district, and my constituents uniformly are telling me they don't want it. I feel when we have a democracy, the people spoke through their mayor, through their Governor, through their city council, through their State representatives, through their Members of Congress, they said please don't do it to us. We don't want it. You did what the people said. I can't imagine how you could come up with another opinion.
Mr. Chairman, I do not understand what the fuss is about. He listened to the delegation. I can tell you that if he hadn't listened to the delegation, it would have gone to the floor of Congress and we would have reversed it on a vote on the floor of Congress. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. I have a few more questions. I have a lot more I would like to get off my chest on this, particularly since I am confronting the same problem right now as we speak back in my district in New York.
Mr. SOUDER [presiding]. The time has long past expired, but we may have a second round. We are still working that out. I am going to do my 5 minutes because I haven't had a chance to do mine yet. I would like first on the screen, one of the things we have heard steadily today on the access of influence on the Hudson decision is that the poor Indian tribes had this tremendous lobbying power. I want to make it clear that it was not an equal balance, that both sides, at least the applicants, had some access and quite a bit early on with the Interior staff. They did have a basic ''you-didn't-make-it'' meeting with Secretary Babbitt, and a meeting at that point with John Duffy. But when you look at the list of who the opponents contacted, it is not a balanced list and it was not a balanced lobbying effort.
What my understanding is, Mr. Secretary, is that you are saying that the contacts that are political, that the opponents made, you did not respond to and you don't know anybody in your Department who responded to those contacts; is that correct?
[The chart referred to follows:]
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INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 484 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Secretary BABBITT. I think we have to be careful about political. For example, there was a meeting with the Minnesota delegation. The letter is clearly political. They are Congressmen.
Mr. SOUDER. The names I have on there are all White House and Democratic National Committee. I'm not talking about the Congressmen. My understanding of your testimony today has been that you did not deal with any of these people, and these people did not influence your decision directly, correct?
Secretary BABBITT. This lobbying was going on outside the process.
Mr. SOUDER. Prior to Hudson, did the White House ever comment to you or anyone in your Department on another gambling decision that was pending in your Department?
Mr. BABBITT. Well, no one here commented to me on this decision.
Mr. SOUDER. On any other Indian gambling decision, did anybody at the White House comment to you in advance of a decision?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't recall. I'd have to go back and check, but I do not recall any such comment.
Mr. SOUDER. So you will not say categorically that you have never been influenced or the White House has never attempted to contact you prior to——
Secretary BABBITT. There may well have been status checks.
Mr. SOUDER. Let me make it more specific.
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Secretary BABBITT. Beyond status checks, I'm quite confident that there have not been any other contacts on any gaming issues. Status checks, I'd have to check.
Mr. SOUDER. You have never made an off-reservation gaming decision based on direction from the White House?
Secretary BABBITT. That is absolutely the case. I have never—this Department has never made an off-reservation decision that was to my knowledge influenced in any way by what was going on outside the process at the White House or anywhere else.
Mr. SOUDER. In any way includes timing. You've never made an Indian gambling decision based on timing besides Hudson?
Secretary BABBITT. Not that I'm aware of.
Mr. SOUDER. If I could have on the screen——
Mr. KANJORSKI. Will the gentleman yield one moment?
Mr. SOUDER. Yes.
Mr. KANJORSKI. In regard to the description on the screen.
Mr. SOUDER. As long as it doesn't count on my time.
Mr. KANJORSKI. We can agree it won't.
Is that an exhibit that somebody prepared by outside knowledge and some factual information or is this your exhibit?
Mr. SOUDER. I asked it to be developed of what contacts have come up during the hearing.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Right. I'm reading opponents and applicants, and I see Terry McAuliffe is listed on the opponents. To my best recollection, Mr. Havenick brought his name in; that he talked to him at a fund-raiser in Florida, at Mr. Berlin's fund-raiser. So why isn't he on the applicants side?
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Mr. SOUDER. Because Mr. McAuliffe had inside information that the decision was turned down, and he talked to Mr. Havenick because he thought that he would be pleased that——
Mr. KANJORSKI. I thought this said access and influence. The access here was by the dog track owner to McAuliffe——
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. McAuliffe told a piece of false information to Mr. Havenick, information that could have only come from Patrick O'Connor, which meant that McAuliffe was talking with O'Connor. It is impossible that the opponents weren't trying to influence Terry McAuliffe, who only had factual misinformation. I claim back my time. I understand what you are trying to say, but I did have a reason for doing that.
