C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Let me read it. Here the issue is ``chain of custody re transfer of Clinton personal files.'' Of course, we are talking about the Whitewater files here, because these have not been turned over. They have not been made public. The President has not come clean and cooperated on this. Here is an item on the to do list: ``Determine strategy re release of Whitewater file.'' They wanted to determine their strategy for releasing this. This was not a decision to share with the public, they want to find out how they can selectively make this available. I do not know what else a strategy re release of files is. If you were going to share the information and cooperate and show there was nothing to be concerned about, you would simply make the information public. But here they say they want to determine a strategy re release of Whitewater file. ``Under search of Foster office'', another heading, they have this item to do: legal research on the basis for resisting identification and production of all documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's safe. So they wanted to go and do legal research so they could come up with a legal pretext for resisting identifying and producing all documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's safe. That is the kind of memo.

Mr. COX of California. Correct. Not only were they very worried about them, but what is outlined in this memo is a specific step-by-step plan to keep the Congress and the American people from finding out the truth.

Mr. COX of California. Precisely. In fact, while we learn about this same process in what turns out to be pulling teeth from the White House, trying to get them to cooperate, because they are claiming executive privilege about all of these things so they do not have to do anything cooperative with the Congress, they first gave us 1,000 of the 3,000 pages. And in that first batch of documents which we got under a threat of subpoena, we found out about Filegate and all of the FBI files that had been collected on senior officials, including James Baker and others well known. But we did not get this memo. It was only 2 weeks ago, on August 15, that we got this memo. This is brand new, and almost no one, even many of our colleagues here in Congress, has yet had the opportunity to read this, but it is clearly shocking.

Mr. COX of California. For a very long while, The request for 3,000 pages was originally described not all that long ago by the White House as a request for toilet paper, that this was a trivial request, that they should not be asked for such documents. When finally we got the first 1,000 pages of the 3,000 that we requested, we got the famous list of all of the FBI files, the background files, the very, very confidential law enforcement background files, on people who had worked in the White House. These had been collected illegally by the White House for patently political purposes.

Mr. COX of California. Well, of course we had to subpoena it, we had to threaten to subpoena it, because we asked for all of the Travelgate memos to be turned over. Travelgate, which was another Clinton White House scandal, involved the firing and smearing, through the use of the EBI, of what we now know were honest and innocent White House civilian career employees.

Mr. COX of California. That is precisely this memo. I will give you another example if you wish.

Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and furthermore, what I have just covered is the list of the names of these scandals, but the memo, which is quite lengthy, goes on then to describe the strategy for dealing with each of these scandals so that anyone trying to investigate would not be able to get to the bottom of it, and I will give you one example. One page 4 of this memo there is a heading, ``Security,'' by which they mean White House security slash Livingstone issues. Now keep in mind that this was dated December 13, 1994. You may recall approximately when Craig Livingstone came upon the national scene, became a household name because of that Clinton scandal. It was not in 1994, but in 1996, 2 years later. But listen to what this memo says back in 1994. ``Review Livingstone file.'' Now, presumably they did. ``Interview Livingstone.'' They wanted, apparently, to deal with Livingstone problems back in 1994, all of which were covered up so that the Congress and the American people did not find out about them and did not find out at all about Filegate, literally hundreds of files on Republicans who had worked in the White House in previous administrations, FBI files which had been collected by this White House under Craig Livingston.

Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and it is rather clear that Jane Sherburne, the associate White House counsel who personally drew up this list of all of these scandals, was prescient. While they were claiming no wrongdoing, behind the scenes they were putting together memorandums like this, and the result in the ensuring years has been that 5 of Bill Clinton's closest associates, including his Attorney General and including the Governor of Arkansas, have since been convicted of crimes.

