C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. In fact, on page 3, under the heading ``Foster Document Handling,'' there is a subheading, identifying friends for the congressional hearings, key members and staff, and the list of names of our colleagues, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Sarbanes, develop a press strategy, and then there is a heading ``Offensive Research.'' This is not a memo prepared by a White House willing to cooperate. This is a memorandum prepared by a White House that has carefully outlined 39 separate scandals and the strategy for covering them up.

Mr. COX of California. I thank the Speaker. The memo is quite extraordinary. It is single-spaced, goes on for 12 pages, and, as I said, lists 39 scandals, most of which, now, 2 years later, are known to the American people, but a few of which are actually brand new. It actually details how each of these scandals was assigned to White House staff, 15 such staffers, and according to the press, these staffers earned a total salary of $1.3 million. This is taxpayer money, all of which is being misspent because that is not the appropriate function of the White House Counsel's office. That is not the appropriate function of the White House staff. Working on these matters inside the West Wing of the White House is itself a scandal of the first order.

Mr. COX of California. I think at this point it would be appropriate, because each of our colleagues should have the benefit of this memo in full, that I ask unanimous consent to include the memorandum in its entirety in the Record at this point.

Mr. COX of California. It is at least true that prior to the revelations, so many of which have occurred since the election of an opposition party to get to the bottom of this in the White House, that there was an attitude by the Democrats in power in Congress at the time that they simply did not want to know the answer to these questions, because, after all, we had not seen this document until just a few weeks ago. But now that we have it, I think any fair-minded person, any Democrat or any Republican, would have to say, this is a virtual roadmap to scandal. If the majority party in Congress were to put together a list of scandals of the administration that ran to more than a dozen, it would be called a partisan exercise. Yet here we have, prepared by the White House staff itself, by President Clinton's own staff, a secret memo for their own privileged consumption, stamped ``privileged'' on the cover, a list of 39 scandals, with detail of each, and some rather damaging admissions about each. Let me point our just one such that we have not referred to in this brief colloquy, and that is the scandal labeled Hubbell, and that is, of course, Webster Hubbell, the acting Attorney General. ``Webster Hubbell's cooperation is to be monitored.'' Now, why would we be concerned with this? This is right before ``determine press strategy.'' Why would we be concerned with monitoring Webster Hubbell's cooperation, if we were willing to let the special prosecutor do his job? The answer is, of course, the administration was very concerned about just how far Webster Hubbell might go in cooperating with that special prosecutor. As we all know, Webster Hubbell was subsequently convicted and sent to jail.

Mr. COX of California. As I said earlier, it appears chiefly from this brand new memo, which we have had only for a few weeks, and also from all of the context of the administration's nonresponse to our request for those 3,000 documents, which they referred to as a request for toilet paper and which eventually yielded the information about Filegate and all the FBI files on earlier administrative personnel that they obtained for political purposes, that executive privilege, which has been their basis for refusing to turn over these documents, is increasingly becoming a synonym for coverup.

Mr. COX of California. The gentleman is being very circumspect and charitable, having now received this memo, to say ``perhaps.'' It is obvious that the purpose of this task list is to marshal all of the efforts of the White House staff, led by White House lawyers, to prevent Congress from investigating each and every one of these 39 scandals. One of the headings in this memo is Research Re Limitation on Legislative Power to Investigate. What the White House counsel's office is doing here is coming up with legal arguments that will prevent the Congress from getting to the bottom of what they have already identified as scandals. ``Research re: limitations on legislative power to investigate.'' Under that heading, we have DNC, DCCC, DSCC. For those of us who are uninitiated, the DNC is the Democratic National Committee, the DCCC is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the DSCC is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Under that they have ``surrogates.'' So they are going to be using all of their political machinery. This is a taxpayer paid memo, and taxpayer paid lawyers inside the White House wrote this memo about DCCC, DNC and DSCC, to use them as surrogates to announce to the American people that there are legal reasons, that the White House counsel then went out and researched and came up with, that Congress cannot and should not be investigating these 39 scandals, which are neatly itemized in this secret memo.

Mr. COX of California. It does trouble me that with respect to each one of these 39 scandals, one of the items to do, on the to-do list for the White House counsel's office, the legal counsel of the President of the United States, is to develop a press strategy. If we are coming clean, if we are trying to share with the American people all the relevant facts so that their minds can be put at ease that no illegality is occurring at the highest levels of our Government, one would wish that, rather than a press strategy, we simply had a procedure by which the documents were shared and made public. Mr. Speaker, they ought to be shared with law enforcement, shared with the American people and with the Congress. Instead, each time we have a scandal listed here, whether it is Ickes' union representation, Stephanopoulos, Nations Bank, improper electioneering at the SBA, Presidential campaign and FEC audit, commodities. There are 39 of these.

