Dan Burton

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Were any of them the people that paid him $26 million in salary last year?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The interesting thing about Mr. Rubin is that one of the clients that he represented was the Mexican Government itself. I mean, that was one of his clients when he was with Goldman Sachs.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Your bill would stop it immediately.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The $700,000 alleged bribe, the man who made the allegation was a man named Binh Ly who was working with a Korean or a Vietnamese agent named Mr. Hao. Mr. Ly and Mr. Hao went to Vietnam to try to normalize relations with that government, tried to work out some kind of a normalization relationship. Mr. Ly wanted to do it because he is a patriot. He believed that they ought to get away from the Communist regime and get to free enterprise over there. He thought this was a way to do it. When he got over there, he found out from Mr. Hao that there was an alleged $700,000 payment to be made to Mr. Brown as a first installment, a first installment on payments to him as a good-faith installment to get him to help use his position in the government to normalize relations with Vietnam. We found many cases where Mr. Brown or people on his staff at the Commerce Department did take action at various high level meetings over at the White House to try to get the normalization process started. As you know, they were successful. We are on a path toward complete normalization with Vietnam, even though we have never gotten a full accounting on the POW/MIAs that were left behind and we never did find out if the $700,000 was sent one of their top lieutenants down there to whitewash the grand jury investigation in Miami, I believe. As a result, we do not know whether the money was paid. The FBI did say, however, that what Mr. Ly said in the lie detector test, which he passed, took 6 hours, that the money that was alleged to have been sent from the Vietnamese Government to a bank in Singapore could very well have happened because there was a large transfer of funds from the Vietnamese Government to a bank in Singapore at the same time that all this took place. So Mr. Brown could have received that money.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. They usurped the authority of the spending house of the Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives. We spend about $13 or $14 billion a year all over the world in foreign aid, $13 or $14 billion, maybe $15 billion total in foreign aid and our constituents holler to high heaven when we have town meetings about the foreign aid. They say, ``Why are you sending that money overseas when we have these problems here at home?'' And that is $14 billion. Here in one country we are talking about as much as $53 billion or almost four times, about four times what we are spending in all the foreign aid all around the world. So this is really a debacle. And the President has taken this upon himself without any act of the Congress. One of the things that is interesting about President Clinton is that he decided to go into Haiti when he knew the Congress would not support that. If you have been to Haiti, you know it is a real mess and we are going to spend least down there. In the Mexican bailout, he took that action unilaterally. There have been other cases where the Congress was not consulted where we should have been. It just seems to me that a message needs to be sent down to the White House very clearly that this is a republic, not a dictatorship, and the President should not be doing these things unilaterally and we need to express that very clearly. That is why it is extremely important tomorrow when we have our Republican conference that we get all of our colleagues there to try to make sure that we are allowed to bring a bill to the floor so we can have an up-or-down vote on this issue.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The people who may be paying attention in their offices, other Congressmen, need to know what you are talking about. He said he put his money into a blind trust so he did not know what that money was being invested in. But Goldman Sachs and he are very close. He was a partner in that company, and you are absolutely right, he does know in my opinion.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yet the one thing we talked about earlier, you and I talked about at the press conference today, is questions need to be answered about why Mr. Rubin was so insistent that we use the exchange stabilization fund and that $20 billion to send down there. A lot of people think it was because he was trying to protect his former company and his own hindquarters because he advised those people to put their money down there to the tune of $5.17 billion. And if he did it for that reason, that is certainly a violation.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The collateral is not sufficient. Anybody who really knows what is going on with the oil sales in Mexico and that kind of a deal will tell you that if they were to default, and it is very likely that they will at least on a large part of this loan, or gift or whatever you want to call it, if they default, for us to take the revenues from their oil production, that State-owned oil company down there, would leave that company with no money to operate the government. There would be absolute chaos down there, and we would probably see millions more people coming across that border because of the destabilization of the economy. So that money that is being guaranteed from those oil sales to repay this loan in the event of a default, I do not think is going to be there. So the American taxpayer really in my opinion has no collateral whatsoever for this $53 billion or $54 billion loan bailout.