John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the gentleman from Texas, who has brought forth this resolution, a little bit of history about executive privilege and how it has operated. In 1992, the White House refused to permit White House Counsel C. Boydon Gray and C. Nicholas Rostow of the National Security Council to testify before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services concerning the allegations that the Bush Administration had attempted to conceal from Congress the extent of its assistance to Iraq prior to the Gulf War. That was an assertion of executive privilege. In 1991, President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Cheney not to comply with a subpoena for a document related to a subcommittee's investigation of cost overruns in a Navy aircraft program. It came to the Committee on Government Operations. During the administration of President Bush, in response to requests from the Committee on Government Operations, Vice President Quayle's Council on Competitiveness cited executive privilege in refusing to make public its contacts with companies affected by proposed regulations that it was charged with reviewing. President Bush invoked executive privilege in refusing to respond to a subpoena issued by the House Committee on the Judiciary seeking an opinion written by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel authorizing the FBI to snatch fugitives on foreign soil. Again during the Bush Administration, Attorney General Thornburgh cited exclusive executive privilege in withholding hundreds of documents from the Committee on the Judiciary concerning the Justice Department's controversial purchase of a $180 million computer system. In 1986, the Bush Administration even supported former President Nixon's claim of executive privilege which he asserted to prevent the National Archives from releasing the Nixon White House papers. Again, President Reagan invoked executive privilege with respect to the controversies concerning Mr. James Watt and certain Canadian land leases, Anne Burford and the EPA Superfund enforcement in 1982, and Department of Justice memos concerning the nomination of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 1986. So those were three other instances in 1981, 1982 and 1986 where there have been presidential assertions of executive privilege. Now, there is a process in which we can go into court, but never before in my memory and my research have we ever put a special resolution on the floor asking the President to go far beyond specific material, but asking him that in the interest of full disclosure, consistent with the principles of openness in government, all records or documents, including legal memoranda, briefs and motions relating to any claims of executive privilege asserted by the President, should be immediately made publicly available. That was never done in the numerous examples of the assertion of executive privilege under Republicans. But, more than that, would you really want the President to do what you are asking for in the resolved clause? Would you really want all of these materials released to the public? I do not really think you mean what you are saying here. I think maybe you would like to get to some more arguments on executive privilege, which, by the way, are being handled in the court. But would you want this much information? This goes far beyond anything that would ever be brought up in a court. It goes far beyond anything necessary for us to understand why the assertion of executive privilege is being made, and it is a matter being debated and resolved in the courts as we stand here in the well. So I would just say in mustering the most benefit I can to explain the reason for House Resolution 432 is that perhaps the author went beyond what it is he really wanted to know and forgot that everything means everything, that all means all, that any means any, no exceptions, none. I do not think anybody really would want that to happen. Therefore, it is my position that this resolution is fatally flawed. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may use. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by telling the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules that I am very glad he is not a lawyer too, so we are in total agreement on that; but not being a lawyer, he may have some handicap in reading the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Some of them you do not have to be a lawyer to understand. The Supreme Court has said in the Nixon case, and I underline the ``Nixon'' case, how executive privilege should be asserted. It would be important for the proponents of this resolution to have studied that case. The proponent is proudly, I presume, not a lawyer as well. It said in that decision that the courts, not the Congress, determine the question of whether an executive privilege can be asserted. So the gentleman from Texas either does not appreciate the decision that exists as current guidance on the subject, or perhaps it has not been brought to his attention that we cannot tell the court how it should handle itself. I guess we can advise the President that he should release all records or documents, including legal memoranda, briefs and motions relating to any claims of executive privilege asserted by the President, and it should be made publicly available. Well, this is already in the courts. There is not one word, with all respect to the patriotism of the gentlemen on that side of the aisle, about documents dealing with national security matters being excluded. Not a word. I think what the gentleman from Colorado was pointing out was that if you really mean this, and, as the gentleman from Texas has said twice, this is a serious matter, you had better change this to make everyone understand that, of course, defense matters, secret matters, secrecy