Mr. COX of California. The comparison is not apt if we just leave it at that. The truth is that the White House counsel's office in its current incarnation is literally a response to Watergate. They decided that no longer would the lawyers for the President be kept in a small office in the Old Executive Office Building across the street. There were only two of them in the Nixon administration. We all remember John Dean's testimony about his inability to come across with the President and convince him of the gravity of these things. The White House counsel's office was then moved right into the West Wing of the White House. It became a significant law firm, with very, very professional people who have acquitted themselves with great distinction through the Carter administration, through the Ford administration, through the Reagan administration and the Bush administration, to keep the administration out of trouble, to prevent things like this from happening. But what goes on in this White House counsel's office? They are the engines of these misdeeds. It is the White House counsel's office that was coming up with these FBI files, multiplying one hundredfold the crime for which Mr. Colson was convicted during Watergate.

Mr. COX of California. He possessed one FBI file, it was learned, and therefore he was convicted and sent to prison, for one file.

Mr. COX of California. Well, of course. And he was a bouncer.

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. of California. And described by George Stephanopoulos as a very able, competent person, who they loved having in the job.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. What we know specifically from this memo is that the White House had reason to be concerned about Craig Livingstone himself in December 1994 because not only were they worried about security issues for which he was responsible but the task, the specific task on this list is to interview Livingstone and look at Livingstone's file. You would not look at Livingston's file unless you thought he was a problem. Any kind of competent search about Livingstone, since we have all read about him in the newspaper and his unsavory background, would obviously have yielded the result that such a person ought not to have been placed and maintained in a position requiring professionalism and trust. We know nonetheless the result. This political hack was maintained in this position, this very sensitive position in the White House with access to FBI files on so many Americans for 2 years.

Mr. COX of California. I believe my colleague would be correct if he had said that that was a precise quotation from the President. He described this as a bureaucratic snafu. This was a couple of years after the White House counsel's office began investigating the whole thing according to this very memo and identified it as a scandal in the making. Only, they identified it just to themselves, not to anyone else. Yet when it first burst upon the national scene, it was for the President to say, this is merely a bureaucratic snafu. Now we know that the administration was at least criminally incompetent if not malevolent in abusing the privacy of scores of honest public servants.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, there is a heading in this memo concerning security/Livingstone issues. It appears at page 4 of the memo. Two of the tasks under that heading are: Review Livingstone file, and interview Livingstone. Obviously the White House counsel's office had a problem with Livingstone and security in the White House at that time. Apparently his FBI and personnel files, and the result of any search of his background and the result of any search of the issues that have all exploded onto the national scene since then obviously must have been that they knew in 1994 what was going on. Yet, as we know, those FBI files on your colleagues and mine who worked in the Reagan and Bush White Houses, all of those files were kept there and not returned to the FBI. They had been improperly obtained by some political thugs to begin with, and they were kept apparently with the knowledge of at least the White House counsel's office.

Mr. COX of California. This, remember, is a task list. So presumably after receiving these instructions from Jane Sherburne on December 13, 1994, the people who were listed here followed through on those tasks. That means that the White House internally, at taxpayer expense, went out to put together information on Dan Lasater's bond deals, information on Dan Lasater's involvement with cocaine, and that is according to this memo, and Roger Clinton and his involvement with the foregoing, with Dan Lasater, bond deals and cocaine, all or some of the above. But those documents that were most assuredly prepared, if people followed through on this task list, have not been provided to this Congress nor apparently to law enforcement authorities. Each one of these 39 scandals with its subsidiary task listed on this memo is something that the White House, at public expense, using the White House lawyers and the counsel's office, has decided to build a wall around, to stonewall, so that the American people, law enforcement, and the Congress cannot find out about it. That of course is exactly why this memo was prepared just after the election of the Republican Congress, and that is why the press has so reported.

Mr. COX of California. This is, of course, what this memo says, but we know what the public face has been, the public face of the White House, that Mrs. Clinton did no such work and in fact had nothing to do with Whitewater or Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan or the Rose Law Firm involvement in this, and in fact the collapse of Madison Guaranty had nothing to do with her. But in this memo, which is not prepared for you or for me or for law enforcement but for each of the people in the White House, the heading is, ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC, conflicts enabled MGSL to stay open longer than it should have.'' This is the scandal that they are dealing with internally and this is their approach to each one of the 39 scandals listed in this memo: Develop a press or spin strategy. The White House counsel's office rather obviously is being misused on the taxpayer's tab. The American people should not be asked to shell out for what amounts to coverup and back-and-fill strategy in the White House, the protection of Presidential cronies and the protection of people who ultimately, since 1994, have found themselves in jail and behind bars, being convicted of felonies.