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, over the past year to year and one-half, we have seen some very disturbing things come out of this administration. A lot of people that the American people put their confidence in have left under a cloud. the second most powerful person in the Justice Department, a very close personal friend of President Clinton, he was Associate Attorney General. He left the Justice Department after having been accused of fraudulent billing practices in his old law firm and he pled guilty to Federal crimes and he is under indictment right now, and I understand he is plea bargaining. He was the second most important, if you will, person in the Justice Department, and he himself is indicted and will probably go to prison unless he plea bargains his way out of that. He was the person who helped influence, in my opinion, helped influence the decision not to indict Ron Brown when they sent the associate justice down to the Miami grand jury about a year ago, and instead of letting the local U.S. attorney down there handle the case, they came back and said they did not indict Mr. Brown because of the Vietnamese affair, because they did not have enough evidence. There was not enough evidence to indict. They did not say they did not have evidence, they said there was not enough to indict. David Watkins, a White House official, was forced to resign after using Marine helicopters to go play golf. He also was accused of sexual harassment by a Clinton campaign worker, and the campaign, the Clinton campaign settled and attempted to receive Federal matching funds, your tax dollars, to pay for the settlement. They were trying to get taxpayers' moneys as matching funds to help pay this sexual harassment suit. He left under a cloud. Richard Altman, the Deputy Treasury Secretary, he resigned after congressional hearings exposed the improper contacts he had with the White House officials about the Whitewater investigation. Bernard Nussbaum, the chief White House counsel, the right-hand legal man at the White House for President Clinton, he resigned after improper contacts with the Treasury Department over the Whitewater investigation came out. He is also the person who went into Vince Foster's office and took files out right after they found Vince Foster dead under suspicious conditions over at Fort Marcy Park. Mike Espy, the Agriculture Secretary, he resigned under investigation by independent counsel for accepting illegal gifts. Joycelyn Elders, the Surgeon General, resigned after advocating legalization of drugs and teaching masturbation in schools. There are other Clinton administration nominees that were controversial who were not confirmed, Lani Guinier, Morton Halperin. Morton Halperin could not be confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Defense. What did they do? Because of his leftist policies, they took him over to the White House, put him in the NSC, National Security Council, advising the President where he would not have to be confirmed. Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, nominees for Attorney General, they withdrew them after they investigated them. Those are just a few of the nominees and people in the administration who left under a cloud. This administration has had a policy of picking people that had not been thoroughly examined and people who have come, we have come to find out, have done some things very questionable, of very questionable nature. Now, I want to talk about Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. He was the fellow about 1\1/2\ years ago or 2 years ago that was accused of taking a $700,000 bribe from the Vietnamese Government to normalize relations with that country. The FBI conducted a 6-hour lie detector on his chief accuser, a man named Ben Lee, and the man passed it. They even put a bug on this man. Yet when Webster Hubbell was over at the Justice Department in the No. 2 position after President Clinton took office, they took the FBI off of the case, and when the press got so hot on this issue and a grant jury was impaneled down in Miami, the Justice Department, again, Webster Hubbell was still second in command over there, they sent one of the assistants down to conduct the grand jury investigation instead of having it done locally, and they did not have enough evidence to indict. That was the Vietnamese affair. Now, we have a lot of other problems with Mr. Brown, Secretary of Commerce. I doubt if any Cabinet Secretary in recent history has had as many bad investments and delinquent loans as Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. He and his business partners have on several occasions borrowed large sums of money through shell corporations to avoid personal responsibility for the loans, and then failed to repay them. Ron Brown is now the subject of a second Justice Department investigation into his finances. In 1993, the Justice Department investigated allegations that he was offered this $700,000 bribe to have the embargo against Vietnam lifted even though we did not have a full accounting of the 2,300 POW-MIA's, and we still do not have that. The Justice Department did not indict Mr. Brown in that case, but they did not exonerate him either. They said they just did not have enough evidence to indict him. The Justice Department has launched a second investigation, this one into Secretary Brown's financial relationship with a lady named Nolanda Hill. Under the independent counsel law, the Attorney General has 90 days to recommend to a three-judge panel whether to appoint an independent counsel. Now, let me give you some highlights of Secretary Brown's bad debts and forgiven loans. The first one is really interesting. NBC, the National Broadcasting Co., forgave a $10 million loan to Ron Brown. The Washington Post reported this weekend that NBC has agreed to forgive a $10 million loan to one of Ron Brown's companies, Albimar Communications. In 1988, NBC agreed to sell Washington, DC, radio station WKYS-FM to Albimar Communications for $42\1/2\ million. Albimar was formed by Ron Brown, Secretary of Commerce, and his partners, Bertram Lee and James Kelly, husband of former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly. To make the deal possible, NBC loaned Albimar and Ron Brown $10 million, because Brown, Lee, and Kelly are all black. NBC received a $15 million tax break for minority business people as a result of the sale. The House just voted to rescind this tax break with some justification, I might add. The investment quickly went sour, and Ron Brown and his partners became seriously delinquent on the loan from NBC. Earlier this year, Brown, Kelly, and Lee agreed to sell WKYS to another company for an $8.5 million loss. The key to the deal was NBC forgiving the $10 million loan. Now, here are some questions that the Congress and this Government need to have answered. First, was this arrangement with NBC approved by the Office of Government Ethics? And