Mr. COX of California. That is correct. This document called the White House task list is dated December 13, 1994. It was compiled by an associate counsel to the President, Jane Sherburne. Her initials are on it, and it lists all of the scandals that she anticipated would plague the Clinton administration and that Congress was now likely to look into because in 1994 we had just been elected, a Republican Congress, not yet sworn into office, and this memo explains how they were going to make sure that Congress did not----

Mr. COX of California. It is the very heading in their own memo, ``Obstruction of justice.'' This is prepared by the White House counsel's office, analyzing the legal problems of the Clinton administration.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to talk about a document that was recently provided, very belatedly, by the White House to the Congress, a document now referred to as the task list. It is dated December 13, 1994, but it was just provided to the Congress in recent days. The task list shows 39 scandals that the White House staff in the West Wing, taxpayer supported staff, decided that they needed to work on because there was now going to be a Republican Congress. This memo was prepared just after the November 1994 elections. I would like to read just briefly the scandals that the White House decided that it needed to task its own staff to work on. Some of these scandals are, of course, well known to the American people, but other scandals have only recently become known, even though this memo was written on December 13, 1994. No. 1, Foster document handling. We will return shortly to the specifics contained in this memo on each of these. There are several admissions of illegality in this very memo. Travel Office. We know all about Travelgate, of course. That has become a major scandal just as they predicted in here. White House-Treasury contacts. Of course, we know about the illegal contacts between senior political appointees at the Department of the Treasury and the White House, tipping off the President, giving a heads up to the President and Mrs. Clinton about the criminal referral of the Whitewater matter. Obstruction of justice, I am reading this from the White House internal memo, obstruction of justice re DOJ handling of criminal referrals. Use of White House resources for response efforts. Of course, that is what this memo is all about, but that is one of the scandals that is listed here. This entire memo is devoted to how to spin the press about the various scandals. Foster suicide. Espy. Of course we know that Mr. Smaltz was assigned as an independent counsel to investigate the Mike Espy ethics question. We know about the criminal problems with Tysons there. Henry Cisneros, Ron Brown, Hubbell. Of course, we all know about the next top ranking man at the White House right underneath the Attorney General, Webster Hubbell, who is now in jail. Ickes, union representation. And of course with Coia and all that ABC News has done on this scandal just in recent days, we now know why in 1994 they were worried about that. Stephanopoulos, Nation's Bank. Again, this is a White House memo that they prepared secretly inside the White House using taxpayer resources and in the White House counsel's office, which they should not have been doing. That is not appropriate use of taxpayer funds. They have listed all of these scandals that they wanted to innoculate against and spin the press about. The Stephanopoulos-Nation's Bank story was of course what the press widely described as a sweetheart, below market mortgage for George Stephanopoulos, the kind of deal that ordinary Americans could not get. State Department passport files; another Clinton administration scandal that we are so familiar with. Archives abuse of personal system. This is one scandal that they have not fully disclosed to us and that we will find out more about. The Legal Defense Fund, and of course we know all about the ethical problems that the President encountered there, soliciting funds for the Legal Defense Fund when such solicitation is, in fact, in violation of the law. The Health Care Task Force, and of course we know that that resulted in litigation against Hillary Rodham Clinton's task force. We know that a Federal judge ruled against the task force, and found that it was put together in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and that documents were withheld from the public and from Congress when they should not have been. Now there are 39 of these scandals that White House staff--there is a name of a White House staffer right after each one of these, after each one of these scandals, and they were all assigned and presumably are all still working at taxpayer expense on preventing the Congress from getting to know all of the facts in these things. White House operations, drugs, passes, helicopters, and does that not ring a bell for so many of us? Each of those scandals, drugs in the White House, the passes being given to people without personnel clearances, the misuse of helicopters which resulted in the termination of White House staff; this is next on the White House, the Clinton, list of scandals that they were working on secretly in the White House. Residence renovations. This is one that they believed was a potential scandal, but the American people do not yet know about it. We have just received this document. Presidential immunity. Well, of course, we know that that is all having to do with the Paula Jones litigation, Paula Jones having sued the Governor of Arkansas for acts in his capacity, not as Governor but as a private individual apparently abusing the office, at least according to the allegations in the complaint, and the President has used not outside lawyers but taxpayer supported lawyers to make sure that his private civil litigation could be put off until afterward. This is, by the way, something that the courts have now reversed on and they have decided that President Clinton cannot put this off, but he has successfully put it off beyond the election. White House Arkansans, Thomasson, Nash, Rasco; need we say more? PIC surplus. Improper electioneering at the SBA. Now these are all admissions by the Clinton White House to themselves within the White House internally of what they were doing wrong.