of documents, are not included. We should just understand that. Well, I do not think we can just understand that, I would say to the gentlemen from the other side, whether you are lawyers or not lawyers, or whatever it is you might be. This is a flawed resolution, assuming you want to do what you said. You want to give the President some free advice. ``Give us everything you have got on executive privilege,'' which is already in the courts. I do not think that the system is ready to work that way. Never in the history of the Congress have we ever had such a resolution put forward with reference to the President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this is a bit of an amazing short- sightedness on the part of Republican leadership in advancing the incredibly partisan resolutions like the one being sponsored by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) which, if actually passed, might do lasting damage to the institution of the presidency. This resolution, if I read it correctly, seeks to have the President divulge all records and documents relating to any assertion of executive privilege to where? The Congress? To the press? To the public? The administration has already joined with news organizations in seeking to make public both the legal papers filed by his lawyers and the judge's decisions concerning executive privilege. Questions about sealing such proceedings and preventing public access is, my colleagues, a question for the courts. It is one that our judicial system decides by hearings and carefully balancing the competing interests. Never in the history of the Congress has the Congress said we ought to take that over and ask you, Mr. President, to just cooperate with us. This is a meaningless resolution. The administration cannot do anything about this. These questions are court questions, questions already residing in the judiciary for determination. And if the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) were concerned about this issue, instead of attempting to politicize it, this resolution would be directed to the courts, not to ourselves or to the President of the United States. But in reading it, it goes further and demands that all documents concerning the invocations of executive privilege now be made public. Why, this goes beyond Kenneth Starr and the independent counsel. Just who do we think we are? If the demands are to be taken seriously, that would include confidential recommendations from the President's closest advisors. There is no question that these kinds of recommendations deserve confidential treatment. The supporters of this resolution, like my friend the chairman, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), have a hard time recognizing what should and what should not be released to the public. Any President of either party is entitled to confidential advice concerning the invocation of executive privilege. Elementary. The Reagan administration invoked executive privilege quite frequently. The Bush administration withheld documents and witnesses from congressional committees on numerous occasions based on concerns about executive privilege. Republicans have never sought to pierce the confidentiality of the advice given to those Presidents, and I am afraid that they only seek to do so now because of their partisan intent to discredit the President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I do. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I have not seen this amendment and I have no inclination to support it without having seen it, and so I object.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs) who heads up the Constitutional Caucus in the House.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), my colleague on the Committee on the Judiciary. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield one minute the to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, here we go again. Everybody that is soft on drugs supports this amendment. If you are really tough for getting drugs, then you support the other amendment. Real simple, right? Wrong again. I know my friend from Ohio is a big antidrug, anticrime, antiillegal activities; but understand this, most of the drugs come through the port of entry, not from the points in between. So you are putting troops out on the highways and byways, and that is not where the problem is. What am I saying is that this will not work. Even if we did it, it would not work. We would have another failure. What happened? Number two, we are only asking some requirements that would at least let us know what in the devil is going on beside this mindless running the military and the antidrug activity and everything else. Three, have you ever heard of Posse Comitatus at all? Anybody? Is this strange? Think about what you are doing and think about the simple fact that it will not work. Let us give everybody real high points for being against drug proliferation, but let us use our senses about this. The Committee on National Security mostly and the Armed Services is against this, not because they do not want more jurisdiction, because they know it will not work; and you should, too.