if it was not, why not? Second, is it legal for a sitting Cabinet Secretary in a Presidential administration to receive a financial windfall of this magnitude from a major corporation over which he has some control? Agricultural Secretary Mike Espy is being investigated for accepting a pair of football tickets from a company regulated by his agency, much less than the $10 million loan that was forgiven I just talked about from NBC. Third, does NBC have an interest in any matters pending before the Commerce Department? Now, it is hard to believe that a major broadcasting company would not have something pending before the U.S. Commerce Department, and here they are forgiving a $10 million loan to the Secretary of Commerce. NBC is owned by RCA, Radio Corporation of America. How many Federal agencies are considering regulatory matters that RCA has a stock in, cellular phones, all kinds of new technologies that are being developed by RCA and other corporations that go before the Commerce Department? And do those companies that NBC is affiliated with, do they have any interest in things pending before the Commerce Department? Fifth, what did NBC and RCA expect to get in return for forgiving this loan, if anything? Now, this is not the only thing Ron Brown has been involved in. First International, Inc., and Corridor Broadcasting cost the taxpayers $40 million. In the 1980's Ron Brown and Democratic activist Nolanda Hill formed a corporation named First International Communications. Broadcasting. Corridor operated out of the same office as First International and used all of the same computers, the same phones, and the same office equipment. Corridor Broadcasting defaulted on $40 million in loans and left the taxpayers holding the bag. While it could not repay these loans, it was paying, at the same time they could not repay the loans to the taxpayers, it was paying $12,000 a month in interest to Ron Brown and Nolanda Hill through First International. They were in the same office using the same phones, same computers, and everything else. Ron Brown said he did not know anything about what was going on with Corridor Broadcasting. It was in the same office, and Corridor Broadcasting, which defaulted on a $40 million obligation to the taxpayers, was paying $12,000 a month in interest to Ron Brown's company. Although Ron Brown invested none of his own money in the company and the company had no known successful ventures, Nolanda Hill paid Secretary Brown, now get this, she paid him $400,000 for his share of the company. He put no money into the company, no investment whatsoever. The company that was paying the freight, Corridor Broadcasting, Inc., Corridor defaulted. The taxpayers are soaking up $40 million in losses. Ron Brown made no financial investment in the company that was in the same office, and yet he was paid $400,000, and the company went defunct. The company went belly up, and he gets $400,000. For what? That is the question. For what? Now, Ron Brown, in addition to the $400,000, had $190,000 in personal debts. According to Secretary Brown's lawyer, part of the payout from First International was $190,000 Nolanda Hill spent in 1994 paying off Ron Brown's debts. She paid off $190,000 of his debts. He paid no money for the company, got $400,000 out of it, and she pays $190,000 off on his personal debts. Question: To whom did Secretary Brown owe the $190,000? This is information that the Congress and the public deserves to know. And then there was another company in that same office. This is the third company in the same office called Know, Inc. In 1992 Nolanda Hill, through a third shell company, called Know, Inc., loaned Ron Brown $78,000. Brown used this money to repay a personal debt to the National Bank of Washington. This was done just before his confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate. After his nomination had been confirmed, now get this, Nolanda Hill forgave this debt also, so he got $190,000 that she forgave, paid for, I assume out of the $40 million that they defaulted on, $190,000 she loaned him, and forgave or paid, and $78,000 she loaned him and forgave, and then $400,000 he got for no investment. Boy, I want to tell you, that is the kind of investment I would like to make. Now, I serve on the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and the chairman of that committee is Chairman Clinger, and he and the staff of our committee have conducted an investigation, and he has contacted Attorney General Janet Reno and asked there be a special investigator, special counsel, appointed, independent counsel, to investigate allegations against Ron Brown. This investigation has developed specific allegations which the committee believes are sufficient to warrant the appointment of an independent counsel, Mr. Clinger said. The allegations are divided into five categories: First, submission of incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading financial disclosure statements; second, supplementation of salary; third, potential conflicts of interest; fourth, misinformation to Congress, and fifth refusing to respond to Congress. Now, let us go through these allegations real quickly. The first allegation, Secretary Brown failed to report his interest in and income from First International Communications, Limited Partnership, on his annual incumbent financial disclosure form. Why did he not put that on that report? The factual basis for the allegation is this; Secretary Brown's annual incumbent financial disclosure report, signed May 16, 1994, failed to identify an interest in First International Communications, Limited Partnership. He did not even tell he was involved in that corporation, and he got $400,000 for it for no investment. Although it is unclear whether the Secretary still held an interest in First International Communications, Limited Partnership, on December 31, 1993, the Secretary received three $45,000 payments from First International Communications, Limited Partnership, during that year 1993. The first two checks dated April 15 and July 21 state that the checks were for ``Partnership distribution.'' Distribution of what? The company was going under. They had no assets except what was in that office that was owned also by Corridor, Inc., and yet he has getting all this money for no investment. The third check, dated October 15, simply says ``Distribution.'' Secretary Brown should have reported