Mr. COX of California. That is correct; and also how to conjure, after the fact, legal justifications and pretext for sins of omission and commission already occurred.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, when we discussed this in the Committee on Rules last night I indicated that that would not be in the bill. It is, in fact, not in the bill.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, yes, we are taking care of it through the appropriations process. Congressman Rogers has informed the Congress that that is already taken care of in his bill. It will be a separate vehicle that we will take up through the normal process. It has already passed the House so we should be in conference with the Senate in 2 weeks.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX of California. There is no death penalty provision. There are obviously death penalty provisions on the books for terrorism but that is not a subject in this bill. As you know, when we were discussing this before the Committee on Rules, we indicated there would not be anything about the death penalty in the bill.

Mr. COX of California. No.

Mr. COX of California. The purpose of the commission is to review across the board all aspects of U.S. terrorism policy, but in particular to deal with those things that we cannot deal with in legislation of this type on short notice. As the gentleman correctly points out, and I agree wholeheartedly with him, when we are working in this fashion, under suspension of the rules with the requirement for a two-thirds vote, it is very, very important that we have in this bill only those things that Members can digest on short notice, that we have all studied in advance, that we all agree upon. Therefore, the critical aspects of fighting the war against global terrorism, international terrorism are directed to this commission and this study which will come back to us so that we can legislate in a more thoughtful fashion. I could not agree more with the Washington Post editorial that you cited.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILLMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3953) to combat terrorism.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham], the distinguished expert member of the Committee on National Security.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 3953, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, cross-references, and punctuation, and to make such stylistic, clerical, technical, conforming, and other changes as may be necessary.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in celebration of the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Farrell of Naples, FL. Frank and Floria were both born and raised in Minnesota. Frank, a native of Duluth, and Floria, a native of Hibbing, were married in 1946. During World War II, Frank served as a fighter pilot in the southern Pacific theater. Altogether, he flew 33 combat missions in his P-51 Mustang. After the war, Frank returned to school and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1948. Upon graduation, he went to work for what was then the Northern Pacific Railroad and would later become the Burlington/Northern Railroad. During his long and distinguished career, he ran the law department and eventually retired as senior vice president of law in the early 1980's. Frank and Floria were active in Minnesota politics for many years. Frank served as a member of the Minnesota GOP State Central Committee and eventually ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1956 and the U.S. Congress in 1958. In addition to his work in party politics, Frank led the fight to get the Minnesota State Legislature to reapportion itself. At the time, the metropolitan areas of Minnesota were growing rapidly. Yet, the State legislature was apportioned so that the per capita representation of the metropolitan areas was about one-third to one-half of the rest of the State. The legislators from the nonmetro areas refused to change the apportionment. This decision was a severe drain on the higher tax- assessed and underrepresented Twin Cities metro area counties. Frank's case, McGraw versus Donovan, eventually was instrumental in forcing the legislature to reapportion itself. A group in Tennessee later used Frank's briefs and strategy in their own case, Baker versus Carr, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. For his work on reapportionment, Frank was nominated for a Lasker Award. Throughout the years, Frank and Floria have also been very active members in the community. Frank served on the board of directors of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Red Cross and on the board of the directors of Alina, one of the largest health maintenance organizations in Minnesota. In addition, he was chairman of the St. Paul Civic Center Authority which built the multimillion-dollar civic center in St. Paul. He also served as vice president of Junior Achievement in St. Paul and as president of the Ramsey County Bar Association. Upon retirement, Frank and Floria moved to Naples, FL, where they have both remained active in community affairs. Frank and Floria raised their three children, Frank, Mary Jane, and Alfred. They also are the proud grandparents of five grandchildren. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of their children, grandchildren, and many friends, I wish Frank and Floria a happy golden wedding anniversary in the hopes of many more to come.