Maxine Waters

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that the gentleman pointed out again that there was no attempt to work with me, no attempt to talk with me about problems that have been identified or problems that have been found. Anybody that knows anything about me knows that I will investigate, I will find out who is doing what, I will help get to the bottom of it. Let me just say this: Questions still remain. I am not opposed to working with the Chair and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Foley] to continue investigation, to expand investigation, to look at this from every angle that we can possibly look at it. I would think that the thing to do is to not penalize the businesses that would be the beneficiaries. Remember what we are doing now in the budget. Remember how we targeted small businesses with capital gains tax cuts in order to grow them.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield for a correction about how much money has been spent on the program?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, the agreement that was just discussed by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Flake] that will take us into conference in the way that the Committee on Appropriations had designed with 125, with language that would define the way in which it kicks in, is fine with me. If we can work on that deal and get the specific language, as long as we go in with the amount that the gentleman has put in, then I am satisfied.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, this is not the time to clamp down, to deny funds. When we talk about we want to help small businesses and we believe in this program and the fact that we should have community development in distressed communities, it does not make good sense. I would ask my colleague, my friend that I worked with very well, to reject the notion that somehow this is going to make this a better program. I would ask him to simply refrain from trying to deny access to funds for small businesses at this time.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I must rise today in opposition to the amendment offered by my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bachus], the chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services' Subcommittee on Government Oversight and Investigations, on which I am the ranking member. While I support the efforts of the gentleman to ensure that the Community Development Institution Fund is efficiently and effectively administered, I vigorously oppose the proposed freeze of the Community Development Financial Institution Fund at the fiscal year 1997 levels. I am a little bit surprised at the tone and spirit of this attack. Let us be clear. This is an attack on small business. The small businesses of this country that benefit from this fund are the ones that we all talk about we want to help. These are small institutions such as credit unions and others providing the funds for these businesses. I am surprised at this attack in the way that it has been done because most people do not know that this Fund is kind of divided into two parts. We have the small nontraditional institutions that provide monies to small businesses in inner cities and rural communities. This is not a minority program, as it was referred to a moment ago; I want to set the record straight. I want to set the record straight. This is a program that operates throughout this Nation in rural communities, in inner cities, in suburban areas. This is a program for everybody, and they do avail themselves of it. Let me also make something else clear. When this program was initiated, even though the President had a vision for how we could put this money into small development organizations and institutions such as credit unions, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Flake] said no, we are not going to give it all to these nontraditional organizations and small banks and institutions. We are going to give some of it to them, but we are going to give some of it to the big boys, so they too can do some of this community development lending. There has been no talk or investigations or planting of information about the Bank of America or Chase Manhattan or CitiBank or NationsBank. They all participate in this program. They are on the other side. They are the big institutions who have money that they use to do whatever they are supposed to do with this money. But this is just to look at the small kind of nontraditional institutions that are helping small businesses. So I am surprised. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that it was said that this money has not been allocated in a timely fashion. Let me correct the record. Over two-thirds of this money has been issued as of March, over two-thirds of it has been given out. Let me tell the Members why we do not want to freeze the funding. The gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bachus] would have us believe this does not really hurt anything; we are not trying to strip it, we are simply trying to freeze the money and keep it at certain levels. We are all basking in the glow of the growth and development and the success of our economy in this Nation. We like to get up and talk about how well the economy is doing. These little businesses want to do well, too. They want to take advantage of this growth and all that is happening in the economy. We do not want to freeze them now. Just think what a little money would do for them. They have the ability to put this money out to little businesses who can sell their goods and their services. That is why we do not want to freeze it. We want these little businesses to take advantage of this growing economy. While I applaud the work of the appropriations subcommittee, and I do, the chairman, the gentleman from California, [Mr. Jerry Lewis] and the ranking member, the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Stokes] have done a good job, as well as other members of the subcommittee in developing this bill, I am particularly pleased they have decided to increase the funding of the CDFI funds to $125 million in keeping with the budget agreement. Again, we want little businesses to participate in this growth and development. Now is not the time to put our foot on their necks. The CDFI program does the critical work of revitalizing distressed communities by increasing the capacity of community-based financial institutions to meet the unmet financial needs of this community, at a time when we are talking about welfare reform, at a time when, again, we all wax eloquently about how we want to help small businesses.