these payments as income during 1993 even though he no longer held an interest in the partnership at the end of that year. (B) First International Communications Corp. and First International, Inc., allegations, Secretary Brown failed to accurately describe the basic activities of First International on his new entrant financial disclosure report. On his new entrant financial disclosure report signed January 1, 1993, Secretary Brown stated First International ``is a company that provides international and domestic consulting and investment services.'' Contrary to the Secretary's contention, the committee's evidence indicates First International was not involved in any sort of consulting or investment services at all. He misled what the intent of the company was on his report. Rather, its primary source of income was interest generated by a promissory note worth approximately $875,000 payable by Corridor Broadcasting. I would like to know where that $875,000 came from. Despite having defaulted on federally insured loans in excess of $40 million by 1993, Corridor Broadcasting apparently continued to pay monthly interest payments of approximately $12,000 to First International on the $875,000 note. In short, while the American taxpayers were forced to absorb more than $40 million of Corridor's indebtedness, Corridor continued to pay $12,000 a month to Mr. Brown's company. Third, well, let me give you some factual basis on that real quickly. According to his annual incumbent financial disclosure report, Secretary Brown divested his interest in First International December 15, 1993, receiving between $250,000 and $500,000. We believe it was around $400,000. Secretary Brown states in exchange for his share of First International he received direct payment of $135,000 and on and on and on. I covered a lot of this already. I will not go into it again. (D) purchase of a town house. Allegation: On his annual incumbent financial disclosure report, Secretary Brown failed to report either the execution of a promissory note or a gift of $108,000 used as downpayment for a town house located in Washington, DC. According to his annual incumbent financial disclosure report in 1993, Secretary Brown had a mortgage of $250,000 to $500,000 on a town house located at 4303 Westover Place in Washington, DC. The mortgage was held by First Federal Savings and Loan of Rochester. In addition, Secretary Brown disclosed $5,000 to $15,000 in rental income generated by this property in 1993. Although this townhouse is the residence of Secretary Brown's friend, Lillian Madsen, the deed of trust lists Ronald H. Brown and Michael Brown, his son, as owners of the property. Other relevant real estate documents indicate that a down payment of $108,000 was made to purchase the property. As reported by U.S. News & World Report in February of 1995, Brazilian businessman Jose Amaro Pinto Ramos arranged for a substantial loan for a down payment on the townhouse to be made to Lillian Madsen through a bank in Paris, France. Ramos claimed he never spoke to Secretary Brown about the loan, and he was unaware that the Secretary owned the property. Unaware? According to the deed of trust now in effect, Ronald Brown and Michael Brown jointly own the property, subject only to the first mortgage of $252,000. No second mortgage or other encumbrance is listed on the property. Thus the Browns are the owners of $108,000 equity down payment. If Ms. Madsen provided the down payment, if now owned by the Browns, the Secretary should have reported that down payment as a gift or as income. Where did she get $108,000 to pay down on that? You know, it was alleged Ron Brown got $700,000 in payment from the Vietnamese Government to normalize relations with Vietnam. The FBI verified that there was an electronic transfer of funds from the North Vietnamese Communist Government to a bank in Singapore just like the accuser, Mr. Bun Lee said. So maybe that $700,000 was paid. The money was transferred. There was a large sum of money transferred to a bank in Singapore, just as the accuser said. On the other hand, if Ronald Brown or Michael Brown arranged some sort of off-the-record agreement to eventually repay Ms. Madsen, Secretary Brown should have reported that agreement as a liability on his annual incumbent financial disclosure report. Funds provided by Ms. Madsen were not reported as a gift, as income, or as a liability on Secretary Brown's annual incumbent financial disclosure reports. Next allegation: Secretary Brown failed to report on his financial disclosure report that his interest in Boston Bank of Commerce Associates was a general partnership. Secretary Brown's new-entrant financial disclosure report does not identify Boston Bank of Commerce Associates as a general partnership. According to the Office of Government Ethics, the fact that the Boston Bank of Commerce Associates is a general partnership was discovered in April 1993. According to ethics law, the known interests of a general partner are imputed to the other owners, the other general partners. One of Secretary Brown's partners in Boston Bank of Commerce Associates provided Digital Equipment Corp. stock as capital in return for his partnership share. Thus imputing an interest in Digital to Boston Bank of Commerce Associates and the Secretary. Upon discovery, an apparent screening process was instituted to bar the Secretary from taking official action that would affect Digital. Albimar Communications, Inc., allegations: Secretary Brown failed to report on his new-entrant financial disclosure report and his annual incumbent financial disclosure report that his interests in Albimar Communications was a general partnership. According to both of his financial disclosure reports, Secretary Brown held an interest in Albimar Communications, which owns a radio station, WKYS, in Washington, DC. I have already gone into that. That is the loan that was forgiven, $10 million, by NBC. Payment of Secretary Brown's personal debt obligation, allegation: Secretary Brown failed to accurately report the future income he knew he would receive in 1994 on his annual incumbent financial disclosure report. According to his own incumbent report, Secretary Brown divested himself of his interest in First International on December 15, 1993, receiving, we believe, around $400,000. They say between $250,000 to $500,000 in this report. Secretary Brown claimed his divestiture