Mr. KANJORSKI. I just wanted to put the point that Mr. McAuliffe in the newspaper has disclaimed ever having had this discussion with Mr. Havenick. So that we're going to be allowed to put any imaginary list, names or people here to suggest access.
Mr. SOUDER. I would suggest we had several situations that showed that Terry McAuliffe at least had information if not direct influence. But I just wanted to make the point it hasn't been balanced. I wanted to look at exhibit 296–A–6.
Mr. Secretary, did you know lobbyist Patrick O'Connor who testified before us yesterday?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. SOUDER. You're aware that he was involved in fund-raising for your 1988 Presidential campaign?
Secretary BABBITT. My recollection is that Patrick O'Connor was probably asked to help qualify us in Minnesota. I'm not aware of whether or to what extent he did. But I suspect he was asked to qualify us in Minnesota.
Mr. SOUDER. By qualifying, you mean getting the Federal matching funds, which is fund-raising; is that correct?
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Secretary BABBITT. Right.
Mr. SOUDER. Do you recall any contacts that Mr. O'Connor had with you or your staff on this Hudson Casino?
Secretary BABBITT. Do I recall any contact with——
Mr. SOUDER. Do you know of any?
Secretary BABBITT. With Pat O'Connor in the Hudson thing? I have had no contact with Patrick O'Connor in the course of the Hudson issue.
Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.
I wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding the July 14 meeting you had with Mr. Eckstein. Do you recall discussing the meeting with anyone at that time?
Secretary BABBITT. I do not.
Mr. SOUDER. What about after?
Secretary BABBITT. I do not.
Mr. SOUDER. With whom have you discussed the meeting to date? Did you tell Mr. Ickes that you raised his name at any point before it hit the media?
Secretary BABBITT. I did not.
Mr. SOUDER. Did you discuss it with White House Counsel prior to coming here today?
Secretary BABBITT. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question.
Mr. SOUDER. In trying to sort out with whom you have discussed this matter. Obviously, the whole world, you discussed it to some degree at the hearings, but I'm wondering who you may have had particular discussions with regarding the Eckstein meeting. Did you talk about it with White House Counsel? If so, when? Or Mr. Ickes, other political people at the White House?
Secretary BABBITT. I have discussed—I believe I probably discussed this with Erskine Bowles, the Chief of Staff.
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Mr. SOUDER. When would that have been?
Secretary BABBITT. Probably when these proceedings began this past fall.
Mr. SOUDER. Did you have any discussions before you knew there was going to be Senate and House hearings about the meeting?
Secretary BABBITT. No, I don't believe so.
Mr. SOUDER. Did you believe Mr. Eckstein would just kind of drop it? You didn't realize that by saying something that explosive, it would potentially ricochet around?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't recall any discussions prior to this past fall as these issues came up. The contribution issue, for example, never was raised publicly until this past fall.
Mr. SOUDER. Could you describe briefly what you might have discussed with Erskine Bowles, Mr. Bowles?
Secretary BABBITT. Sure. I discussed very briefly my—it was a discussion in response to what appeared in the newspaper. I discussed the issue very briefly. He asked me whether I had ever spoken to Ickes, and I said, no, I have not. That's the last discussion I've had.
Mr. SOUDER. Did you ever discuss the McCain letter or your testimony as you have clarified and to some degree changed through that process, did you discuss with White House Counsel or anybody in Political Affairs?
Secretary BABBITT. I have not discussed, apart from the one meeting with Erskine Bowles—I'm just trying—I'm slowing down because I think it was right on the front end of this, and I certainly—I must have discussed the McCain letter. This was—my response to Senator McCain I probably discussed with him. And he asked me whether or not I had spoken to Ickes, I said no, and that was it.
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Mr. SOUDER. Anybody else at the meeting?
Secretary BABBITT. I believe Mr. Ruff was at the meeting, White House Counsel.
Mr. SOUDER. And you are saying it was a short meeting? Was it like 5 minutes; 15 minutes?
Secretary BABBITT. Probably 5 minutes.
Mr. SOUDER. At the White House?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. SOUDER. I thank you for your testimony.