Ms. WATERS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I share the gentleman's concern about the proper management of this or any program. I am the ranking member of the subcommittee that the gentleman chairs. We have not had a discussion about this. Not once did the gentleman ask me to join him in taking a look at this. I would be the greatest supporter of trying to make sure that this program and any other program is run properly. We all care deeply about this program. This was a bipartisan effort. We debated this in a laudable fashion when it came before us. If the gentleman wants my cooperation in taking a look, he has it. But I would respectfully ask the gentleman not to cripple this program, not to cripple the institutions, not to cripple the small businesses who will be the beneficiaries, all of those applicants you have from Alabama. You have about six of your areas in Alabama who would like to have money. We need to expand the opportunities. I would ask the gentleman not to cripple their opportunities with limiting this and keeping it at $50 million when, in fact, the President and the budget agreement that was worked out would allocate $125 million.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, the ranking member of that committee rejects that offer. Let me just say that I would certainly advise the members of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services to reject that offer. I would be supportive of doing everything that the gentleman has talked about, even though I was never contacted about concerns, even though I was never told about an investigation, even though I was never in any way brought into this. I am perfectly willing to expand the investigation, to go beyond even where the chair of this subcommittee has gone in an effort to find out what happened. But I would want the $125 million that was appropriated by the Committee on Appropriations to remain intact and only if the investigations reap the kind of information that shows that there has been fraud, there has been absolutely wrongdoing, then I would join the gentleman in reducing the amount. But not the offer that has been made, no.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. I will do that.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, yes, let me be clear about this one, and I do not go this far even in the South L.A. one. I am accusing the CIA on this one based on the information that I have of having been responsible for tons of cocaine coming into the United States that got sold on the streets of America. That is an accusation that I am making clear, simple, and without any reservations. So what I am saying to the gentleman: It is not enough for me to see the report. What can we do to share this information with the American public? Is there anything that can be done to shed some light on this?

Ms. WATERS. May I ask of the gentleman whether or not there has been any report on it, and since this exposure was given to this in the New York Times, we have not seen a response of any kind, we have not seen the work of the gentleman's committee answering this in any way. Mr. Chairman, we cannot have the New York Times or any other newspaper documenting and court records documenting trafficking in cocaine by the CIA and CIA operatives, and we just sit mum and not tell the American public anything. So is there a report on this in any way? If there is no report, would the gentleman be willing to issue some kind of report between him and the chairman? Could the gentleman from California make some representation about what he will be willing to do, given we know this information about drug trafficking by the CIA?

Ms. WATERS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I hold the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon] in the highest esteem and respect, and I have worked with him, and we do share this area of Los Angeles where the drug trafficking took place, where the CIA is alleged to have been deeply involved in trafficking in drugs and the profits of which, some of them, went to fund the contras, the contras having been created by the CIA. That was their body, and the FDN, the army of the contras, was a creation of the CIA's. And I am working to get to the bottom of this, but my commission that I am asking for is not only about that. This is more generic, and it encompasses the question of drug trafficking, period, by the CIA. And I would like to raise a question of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon] so that I can help make a determination about his representations regarding the investigations that are going on and the possibility that he may join me, depending on what he has discovered or they discovered as a result of the House intelligence investigation. Has the gentleman's committee investigated the Venezuelan dope dealing of the CIA where I have in no uncertain terms identified on the floor of Congress the fact that they were responsible for tons of cocaine coming into the United States that got sold on the streets of America? Has the gentleman done anything about that? Has he looked at that?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment to establish a clandestine drug study commission. This commission would be composed of nine members appointed by the U.S. Attorney General and would be required to report on the following: Report on the steps necessary to eradicate any CIA involvement with drugs or those identified by Federal law enforcement agencies as drug smugglers. No. 2, secure disclosure or the gathering of Government public records relevant to the smuggling and distribution of illegal drugs into and within the United States by the CIA or others on their behalf or associated with the CIA. In addition, my amendment would authorize funds to be appropriated in the amount of $750,000. Mr. Chairman and Members, I am sure there are those both within this House and within the sound of my voice who would wonder why would we need such an amendment, why would I take this floor and talk about taking steps to make sure that the CIA is not involved in drugs or drug smuggling. Mr. Chairman, I do this because over the past year I have learned more than I have ever wanted to know about the CIA and drugs. How did it get started? It got started with a revelation about drug smuggling and drug trafficking that ended up in South Central Los Angeles back in the 1980's. Oh, there has been a lot of controversy about the report. Many are aware that the San Jose Mercury News