Mr. COX of California. There is no question that this memo gives the lie to two claims made by the White House. The first is that they would be relying on outside counsel, which, of course, they should, because these are all scandals, private criminal problems of the people involved. Clearly they were still using the White House counsel's office, even after they hired their outside counsel. They were using some 15 members of the White House staff at an expense, an annual salary, of $1.3 million. Second, when they said they were coming clean, when they said they were cooperating and trying to put all the information out for the public to see, what they were really doing was just the opposite, using legal devices to cover it up and stonewall. Unfortunately, now executive privilege in this administration is coming to be a synonym for coverup. Consider just a few items on page 10 of the task force memo. We have under the heading ``Whitewater investment'', ``Press strategy.'' It is all sort of the Dick Morris spin of how are we going to pretend to be talking truthfully to the American people on these issues when, in fact, it is all a strategem? Take a look here under the heading ``MGSL,'' Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, where they say ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC,'' Hillary Rodham Clinton; A, conflicts; B, enabled Madison Guaranty to stay open longer than it should have. What an admission in a document we did not get until 2 weeks ago.

Mr. COX of California. That is correct, in the White House counsel's office and in the White House staff, a total of 15 staff members, we have toted this up, earning an annual salary of $1.3 million. These people who are supposed to be doing the people's business, executing on legislation, policy, and the national responsibilities of the President of the United States, are instead on scandal detail, and what a long scandal list it is, 39 separate scandals identified in this memo, and strategy outlined not just for dealing with the Congress, not just for withholding documents, not just for coming up with legal pretexts for doing so, but also for dealing with the press. Because in almost each case, there is another item to do on the list: Prepare press strategy. We have, for example, a heading ``White House/Treasury Contacts.'' You remember Mr. Altman had had to resign because of illegal contacts between the highest levels of the Treasury Department and the White House, tipping them off as to pending investigations, when that was a complete violation of normal procedure. ``Prepare press strategy'' is what they have on their list here. So when you see a representative of the White House in the press room or a representative of the Treasury in the press room coming clean with the press, what they are really doing is executing on a strategy that was concocted all the way back in December 1994 to prevent the American people and the Congress from learning the truth.

Mr. COX of California. That is precisely it. The press strategy seems to be the preoccupation of the White House counsel's office, whereas they are supposed to be paid by the taxpayers and they are for the benefit of the President to keep everything on the level, to keep the President and the highest levels of our executive branch out of trouble.

Mr. COX of California. David Kendall is an outside lawyer.

Mr. COX of California. In fact, they are all of them employees of the White House, all of them staff of the President.

Mr. COX of California. To the contrary. In past administrations, the role of the White House counsel's office has been to facilitate the flow of information, to make sure that when a question arises in connection with a potential scandal or an accusation of law-breaking, that all of the relevant information is shared not only with law enforcement authorities or an independent counsel, but also with the Congress. I can tell the Members that in the Bush administration, in the Reagan administration where I served, and I am sure that this is true also of the Carter administration, the Ford administration, that if there was a question of the President breaking the law, if there was a suspicion that the White House staff might themselves to be complicit in law- breaking, then no claim of executive privilege would be used to shield that person from proper inquiry by the law enforcement authorities or by Congress in fulfillment of its oversight responsibilities. To the contrary, this administration has asserted executive privilege, up until August 15; over this very document. Executive privilege is not meant to be a shield for White House staff who are accused of criminal misdeeds. Neither is it supposed to be a shield for the President's own personal investment problems. Rather, it is meant to protect the Nation and the national security.

Mr. COX of California. It does not say ``could,'' it says ``Obstruction of justice,'' and underneath that it says ``Delay in addressing criminal referrals, Department of Justice role.'' Under that it says, ``Determine usual process.'' Think of what it is that we are talking about here. The delay in addressing the criminal referrals, that was, of course, the delay in referring for criminal prosecution the whole Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan default and collapse at taxpayer expense. The job for the White House counsel, and remember, this is now Whitewater, this is the real Whitewater business, with Madison Guarantee and the Whitewater loan transactions and so on. We have the White House counsel, the lawyers for the President of the United Stats in his official capacity, working at taxpayer expense to do this task: Determine usual process, so we can find out how they should have done it, because obviously they know they did not do it the usual way, so they had to look up, after the fact, what would have been the usual way to handle the Whitewater transaction.

Mr. COX of California. I do not think there is much question about that. Under the heading ``Obstruction of justice,'' and I have to repeat, because otherwise this sounds----