of First International, which allegedly occurred on December 15, 1993, included, in part, the payment of some of his personal debt obligations. The evidence shows that the debt obligations were paid by or through Noland Hill, but on December 15, 1993; rather the payments were made during the summer of 1994, specifically nine payments totaling $190,995, against various debt obligations of Secretary Brown, were made to the following entities on the following dates--and they are all listed here. I can go on and on and on and on. I would like to submit the rest of these things for the Record. I pretty much covered that. But these are things that need to be investigated, if not by the Justice Department, through an independent counsel, they ought to be investigated by the Congress itself. But I talked to Representative Clinger today, and if the Justice Department does not ask for an independent counsel, it is my belief that we will hold hearings on this and Congress will get to the bottom of it. In other words, we are going to let an independent counsel, if he is duly appointed by a three-judge panel after being asked by Attorney General Reno, we will let it go that route. But if it does not, then the House of Representatives, I believe, will hold hearings and call Mr. Brown to testify to answer these allegations and questions. The second thing I want to talk about before I get to my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox], is something that happened today in Little Rock, AR. The special prosecutor, a special prosecutor appointed by the three-judge panel to replace Mr. Fiske, today indicted a man named Neal T. Ainley, who is a bank president in Little Rock, AR. He was president of the Perry County Bank in Perryville, AR, from 1989 until March 1994. According to this indictment, he loaned $180,000 to Mr. Clinton during the 1990 gubernatorial campaign. That money was used by the Clinton campaign to buy or try to get some votes. It is alleged that some black ministers were the beneficiaries of a lot of this money that was used in order to get out some of the votes in critical precincts in Arkansas. The interesting thing about this is, right after the election took place and Mr. Clinton was reelected Governor, the owner of the bank became the secretary of transportation for the State, secretary of the highway department in Little Rock. And he, along with the bank officials, according to the indictment, helped repay the $180,000 loan that Mr. Clinton incurred during the campaign. The question is where did that $180,000 come from? Did it come from highway contractors that the new head of the highway department twisted their arms in order to get those moneys to repay those loans? Where did that money come from? That is something that needs to be looked into. I am sure Mr. Star is doing that. I might say at this point that Mr. Starr is doing an outstanding job as the independent counsel, and I think everybody in the country ultimately will see that and owe him a great debt of gratitude. But there are so many cases like that in Arkansas; there is another bank down there where was a $400,000 loan that was given to try to get legislation through the Arkansas State Legislature, and that money was never repaid either by the person that borrowed the money. And it was in the Clinton administration. Here you have $180,000 borrowed that was repaid by a person who got a job in the administration, running the highway department and the person that got the job at the highway department was the owner of the bank that loaned the money. It sure does smell bad. Then we come to the Mexican bailout, which 80 percent of the American people oppose. January 31, President Clinton and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin announced a $49.8 billion--$49.8 billion; that is not millions, that is billions, three extra zeros--$49,800,000,000 bailout package for Mexico. The package included $20 billion in loans and loan guarantees from the Treasury Department's exchange stabilization fund, which was established in the 1930's to protect the value of the dollar and not other currencies. This exchange stabilization fund was established to protect the dollar in the international financial markets against an assault from other currencies, to protect the dollar. We are using $20 billion of it to protect the Mexican peso, which is in a free fall right now. So the United States taxpayer is underwriting the Mexican Government's economic mistakes. The key underwriters of Mexico's dollar-denominated bonds, called tesobonos, have been the major United States investment banking firms. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and this is very important, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was formerly cochairman of the Goldman-Sachs Investment Co. from 1992 to 1994. Goldman-Sachs was the largest United States underwriter of Mexican bonds. Although Rubin divested himself of his interest in Goldman- Sachs, there is still a conflict of interest. There was $5.17 billion in investments made by Goldman-Sachs into the Mexican markets, more than double the other companies, the next two highest companies that invested in Mexico. When Secretary Rubin joined the White House staff in 1993 as Chairman of the National Economic Council, he affecting Mexico. At that time, he was with the National Economic Council. Now he is the Treasury Secretary, and the Treasury Secretary has sole control over the exchange stabilization fund, where they took that $20 billion out of to give to Mexico. The only person that could stop him from doing that is the President himself, and yet he did not recuse himself this year. He did 2 years ago, when he did not have any power. Now, as Secretary of the Treasury, he can send $20 billion down there, he does not recuse himself, he stays involved. Now, there are a lot of questions that arise from that. Why did not he recuse himself? Could it be because of $5.17 billion that he had his clients invest in Mexico was under assault? That many of the people he recommended put their money into these Mexican financial instruments were going to lose their shirt because the peso was in free fall? And that he might be held responsible? He said he had a very large insurance policy to protect him against suits emanating from his recommendations. But, you know, I used to sell insurance, and I can tell you, if you got a million-dollar policy or $10 