Do any other Members seek time? This would be the second round. Rather than saying we are having a second round, I just want to see if any other Members seek time. This would be in addition to your first 5 minutes. We have concluded the first round.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Babbitt, I know you ran for President, but my interest in you came when your name was mentioned for possible Supreme Court appointment, it was mentioned, and I know that in order for you to get to that point, I would have to agree with my Republican colleagues, Mr. Barr, who called you a very distinguished person, and Mr. Hastert, who went to great lengths to talk about your distinguished career. For you to get to that point, that means that you have had a lifetime of credibility, not only as a lawyer. We who have never been considered for the Supreme Court or even mentioned have to admire people like you.
I think one of the things that concerns me in this process, as I sat here and I listened to your testimony, it pains me that this process that we are going through, I hope that it does not taint your career for the rest of your life, because that is real. We have one life to live, and this is no dress rehearsal. This is life. It pains me to think that there is a possibility that that might be the case.
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But I want to go to what you did apparently do wrong, and I think Mr. Waxman was absolutely correct when he talked about no criminal activity here, but he talked about how you made, I think, a mistake, I really do. When Mr. Eckstein—and I understand that you all were buddies, is that right, good friends; am I right?
Secretary BABBITT. Certainly.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, you were friends.
Can I take you back just for a moment to that day, because I have a feeling in listening to all of this that you might not be here if it were not for that one meeting. You might not. Was that an appointment that you had with Mr. Eckstein that day?
Secretary BABBITT. No, it was not.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Can you tell us what happened? How did he get to your office that day?
Secretary BABBITT. Well, he had been meeting—he had come to meet with John Duffy and the staff to make one final plea for his client. Sometime after that, he simply called my secretary and asked to come and see me. It was just that simple.
Mr. CUMMINGS. So you—and I guess if you were to go back, I don't want Mr. Waxman to be the person who describes how you felt about that day, but I guess if you could relive that moment, you would do things a little bit differently, wouldn't you?
Secretary BABBITT. I think I would, yes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. I am reading this book right now, Mr. Secretary. It is by Carson, this fellow Carson. It is entitled, ''Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.'' One of the things that it says in that book is that it is very important to be able to admit your mistakes and to admit them and move on. The mistake that you made here does not call—and I agree with Mr. Waxman—does not call for an independent counsel. You were apparently trying to get a friend out of the office, trying to keep some distance in all of this decisionmaking process because your buddy was in the office.
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You know, it frightens me that in our Nation today there seems to be an effort at destroying people. That really does bother me. It really does. I am hoping that we can get beyond that, because I think you did make a mistake, I think you have admitted to that mistake, and I think you are sorry for the mistake you did make; am I right?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me go on to another thing that is very interesting. The other side seems to be concerned about you using the word ''conspiracy.'' But if you think about why we are here today, this seems to be what it is all about or we wouldn't be here. The thing that I guess bothers me is that we have to discount the testimony of the people who testified before us last week, career employees, in order for there to be a conspiracy.
You see, Mr. Secretary, there is a disconnect here. The disconnect comes where—we can look at all the circumstantial evidence we want to look at, but the disconnect comes when we have those folks like Mr. Skibine and the other ones that testified last week that clearly stated that they were insulted that anyone would even think and let alone say that they had been improperly influenced in this process. So we have to basically disregard all of their testimony and have to almost conclude that they are not telling the truth. And that bothers me, because I have—I practiced law for 20 years, and I sat here and I listened to them carefully, and I feel and I believe very strongly that they are good people, just as you are a great man.
I am just hoping that this process does not go to a point where an independent counsel is called for, because I think such a thing would be overshooting, and we would be going much too far. I think it is clear that, as Mrs. Maloney said, that if you had done anything else, you would have been in big trouble; big, big trouble. And so I want to thank you for your service. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Mr. BURTON [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Shadegg.
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Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I, too, want to thank you for your service. I suppose I want to begin this round of questioning by simply making it very clear for the record that your service as Governor of Arizona was a distinguished one, and that while we may have disagreed on many occasions on philosophical issues, your tenure was characterized by nothing but the highest of integrity and honesty. I believe that to be true of your entire public service career.
I want to turn to a small point first and hopefully clarify it. The decision in this case to deny trust status was not based on the fact that the Governor opposed trust status or opposed the gambling permit, was it?