revealed that there was a drug ring and the basic points of that report remain uncontested. There are some points in the report that are contested. For example, the report said that as a result of the drug trafficking, millions of dollars were funneled to the Contras from the sale of drugs, crack cocaine in particular. The exception that was taken to that identification simply was an exception that said instead of saying millions of dollars, they should have said they estimated there were millions of dollars. I can accept that. I maintain there should not have been $1 from the sale of drugs to support the Contras. But this revelation got me involved, and I have spent a lot of time looking at the CIA and the allegations of their involvement in drug trafficking in south central Los Angeles. It has taken me to many places, all the way to Nicaragua, where I have gone up to a place called Grenada and interviewed a prisoner who is well known to have been connected with the Cali cartel and sold drugs both for the Sandanistas and the Contras. Since my visit there, I made it known to the Inspector General, who is involved in an investigation, and the Inspector General further has sought out information from this individual. Even members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence fold followed me to Nicaragua and interviewed the same person that had been revealed to me. But that is just a small part of the information that has come to me. As a result of my involvement, a lot of things have happened. The sheriff's department of the county of Los Angeles filed an extensive report about many of the allegations. The investigations continue. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is involved. The Inspector General of the CIA, the Inspector General of the Justice Department, they are still doing interviews, and I do not know what is going to happen. Hopefully there will be a report. Hopefully there will be hearings. But I have learned enough to know that the CIA has come too close, rubbed shoulders with, and been involved in some ways that should make us all uncomfortable, with drug dealers. Mr. Chairman, I have been involved for a long time and taken a closer look at the Central Intelligence Agency and these allegations that CIA operatives or assets have been involved in or had knowledge of drug trafficking in the United States. I mention South Central Los Angeles, but one need look no further than the current newspaper to find there are recent occasions of CIA involvement with drugs. Let us look at Venezuela. Earlier this year, there was a general named Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila, Venezuela's former drug czar, who was indicted by Federal prosecutors in Miami for smuggling cocaine into the United States. And according to the New York Times, uncontested by the CIA, this article that appeared as early as November 1993, they talked about the CIA and its so-called antidrug program in Venezuela and guess what? They concluded, and it is documented, that our CIA shipped a ton of nearly pure cocaine into the United States in 1990. That is a fact, uncontested. When you unravel this story, you find that the CIA concocted some scheme to talk about the only way it could apprehend drug dealers was to get involved in shipping this cocaine and selling this cocaine. They went to the DEA to get their permission to do it, and the DEA turned them down flat and said they would not be involved in this scheme in any shape, form, or fashion. But the CIA defied the DEA and they shipped this pure cocaine into the United States in 1990, and they have since acknowledged that they defied the laws of this government and allowed the drugs to be sold on the streets of the United States of America. I challenge anybody to tell me that it did not happen, because it is documented. Now let me tell you what unnerves me about this. We spend a lot of money in this House, we spend a lot of money in this Government to apprehend drug dealers, to try to get rid of drug trafficking. We spend a lot of money on drug education and prevention. We even spend money on alternative crop development in countries that we want to get out of the business of raising the coca leaf. We spend billions of the taxpayers' dollars. Knowing this and being involved in this struggle, it really unnerves me to find out that my own CIA brought cocaine into the United States and allowed it to get on the streets and be sold. Do you know what that means? We are representing communities where drugs are devastating our communities. People are becoming addicted. Oh, and it is not simply in inner cities, it is in rural communities, it is in suburbia, it is everything, everywhere. It is swallowing us up. I do not know what kind of cockamamie scheme they could have cooked up to talk about this would help them to apprehend drug dealers by allowing drugs to be sold on the streets of the United States of America. How many more people became addicted? How many more people got involved in crime? How many more people became a part of the destruction that we all hate so much? I do not like it and I am not going to get off this business about who they are and what they do and their involvement with drugs until this body has the guts and the nerves to do something about it. The joint CIA/Venezuela force was headed by General Davila and the ranking CIA officer, I am going to call the names, was Mark McFarlin, who worked with the antiguerrilla forces in El Salvador in the 1980's. Not one CIA official has ever been indicted or prosecuted for this abuse of authority. I will give it to my colleagues again. General Davila and Mark McFarlin. Look it up. What happened? Why can we not ask the questions? Why are we not outraged that these drugs found their way into our cities? Let me go a little bit further and talk about this alignment, this association, the CIA being involved, coming too close to people who traffic in drugs. In a March 8, 1997, Los Angeles Times article, it was reported that Lt. Col. Michel Francois, one of the CIA's Haitian agents, and I defy anybody to tell me he was not, a former army officer and a key leader in the military regime that ran Haiti between 1991 and 1994, he was indicted in Miami and charged with smuggling 33 tons of cocaine into the United States. The article detailed that Francois met face to face with the leaders of three Colombian cartels to arrange for drug shipments to pass through Haiti via a private airstrip that he helped to build and protect. The CIA