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, several hours ago, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee gave a vote of no confidence to the campaign finance investigation being headed by my friend Chairman Dan Burton of Indiana. The Committee declined to immunize four witnesses and haul them before his Committee. As a past Chairman of that Committee, I can tell you that what the Committee did today was the only course of action they could take. My democratic colleagues were not asking for much. They simply wanted procedures for subpoenas that would give them a chance to object and force a Committee vote before such subpoenas could be issued. They were willing to negotiate, but Chairman Burton refused. I'm sorry to say this, but Chairman Burton's recent actions have discredited the major oversight committee of the Congress, which is supposed to set the example for fair investigative procedure. Never in my tenure, not once, as Chairman of that committee, did the minority complain that a major investigation was unfair, or conducted without their full involvement. Consider the causes for embarrassment: More than 600 subpoenas issued without ever having one Committee vote or the involvement of members of the Committee; A stubborn refusal to subpoena any witnesses requested by the Democratic members of the Committee; A tasteless decision to release the private conversations between Mr. Hubbell and his wife that had no connection to the subject that the Committee was investigating; The misleading editing of the tape transcripts, which should have never been released in the first place, forcing a public rebuke by the Speaker for the embarrassment caused to the House of Representatives; The growing evidence that the Committee may be improperly, and perhaps illegally, coordinating its investigation with that of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, which by federal law is supposed to remain secret. The failure of the Oversight Committee's investigation carries an important lesson for all of us in Congress. The concerns of every member of a committee--especially an investigative committee--cannot be ignored or shunted aside by procedural maneuvers. I am hopeful that my colleagues will keep these lessons in mind as we move forward from the ashes of the Burton investigation.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, several hours ago, the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight gave a vote of no confidence to the campaign finance investigation being headed by my friend, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton). The committee declined to immunize four witnesses and haul them before his committee. As a past chairman of that committee, I can tell you that what the committee did today was the only course of action they could take. My Democratic colleagues were not asking for much. They simply wanted procedures for subpoenas that would give them a chance to object and force a committee vote before such subpoenas could be issued. They were willing to negotiate, but Chairman Burton was not. I am sorry to say this, but Chairman Burton's recent actions have discredited the Committee on House Oversight of the Congress, which is supposed to set the example for fair investigative procedure. Never in my tenure as chairman of that committee, not once, did the minority complain that a major investigation was unfair or conducted without their full involvement. Consider the causes for our embarrassment. More than 600 subpoenas have been unilaterally issued, without one of them ever having a committee vote or the involvement of members of the committee; a stubborn and continuing refusal to subpoena any witnesses requested by the Democratic members of the committee; a tasteless decision to release the private conversations between Mr. Hubbell and his wife, that had no connection to the subject matter that the committee was investigating; the misleading editing of the tape transcripts, which should have never been released in the first place, forcing a public rebuke by the Speaker himself for the embarrassment caused to the House of Representatives; and, finally, growing evidence that the committee may be improperly and perhaps illegally coordinating its investigation with that of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, which, by Federal law, is supposed to remain secret. So the failure of the committee's investigation carries an important lesson for all of us in Congress: The concerns of every member of a committee, especially an investigative committee, cannot be ignored or shunted aside by procedural maneuvers. I am hopeful that my colleagues will keep these lessons in mind as we move forward from the ashes of the Burton investigation.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I have just asked the Attorney General to investigate the possibility that independent counsel Kenneth Starr may have improperly shared information and coordinated their activities with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), my friend, or his staff. In support of this request, I point out that Chairman Burton coincidentally released his selectively edited transcripts on the same day that Judge Starr announced his new punitive indictments of Mr. Webster Hubble. According to published reports, ``The transcription and editing process of the tapes was a crash project aimed to coincide with last week's new indictment of Hubble.'' Recent reports have also made it clear that members of Chairman Burton's staff had developed several close contacts in Judge Starr's office and communicated with them regularly. For example, it was reported that several Republican sources confirmed that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), this is a quote, ``refused to release the transcripts until the week Hubble was indicted for tax evasion and fraud, a committee source said. Mr. Bossee, one committee staffer, has several friends close to independent counsel Kenneth Starr and urged Burton to withhold the tapes until last week.'' Yesterday, a Republican aide on Mr. Burton's committee was quoted in the press as admitting that the timing looked ``fishy,'' but he denied there was any coordination. Well, I agree that it looks bad and that it deserves investigation. These facts raise a simple question: Did Judge Starr let Chairman Burton's staff know in advance that he was returning an indictment on Webster Hubble? If so, what other kinds of information is he sharing with Republican investigators? If Judge Starr has been sharing information