Secretary BABBITT. The fact that the Governor opposed it, I think, was not a significant factor. I think we considered his opposition as equivalent to that of other elected officials.
Mr. SHADEGG. It is not cited in the letter?
Secretary BABBITT. That's correct. Because that really is step 2, and I don't think that it is particularly good decisionmaking to anticipate how the Governor might use his, shall we call it, veto power.
Mr. SHADEGG. In this case you really didn't get to step 2, you turned it down based, in the final version, on both IGRA and your own discretion, and those were the reasons you didn't get to the question of does the Governor oppose it or doesn't he, correct?
Secretary BABBITT. Except to the extent that he's an elected official voicing an opinion, but not in terms of his veto power, no.
Mr. SHADEGG. This decision was based on reasoning, right, not just the fact that the Governor opposed it; it was a reasoned decision, IGRA stops this, and in your opinion discretion also stops it, right?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
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Mr. SHADEGG. OK. My only point, it is a small one, and I would like to move on to some other comments, but earlier this morning you were asked about comments that this decision lacked reasoning and was only three pages long where earlier decisions had been 29 pages long. You cited Secretary Lujan's decision in a prior case, and your counsel pulled out of a notebook very quickly, literally ripped it out, a one-page decision dated January 23, 1992, by Secretary Lujan turning down a licensing request and said, well, here is an example of where it got turned down in one page.
I simply want to make the point, and your counsel has that letter, and you had it with you, this decision was based on one ground and one ground only. There is no reasoning. That ground is the Governor of the State opposed it. And IGRA specifically says that you may only grant it if the Governor agrees. And when the Governor doesn't agree, there is no reasoning, you must turn it down. So the two are quite different. One requires reasoning, one requires simply the fact that the Governor opposed it; isn't that correct?
Secretary BABBITT. No, I don't think this was ever sent to the Governor for concurrence.
Mr. SHADEGG. I will read you a sentence from the letter.
Secretary BABBITT. The Governor of Iowa has stated there is strong opposition, yes.
Mr. SHADEGG. Let me just read you the sentence out of the letter. In addition—this is the third paragraph of the letter, last sentence: ''In addition, the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act requires the concurrence of the Governor of Iowa for any such acquisition, and, as already noted, the Governor opposes the acquisition.''
I think that ends the inquiry. So I don't think the two are comparable. Having just made that point, I think one is reasoning, one is just a fact?
Secretary BABBITT. I would make this point in response. He points out in paragraph 2, it says, the affected communities have stated their strong opposition to the project.
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Mr. SHADEGG. But we really didn't base it on that. Here he says——
Secretary BABBITT. I believe he did.
Mr. SHADEGG. No, he says—the law says if the Governor opposes it, then we can't grant it, and that's the reason he gives. There is no reasoning involved.
Secretary BABBITT. I don't agree with that. He says, I have decided to deny the request.
Mr. SHADEGG. Having cited the—the law does say if the Governor opposes it, you have to turn it down; do you agree with me on that?
Secretary BABBITT. No.
Mr. SHADEGG. You don't agree with what the law says?
Secretary BABBITT. The law clearly says, in my judgment, that once the Department makes a decision, then the Governor has the right to——
Mr. SHADEGG. I will read you United States Code, title 25, section 2719(b)(1)(a). The entire sentence I won't read, but it says, the Secretary may approve, but only if the Governor of the State in which the gaming activity is to be conducted, in the Secretary's determination—you may only approve it if he agrees.
Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I disagree with that. I think that that says that the Secretary determines, and the Governor then either concurs or does not concur.
Mr. SHADEGG. And if the Governor does not concur, then it must be denied.
Secretary BABBITT. The Secretary must make a determination and send it to the Governor. And the Governor then, as I said earlier, has, after that fact, a separate power that's equivalent to a veto power.
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Mr. SHADEGG. I think the sentence says differently, but we will leave it at that.
My time is running out. Let me simply state, I indicated earlier that I was very troubled by Mr. Ickes' conduct in this particular instance. We have had now just a new reference to a whole issue of conspiracy, ending the notion that we ought not to have an independent counsel here based on conspiracy. We also had the ranking minority member simply describe the conduct in your office as clumsy behavior.