million or even a $50 million policy, it costs an arm and a leg. Here we are talking about not $50 million but $5,000,000,000, $5 billion. And if he were sued because of making--giving bad financial advice and investing in very bad speculative securities in Mexico, he probably could have been sued and it could have wiped out not only maybe his company, in large part, but himself and his whole personal fortune. So he had a vested interest, a vested interest in making sure that the money got down to Mexico to try to stabilize the peso in that economy. He should have recused himself. That is why there should be a complete congressional investigation. I understand the Committee on Banking is going to do that. We had a press conference today, and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Banking said they were going to call Mr. Rubin before them to ask questions about these things. Now, let me tell you some other things about Mr. Rubin. Employees of his company, Goldman-Sachs, especially Mr. Rubin himself, contributed heavily to the Clinton campaign and the Democrat Party. Goldman-Sachs employees and families were responsible for the largest contribution the Clinton campaign got in 1992 from a single firm, almost $100,000. Robert Rubin and his wife contributed $275,000 to the New York Host Committee for the Democrat National Convention in 1992. A Washington lobbyist for Goldman-Sachs, Michael Berman, was instrumental in setting up President Clinton's legal defense fund and is actively soliciting contributions to it. The fund was established to pay his expenses, President Clinton's expenses in the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paul Cobin Jones. So this company, Goldman-Sachs, and Mr. Rubin are tied inextricably together, and they are the largest investor in Mexico, investing so much of their clients' funds down there and now he is trying to stabilize the Mexican economy, which will help protect his investors' money. If that is not a conflict of interest, I do not know what is. Yet he did not recuse himself and says he did nothing wrong. This is something that is very, very serious. Mr. Rubin and the administration are evidently using the United States taxpayers' money not to the tune of $20 billion but overall to the tune of about $55 billion to help stabilize the Mexican economy, and that is a real crap shoot because if that economy continues to go like it is, the American people, taxpayers, might very well have to pay the $55 billion. And it will not be worth a dime. They say that they are going to use the oil sales of Mexico to guarantee repayment of the loan, but there are so many financial obligations against the Mexican Government, not to mention what is coming out of the United States from the exchange stabilization fund and these other funds that if they went under, if they had an economic collapse down there, they could not repay all of these loans. And I doubt seriously if the United States of America would ask them to pay out of their oil sales because they would need that money for current expenses. How would the government, how would the country survive if they did not have any income coming in? They would not have, if we took away something like their oil sales. So this whole Mexican bailout in a debacle. They could not get it through the Congress of the United States. They could not get the votes so unilaterally the President and Mr. Rubin decided to do it. Now we find out that there may have been some ulterior motives for Mr. Rubin taking this action and President Clinton for going along with it. It is a real mess. I think that my colleagues and I ought to take a hard look at this. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. [Mr. Fox].

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. That is the allegation that was made because there are still people who believe there are POW/MIAs that may still be alive over there. A lot of people who served in Vietnam believe that. Even if they are not alive, we had a commitment from every single President since the Vietnam war who has said we would not do business or normalize relations with Vietnam until we had a complete accounting. Of the 2,300 that are still unaccounted for over there, I would say probably 2,000 still are unaccounted for. And yet we are normalizing relations. American industry is being allowed to invest over there. Mr. Brown is playing a very key role in getting that down. The allegation that Mr. Ly made was that the $700,000 was just a down payment and that Mr. Brown was supposed to get royalties or a percentage of the oil that was developed from the oil fields off the shore of Vietnam, which is supposed to be the third largest oil field in the world. We are talking about tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I am sure it was more than that. But the bottom line is that when the grand jury investigated Mr. Brown, they did not exonerate him. They said they did not have enough evidence to indict. And when the FBI was pulled off the case, I believe at the request of the Justice Department and Web Hubbell and Janet Reno, I think they did a real disservice to the country and to those families that have those 2,000 or 2,300 people still left unaccounted for over there.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yes. I think that the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Chairman Clinger, of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, made a very, very strong case when he wrote to Janet Reno this week, when he asked her, he cited case after case after case after case where there are allegations of wrongdoing and breaking of the law by Mr. Brown. And he said that he would allow her to and he urged her to pick an independent counsel through the three-judge panel. And if she does that and we get a truly independent counsel to investigate these allegations, then he felt like there would not be a necessity for the Congress to conduct hearings. However, as I said before, if that does not take place, I talked to Chairman Clinger today, and I am convinced or under the impression that we will hold hearings if we do not get that independent counsel.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, I think, would have jurisdiction in this case. And I think we would be the committee that would hold the hearings. I would urge the chairman to do that, and I believe he will.