with Chairman Burton, these would constitute violations of law by the independent counsel himself. Frankly, I believe these allegations are far more specific and credible than those which today compelled Attorney General Reno to seek an independent counsel for Miss Herman. The Attorney General admitted that she found ``no evidence clearly demonstrating Secretary Herman's involvement.'' Nevertheless, a counsel was appointed. It disturbs me greatly that the independent counsel law can produce this kind of result. Department of Justice investigators worked for 5 minutes and found no clear evidence of wrongdoing by Ms. Herman. Nevertheless, Attorney General Reno felt compelled to appoint an independent counsel. Now, if the Attorney General can appoint an independent counsel, a person with unlimited resources and time and money to spend investigating these kinds of allegations, then surely it is appropriate for the Attorney General to at least investigate some of the disturbing coincidences that surround Chairman Burton's release of the Webster Hubble tapes at the beginning of the month. By the way, what was the purpose of Chairman Burton subpoenaing tapes from the Department of Justice and then releasing them to the public? What was his point? What service was he providing, or thought that he was providing? Judge Starr has said that the rule of law is supreme, and on that he is right. The law applies to all equally, including him, the Independent Counsel. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a communication that I have from Attorney Stuart F. Pierson, counsel for Marsha Scott, who says that he has found that the questions put to him by the Burton committee were extraordinary in that they were virtually identical to the questions put to her less than 2 months ago before a Federal grand jury.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I will not yield to the gentleman from California. I will excuse myself from the proceedings after the debate on this measure is concluded. But look, we know the CIA is not perfect. But that is not the question. The question is, how bad are they? ``Oh, wow, that is an insult. We cannot talk like that.'' They are not perfect. Why, any amateur historian knows that we had perfect knowledge that the Japanese were coming to Pearl Harbor. And a respected Member of this body gets up and says, well, it was military intelligence, if it had been stronger. Pearl Harbor is a perfect example of our intelligence system at work. Now, the intelligence community failed in Iraq. I mean, for anyone to suggest that we won the war on intelligence, really they have not even been listening to the military much less to anybody else. This committee has done us a great disservice, and then to fight hard to keep a 5 percent reduction from occurring. Let us really show them by a two-to-one margin that the American people want to keep this secret budget going full blast, whatever it is, and that the American people are approving of this. Well, I think this does the body a disservice. I do not think that we should do it. I refer my colleagues to the GAO news release. ``CIA kept ties with alleged traffickers.'' And then we come here and debate about how they have got to do some more about drugs and we hear, ``Let's give them another chance.'' Did I hear that last year, the last year, the year before the year before, the year before, the year before? Of course. ``Let us give them one more chance.'' Well, I think this is not the way to debate. There is a tangled web of the CIA's complicity in drug international trafficking that not one member of the Select Committee on Intelligence has even alluded to in debate, even referenced. It does not exist. We are here to get this secret budget through and that is it.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the things that aren't being talked about enough. The war on drugs has come up several times today. I think there's some compelling evidence to show how the culture of obsessive secrecy that is part of covert action cultivates an actual and implied climate of impunity. The CIA's Inspector General, Fred Hitz, undertook a massive study into the CIA ties to drug traffickers. Upon completion of the first volume of the 600 page report, Hitz declared that they found ``no evidence . . . of any conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States.'' Then he announced that hardly any of his findings would be publicly available, casting a long shadow of doubt as to the scope and conclusions of the investigation. A second volume is still in the works. The CIA's credibility when it comes to investigating itself was further brought into question when Hitz disclosed during recent testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that in 1982, the CIA and Attorney General William French Smith had an agreement that the CIA was not required to report allegations of drug smuggling by non- employees. Non-employees was explicitly interpreted to include unpaid and paid assets of the CIA, such as pilots and informants. The memorandum, dated February 11, 1982, states ``no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures'', referring to the procedures relating to non- employee crimes. I want to compliment the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, for her hard work on this topic and for obtaining this and other relevant memoranda. I ask you, though, is this the war on drugs that President Reagan launched? Nobody here who advocates cuts to the intelligence budget or reforming this intelligence system gone haywire doubts for one second that the U.S. needs reliable information about exports of Russian missile technology or the trade in bacteriological warfare technology. I am a veteran and I know how important intelligence is. But doesn't the above information illustrate why the integrity of our intelligence system is in doubt? The historical record shows that this culture of secrecy too often undermines our foreign and domestic interests. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, headed by Senator John Kerry, found that ``there was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zone on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contra supporters throughout the region.'' Moreover, U.S. officials ``failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.'' In other words, the drug war was subordinated to the cold war. This is right in line with what we've learned about the memorandum of understanding described above. I am inserting into the Record a list, compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies, which goes through other examples of the troubling history of our intelligence agencies. A Tangled Web: A History of CIA Complicity in Drug International Trafficking

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this debate is not what I would like, I say to the floor managers and chairman and ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, because in this 5 minutes back and forth, usually we do not get answered. Let us understand that the Central Intelligence Agency's relationship with drug pushers has not even been mentioned here. It is as if we are in a universe where nobody knows about this except we read it in the paper or we get a GAO study every now and then, or somebody writes about Los Angeles and the introduction of cocaine, which creates a momentary flak. And then we come here to the annual ritual and what do we have? We have people saying the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is one of the most respected bodies in the world system, not the Congress. It is studied all over the world because these are sensitive people, understand. They are very sensitive about this subject. It is all secret. We do not know what is going on. We do know that there was $26.7 billion appropriated. And then somebody snuck into the emergency supplemental appropriation, fiscal year 1998, an unknown amount of money. Rumored, ``Oh, never heard of that before.'' Okay. Rumored, $260 million. Suspected a lot more. But nobody knows. And then this discussion my colleagues have passed off as an open, fair debate on this subject. Now, if I hear that the CIA is not perfect one more time, I am going to excuse myself from these proceedings. Of course it is not perfect. It is awful.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it seems obvious to me that not every ciriticism of the Clinton Administration is part of a ``right-wing conspiracy,'' but it should be equally clear that not every objection to the tactics of a Clinton critic is the product of a White House conspiracy. This week, Speaker Gingrich unfairly attacked the congressional criticisms of Chairman Burton even though he knew those criticisms were justified. This Tuesday, in response to widespread ciriticism of Chairman Burton for releasing misleading and distorted excerpts of private conversations of Mr. Hubbell with his wife and his attorney, Speaker Gingrich spoke out to accuse the Democrats in Congress of acting at the behest of the White House. Rather than honestly dealing with the serious violations of privacy and fairness worked by Chairman Burton, Speaker Gingrich changed the subject by claiming ``There has been a routine process by this White House to avoid the truth * * * by attacking the person who is seeking the truth.'' Remarkably, one day later, Speaker Gingrich, during a closed Republican conference meeting, scolded Chairman Burton for his actions, saying ``I'm embarrassed for you, I'm embarrassed for myself, and I'm embarrassed for the [Republican] conference at the circus that went on at your committee.'' Clearly, Speaker Gingrich recognizes both that Chairman Burton's actions were wrong and that congressional criticisms of him were genuine expressions of outrage and not some ``spin'' strategy organized by the White House. This institution is not well-served by the cynical partisanship of the Speaker's attacks on those who were offended by Chairman Burton's conduct. With each such outburst, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the important investigative work of Chairman Burton's committee, or of any other committee which is called on to inquire into allegaiotns of wrongdoing at the White House, will lead to any findings that will be accepted as legitimate by the public. I appeal to the higher instincts of Speaker Gingrich and Chairman Burton to apoloogize directly to the people who have been smeared by these irresponsible attacks--Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell, the President and the First Lady--for the good of the Committee and the integrity of the Congress as a whole.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today we have learned that the Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has fired his chief investigator and apologized to his fellow Republicans for any embarrassment caused by his actions in releasing distorted summaries of telephone conversations between Mr. Hubbell and his wife. If the chairman now recognizes that the actions taken by his committee were wrong, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) also owes an apology to Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell as well as the President and the First Lady. The release of those summaries as well as the tapes themselves represents something that may be truly unprecedented in the House of Representatives: the elevation of partisanship over the sanctity of the privacy of conversations between a husband and wife. This is such a profound affront to most people's sensibilities and the values that we hold dear that it raises new questions about whether the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) can or ought to continue to lead that committee's investigation into alleged campaign finance violations. Chairman Burton's continuing release of the private telephone conversations of Mr. Hubbell, including conversations with his wife and his attorney, appear to represent a serious abuse of government power intended to humiliate Mr. Hubbell because of his prior association with the Clinton administration. Have we really reached the point where we think it is appropriate to publicly broadcast intimate conversations, most of which have nothing to do with the allegations of campaign finance violations, between a man and his wife? If we are concerned about family values, Congress should support the privacy of marital relationships, not make them public. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. CONYERS. Well, we do not have enough time to discuss the conduct of the chairman of the committee, but I can tell you that never in any committee can I recall to the Members of the body that we went into privacy and violated the spirit of privacy laws in the way that they have been done now. And there was a curious coincidence between the release of information from the special prosecutor and the release of these tapes. The chairman, a friend, his own chief counsel, advised him not to release the tapes, but he did so anyway. The Speaker of the House of Representatives publicly stated that a third party should screen the tapes for privacy issues before further releases were made. What did the committee do? It continued to release more tapes. So almost daily, the impression continues to grow that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) or his committee is simply out of control. If the chairman's goal is simply to get at the truth, then there was no need to doctor the tapes. Considering all of this, along with the chairman's recent public statement that he was after, quote-unquote, the President, President Clinton, how can the important investigative work of the committee lead to any findings that will be accepted as legitimate by the public? I would appeal to the higher instincts of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) to apologize to the Hubbells and to the President and to the First Lady.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it would be useful for us to reflect on some of the matters that have transpired over the last several days in this political thunderstorm that is the continuing efforts by independent counsel Kenneth Starr to get the President. I find most troublesome the recent conduct of the distinguished chairman of the committee I once chaired, the old Government Operations Committee. I refer to none other than the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and his actions on the day the grand jury returned the indictments against Mr. and Mrs. Webster Hubbell. Chairman Burton released private and confidential conversations of Mr. and Mrs. Hubbell, and Mr. Hubbell's attorney, carefully selecting those portions that he believed would be most damaging to the First Lady. This release was designed and calculated to embarrass the Hubbells and, in the bargain, to conceal those portions of the conversation that contradicted the tenor and content of the selected portions of the conversations that were disclosed. In addition, it has been reported that Chairman Burton and his staff not only withheld information, but they also made mistakes, serious mistakes, in transcription. At a minimum, these disclosures violated the spirit and, I believe, the letter of the law of the Privacy Act and the privilege any person enjoys when he or she speaks with a spouse or an attorney. The Department of Justice forwarded this information to this Congress with the understanding that any disclosure would be handled with discretion. I wish I could say that happened here. There has been no shortage of critical commentary about the scope, the timing, and the techniques Mr. Starr has used. By the same token, we in the House of Representatives must carefully consider our responsibilities while we await any report Mr. Starr may be preparing and guard against mimicking his excessive practices. Clearly, we must guard against bias or inappropriate procedures, including premature and indiscreet disclosures of sensitive information. To do less is to lack the discipline and the judgment necessary to meet this important responsibility. According to public accounts, the Speaker may well ask the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) to participate and consider the product of Mr. Starr's $40 million so-called ``independent investigation.'' The recent actions of the gentleman from Indiana do not bode well for how he might handle secret grand jury information. Obviously, we already have a barometer of how this senior Republican Member of the House will approach his responsibilities. I cite this as further evidence of the plea I have issued more than once that the Committee on the Judiciary and not Chairman Burton or any special committee is the only appropriate forum to consider any report if one is ever to be submitted by Mr. Starr. Any effort to assign this task to a special committee should be seen for what it is, an ill-disguised, politically motivated effort to get the President and to protect the majority in the House of Representatives. As chairman of the former Government Operations Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is in the singular position of representing and embodying the integrity of his committee's review, as well as the integrity of the process by which it does its work. And while I am confident that he would disagree, I am sure that many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been troubled by disclosures of information which we know to be selective, incomplete and wrong. We can only hope that any product that might be issued by his committee is not similarly flawed.