I am deeply troubled by a second aspect of this case. I have known you for over 20 years. I have respected you for over 20 years and still do. But I have also known Paul Eckstein for over 20 years and worked extensively with him as well and have respected him as well. There is a very, very, very troubling conflict between his statement of what occurred in the meeting in your office and your statement that you cannot in any way recollect it. Regrettably, I think that is a part of the record, and I think it does, between Mr. Ickes' conduct and Mr. Eckstein's allegation, create a circumstance in which I hope we can through some process ultimately find a resolution.
My time has expired.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
My good friend Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, when we all use the word ''conspiracy,'' it is with the idea that we lose our proportions because we are able to take threads unrelated sometimes and weave them together to make them appear something other than what they are.
In taking these few minutes, I just wanted to call together that a lot has been made of a fund-raising dinner held on July 13, 1995. It closely coincided with the decisionmaking process. And then my friends on your side of the aisle have said, ah, see, obviously this fund-raiser raising $440,000 by Mr. Schneider, partner in one of the largest lobbying organizations in Washington, did something wrong here directly related to this decision. To the average American out there watching this program, they may say, gee, those dates are awfully coincidental, maybe there is some smoke there, maybe there is something wrong.
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Except, Mr. Chairman, you and I and the members of this committee should know that a fund-raiser held in Washington, DC, for $1,000 a head, having the President of the United States and his wife there, is not something that our gang commonly gets together and says, let's have a party. It takes months of planning, months of reservation of time. No possibility that anybody putting that fund-raiser together would ever imagine that the Department the day before or the day after would be arriving at this decision. And yet it looks like a conspiracy to the untrained mind and to the untrained eye.
Further, that wasn't Indian money. That was $1,000 hard money by 350, 400 people from the Washington, DC, area invited to a very successful lobby of its own. Was that wrong? No. Is it legal? Yes. Did it cause any problems? Only in the minds of those people who want to see some conspiracy or some connection.
Then we have this troubling testimony of Mr. Eckstein. I agree with the gentleman from Arizona. I know he is quite a lobbyist and recognized person in town, but I find it incredible that he is that clairvoyant, that he knows the Indians over the next 18 months are going to contribute $356,000, and he is able to miss that mark by $150,000 by the Secretary apparently seizing on it.
I think I know what happened. I think Mr. Eckstein heard about ultimately these contributions over the next 18 months from the decision, and for some reason that confusion jumped in his mind, and maybe through other conversations he had, he jumped to the conclusion that maybe that was said at the meeting. I doubt whether it could be said. But if I have to make my bets, I don't think they hold that secret for 2 years.
Finally, it comes down to something Mr. Waxman said. We are not arguing here about poor Indians and rich Indians and somebody had been done wrong. There is nobody on this committee and nobody that I have ever read about that didn't say this is the right decision, that this Cabinet officer or this Department resolved this decision the way it should have been made. And we are out here trying to fry him, his integrity, and his professionalism and his independence because he made the right decision because we feel so sorry for, what was it, that doggy track in Wisconsin owned by these very wealthy Floridian gaming people that were wronged? Why were they here? To make millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars in casino gambling that they otherwise could not have made except for the provision of the Indian law that allow Indians to get some benefit, and they tried to misuse and abuse that.
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First they got one Indian tribe and went with it, and they turned them down and didn't like it. Mr. Havenick said he didn't like their integrity. So he changed. The new Indians come in, you can't fault them. Found money, any opportunity was worth their while, they went in. But who was the gainer? The guy with the dead dog track, losing millions every year, was he at a disadvantage? No. He hired Eckstein, the best lawyers, the best lobbyists. By God, if it had been money, you can bet your life the contributions would have been on his side. He certainly did not have the money to do it. He spent millions up to that point and millions since on appeals and otherwise. We saw four or five powerful lawyers themselves sit in this room. He ran up legal bills in this room today or in the 4 days here over $50- or $100,000. He is not a poor man. He would have used his money. This was a tough decision. The decision was made right, and there was a loser.
One other thing. We have just gotten some communications today. Mr. Havenick cast aspersions on that Indian tribe that he didn't want to join with. He said he didn't like their management skills. As I understand, the National Indian Gaming Commission issued a press release, and it just said that they are going to close one of the casinos owned by Mr. Havenick because of violation—I am sorry, not by Mr. Havenick, but by one of the tribes who were petitioners here because of their violation of regulations in the gaming ordinance.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 485 TO 486 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. KANJORKSI. Maybe in the end how funny it will be that this Department and these staff people made the right decision, and we as the Congress, in order to find something wrong politically and in campaign finance and in connecting all these disparate threads to create a conspiracy, there isn't any. They did the right thing at the right time for the right purpose under the rules and under the merits.