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yes. That was a $180,000 non-secured loan, and that loan was made by this Mr. Neal Ainley. He was president of this bank in Perryville, AR, called the Perry County Bank. And this guy, I do not know, he may be the scapegoat, I do not know. The thing that is interesting is, as I said before, the owner of the bank, not the president, but the owner of the bank became the head of the State Highway Department. And he assisted, as I understand it, the bank officials in raising the money to pay off the loan. And all I can think of is some of the highway scandals I heard of before where highway contractors were urged to cough up money to take care of various needs of administration officials in other States. And it seems to me a $180,000 loan that was made by a bank and then the owner of that bank becomes a State highway official, the top dog there, and then he helps repay the loan, it seems to me he had to get that money from someplace so we ought to investigate where that money came from.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yes. It is an absolute travesty, in my opinion, that the American people were not listened to and that the people's House and the Senate were not consulted about this bailout. The fact of the matter is, and I wanted to congratulate Mr. Stockman for his hard work in trying to bring this issue to the floor, I think he will prevail to get it to the floor, but the fact of the matter is, I was one of the people that worked on the initial legislation that was being drafted to try to work out the kinks to be able to help stabilize the economy in Mexico. And some of the things that we put in there in the legislation before we would guarantee the loan was that there had to be at least about 30 percent of the loan put into American banks in the form of negotiable securities so if the Government of Mexico defaulted, we could get right off the top real fast 30 percent of the loan back. And if we did that in a timely fashion, we probably would not suffer any loss and the taxpayer would suffer no loss in this country, even though we did help stabilize the economy down there. In addition to that, we have provisions in the bill that said Mexico could no longer help the Communist Government of Cuba. Right now the Mexican Government, through direct or indirect financial assistance to Castro, are giving him $200 million to $400 million a year. We guaranteed these loans, and they continue to do business with Castro. We have an embargo against Castro, 90 miles from our shore, the last bastion of communism in the world. And here the Mexican Government is helping Cuba to a large degree, and we are bailing them out. And I would not be a bit surprised if some of the money that we are giving to them to bail them out is not funneling its way over to Castro to keep him afloat. So we put a provision in there that said that no money could get to Castro. We also put a provision in there that said that we had to protect our borders and Mexico had to help. They had to work with us on both sides of the 1,980-mile border between us and Mexico to keep illegal aliens from coming out. And we also States jails, and we have hundreds, probably have a couple hundred thousand of them, back to Mexico for execution of sentence, because it is costing the American taxpayers $30,000 to $35,000 apiece to keep them incarcerated here. So we had a lot of provisions in the bill to protect the taxpayer. Now, the President and Mr. Rubin and the Mexican officials said, we do not want any conditions on the money. Get that. They did not want any conditions on the money. And so we said, you are not going to get the votes in the Congress to pass that, or the Senate, and the American people are not going to support a loan bailout unless there is protections on the money. We can guarantee we are going to get at least so much of our money back and that these other provisions in there to protect our borders and to stop them from doing business with Castro and in violation of the embargo. So what happens is the President says, hey, if we cannot get Congress to do it, I will do it myself. And he used the Exchange Stabilization Fund in violation of what we believe the law is because that money is supposed to only be used to stabilize the dollar. And he is using it to stabilize the peso. So he did an end around the American taxpayer and the Congress of the United States.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I think the gentleman is absolutely right, $7 billion has already gone down there. The peso continues to drop. And every time it drops, that means its relationship to the dollar drops, which means that they are going to have to use this money to bail themselves out. And that $7 billion is very likely done. We might as well have burned it up in the middle of the street. It is not saving the Mexican economy. The taxpayers of this country, 80 percent of them did not want us to do it anyhow. So since the President cannot get it down through Congress, he does it by himself. This is not a dictatorship.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Well, we have found through our investigation, we used to have what was called the Republican Study Committee. I chaired that. We did extensive investigation into Whitewater, Whitewater Development Corp. and the Arkansas Development Financial Authority and a lot of other things. We have found an awful lot of questionable activity that took place under the Clinton administration in Arkansas. And a lot of the people who were involved in the Clinton administration in Arkansas were brought to Washington by President Clinton to help in his administration. If you look at the things that we are finding out about many of those people, some of their activities, like Webster Hubbell, his illegal activities were taking place prior to the time he came to be in the administration. It seems to me that the President, when he was Governor, would have known or should have known about some of the activities of these people, because he surrounded himself with them during the entire time he was Governor, which was over a long period of time, over 10 years. So it is inconceivable that he could not have known at least something about these people. It is unfortunate that he brought them to Washington, because now they are leaving. As one of my colleagues said today, it is like a rusty door on rusty hinges. It is about to fall over. It does a disservice not only to the administration but to the entire country.