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I think we should say, Mr. Secretary, if this should cost you your consideration for the Supreme Court after your distinguished career, that is grossly unfortunate. I don't think in the end it will.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Barr, you will be our final questioner.
Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, just for the record, earlier today we referred to a document, a copy of a notation from President Clinton to Mr. Panetta, inquiring about the status of the Wisconsin tribe Indian dispute. A reference was made when I discussed that, and that was introduced into the record about the White House seeking to preclude and stop its publication, to keep that document from the public. It was indeed 1 of the 10 documents listed on a privileged log submitted to us in October 1997, exhibit 150–2, item number 6. So that is in the record, and I want to make very clear today that that is the case.
Mr. Secretary, I would like to go back briefly to your discussions that we referenced shortly ago with Mr. Bowles and Mr. Ruff, White House Counsel, about the statements by Mr. Eckstein. What exactly did you discuss with them, and when was that discussion or those discussions?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes. I met just, I would guess—the date would obviously be available. I think it was sometime in October. It was probably a 5-minute meeting.
Mr. BARR. Would that be made before October 10, before your letter?
Secretary BABBITT. I don't——
Mr. BARR. You submitted a letter to Senator Thompson on the 10th.
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Secretary BABBITT. OK. It was after I wrote the Thompson letter.
Mr. BARR. After?
Secretary BABBITT. Yes.
Mr. BARR. So you had no discussions whatsoever with them about that letter?
Secretary BABBITT. That's correct. It had already been written.
Mr. BARR. What was the nature of your discussions with them?
Secretary BABBITT. This matter had come up in the press, and they were—Mr. Bowles was interested in what the dispute was about. I described the letters very briefly. He asked—I explained that I had never spoken to Ickes. That was the White House issue that he was interested in, and I said, no, I had never spoken to Mr. Ickes. He suggested to me that I should talk to Senator McCain, and that was about it.
Mr. BARR. But you are very clear in your mind that you had no meetings with Mr.—no discussions at all with Mr. Bowles or Mr. Ruff before your October 10, 1997, letter to Senator Thompson?
Secretary BABBITT. I'm quite clear about that.
Mr. BARR. OK. Did you have any e-mails or written conversations with him?
Secretary BABBITT. I'm certain I did not.
Mr. BARR. Was there anyone outside of your immediate office that assisted with the preparation of the October 10 letter to Senator Thompson?
Secretary BABBITT. The letter to Senator Thompson, outside my immediate office, no, sir.
Mr. BARR. With regard to the other letter that I think we have discussed and that is also in the record, and that is the August 30, 1996, letter to Senator McCain, did you have any discussions or receive any assistance from anybody at the White House in the preparation of that letter?
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Secretary BABBITT. No, I did not.
Mr. BARR. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time.
Regarding the issue of privilege mentioned earlier, I will enter letters between the committee and the White House and a 36-page CRS opinion in this matter into the record without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 487 TO 531 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. Congressman Gilman and others who weren't here today, would like to submit questions to you, Mr. Secretary. We would appreciate it if you would answer those.
Secretary BABBITT. Certainly.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 532 TO 533 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. In conclusion, I would like to note that we will be returning again to foreign money in the political system shortly. In connection with that, I would like to note that two people we have been focusing on for some time, Charlie Trie and Antonio Pan, recently were indicted in connection with their funneling of illegal money into the DNC. Our first hearings focused on both Mr. Trie and Antonio Pan, and we will be continuing into these areas, which clearly bear further scrutiny.
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With that, Mr. Secretary, we want to thank you very much for your patience and for being with us today.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Edolphus Towns and Hon. Paul E. Kanjorski follow:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 534 TO 536 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
47–527 CC
1998
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL
OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO
APPLICATIONS
VOLUME 1
HEARINGS
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
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AND OVERSIGHT
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JANUARY 21, 22, 28, AND 29, 1998
Serial No. 105–92
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1
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THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR'S DENIAL OF THE WISCONSIN CHIPPEWA'S CASINO APPLICATIONS—VOLUME 1