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Thank you very much. As we conclude, Mr. Speaker, this special order, let me just say there are a lot of issues we have raised tonight. I hope my colleagues will pay attention to all of those as well as anybody else that might be paying attention. There are so many things that have been going wrong with this administration that need to be corrected. We as a Congress need to exert our oversight rights to make sure that the American people are well-represented. Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record: Re Request for a Independent Counsel to Investigate the Financial Holdings and Activities of Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown. Hon. Janet Reno, Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Dear Attorney General Reno: For over a year, I, as then- Ranking Member of the Government Operations Committee and now as Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, have been conducting an investigation into the financial holdings and activities of Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown, pursuant to my authority under Rules X and XI of the House of Representatives. And, for over a year, in response to direct questions posed to the Secretary, I have received inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading responses, or no response at all. This investigation has developed specific allegations which the Committee believes are sufficient to warrant the appointment of an Independent Counsel. As you have previously determined that Secretary Brown is a ``covered individual'' under the Independent Counsel Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 591 et. seq., the Committee requests that you add the allegations set forth in the attached appendix to those matters already under review as part of your preliminary investigation. The allegations are divided into five categories: (I) Submission of Incomplete, Inaccurate and Misleading Financial Disclosure Statements; (II) Supplementation of Salary; (III) Potential Conflicts of Interest (IV) Misinformation to Congress, and; (V) Refusing to Respond to Congress. Under each category are specific allegations followed by a factual basis for each assertion and the relevant statutory and regulatory citations. In some instances, the factual basis for an allegation is reiterated under more than one category because the facts support multiple allegations. As requested in Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney's letter of February 23, 1995 to me, I will provide to your office copies of the documents obtained to date in the investigation of Secretary Brown. These documents serve as the underlying support for the allegations set forth in the attached appendix. I expect to complete that process not later than March 10, 1995. Some of the information obtained during our investigation was provided by confidential sources. These documents will be identified for your information. Because I pledged anonymity in consideration of this material, I am not prepared to reveal the identity of the sources at this time. Please understand that the Committee will continue its investigation. As new information is developed, and adequately substantiated, we will provide it to you. Although I do not presently plan to hold hearings on this matter, I reserve the right to schedule hearings as circumstances warrant. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Sincerely, William F. Clinger, Jr., Chairman. Enclosure.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Very good.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I think the American people, it is hard for them to comprehend 53,000 million. It is not 53 million, it is 53,000 million dollars total that you are talking about. And the American people, I think many people cannot comprehend that amount of money. But when you think about the national debt being what it is and the deficit being what it is and what we are going to face in the next few years if we do not get control of spending and here we are taking all this money that could be used to reduce the deficit or be used for projects here in the United States like in Orange County where they have got a terrible problem, or maybe in your district, yours or mine, and we are sending it down there, the American people I think would be very, very upset. The problem is, they need to know about it and they really have not I think heard enough about this issue.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I am not sure that we want to build a fence between us and Mexico. But you are absolutely right.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I would say to my colleague and all of the Members here, if their constituents were interested, I would urge them to contact their Congressman, their Senator, and the White House and say, we want an up-or-down vote in the U.S. House of Representatives just like the votes are taken on any appropriation bill, any spending bill. There needs to be an up-or-down vote on whether or not our Congressmen and our Senators want to send this amount of money to Mexico as a bailout. And if the American people scream loudly enough, then I think there is a real possibility that Mr. Stockman's bill will not only come to the floor but it will pass the House and pass the Senate and we will stop this nonsense very quickly. There is a question about what is going to happen if we cut off these funds. There could very well be some upheaval down there. But I believe that upheaval is likely to take place, anyhow, and what we are doing is throwing good money after bad and the American taxpayer is going to lose this money and they are still going to have these problems. If they are going to have those problems, anyhow, we might as well let them happen and deal with them as they happen and save the taxpayer this money.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Right. And here he was representing the Mexican Government with his company Goldman Sachs and now as Treasury Secretary, he is putting all this money down there, taxpayers' money. There is a conflict, there is no question.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I would just like to ask the gentleman under my reservation, how much more time do you guys anticipate spending on this amendment?