was right there in Haiti while he was building this airstrip. He was trained by the CIA. Francois is the CIA's boy. Lieutenant Colonel Francois was trained by the U.S. Army in military command training for foreign officers in Georgia. He was a senior member of the Service Intelligence Agency, a Haitian intelligence organization founded with the help of the CIA in 1986. After the 1991 coup put Francois in power, the cocaine seizures in Haiti just plummeted to near zero. He could do whatever he wanted to do. He built a strip. He met with the cartels. All of this is in DEA reports. U.S. prosecutors have requested the extradition of Francois from Honduras, where he has been living under a grant of political asylum. When I tell my colleagues our own CIA is documented as having brought cocaine in, in the Venezuelan fiasco, and when I tell my colleagues that Francois is a creation of the CIA and that the apprehension of drugs and drug smuggling and trafficking went down once he took charge, I am accusing the CIA of being too close, of being too involved, for turning its head. Mr. Chairman, let me just wrap up my comments by saying I have pointed out today on several occasions some of the problems with the Central Intelligence Agency. I have pointed out the fact that some of our allies and our friends around the world have been sending us this quiet but stern message. They are asking us to leave. I have talked about something that none of us are proud of, the fact that there is a breakdown in this agency and we have people that we pay to protect and serve literally endangering us all with the selling of information. I have pointed out that not only do we have all of this occurring, but that our own soldiers were put at risk because something is wrong in this CIA. I am disturbed that we could not get much support in trying to slap them on the wrist, cut the budget just a little bit, but I am convinced that the American people will join us in the struggle because this is a struggle and a battle that we are going to have to wage for a long time. I am not accusing the Members who have taken this floor in efforts to protect the CIA. I understand. There are responsible Members of this House who really believe, despite the problems of the CIA, everything should be done to protect them, to make sure they have all the money they need to operate with, that somehow if we question them, we are going to put at risk their ability to gather the intelligence information we need. We need to redefine the role of the CIA in this post-cold-war era. Who are they and what do they do? Someone pointed out to me today that in every aspect of our society, with the new technology we have been able to reduce personnel, we have been able to put in systems and processes to better manage information, we have been able to reduce cost, and many on the opposite side of the aisle have made these arguments time and time again as they have gone about cutting and redesigning and privatizing and all of those things that we hear about on the floor. Why is it the CIA escapes any of this? Why has the new technology not caught up with the CIA? Why can we not shine the light in ways that we understand, where the money is going? Why can we not redesign the ways in which we relate to them and still respect some of the secrecy and privacy that is needed? I say to my colleagues, today I have been afforded the opportunity to take this floor and talk about this issue in the hopes that we can focus, we can really put this on our radar screen and begin to raise questions and get the American public involved in raising questions. I hope that this debate will allow that. I am under no illusions about everything that I want being embraced by the protectors of the CIA, right or wrong. But I know one thing: This platform that is afforded to me by the voters on this floor of Congress is an important tool to be used to create a discussion. I see my responsibility to create discussions that maybe others will not. I am not afraid of the CIA, I am not going to run from the CIA, I am not going to tuck my tail and duck my head and talk about their untouchables. This day we unveiled some of the problems, along with other Members who have taken this floor. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman. I was advised that any reference to ``immunity'' would not be appropriate in this legislation, and it is designed to delete all references to ``immunity'' in this amendment.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to modify the amendment.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 7.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to yield back my time. I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] for joining with me in this very special and important effort. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, because I think it is important to point out that not only did I accept the gentleman from Florida's substitute amendment, but I also offered, prior to that acceptance, an explanation of the wording that the other gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] now is trying to latch on to in order to in some way imply that I made accusations unfairly. If I had not accepted the substitute, perhaps he could do that kind of spinning. But the fact that I accepted the substitute explains very clearly, and in a way that cannot be misunderstood, what I am doing and why I am doing it, and that I congratulated them for embracing me, I think, does away with that kind of specious argument. Certainly it is honorable for Members of this House, elected by the people, to come to this floor and raise the questions, no matter how hard they are, no matter how unpopular they are, no matter how difficult they are. And oftentimes when that is done, it is misunderstood by people who do not have the guts or the nerve to do that themselves. And sometimes it is embarrassing to take this floor and kind of push and nudge people into doing what they should be doing anyway. I understand that. But there comes a time when we need to do that. I chose this moment, at this time, on this legislation to make an issue of what had happened in the Persian Gulf. I chose at this time, at this moment to point out that 20,000 of our soldiers were at risk. No matter whether it was intended or not, it happened. I chose at this time to demand more information, to share with the public, to demand an investigation so that we could have in writing something that people could pick up and read and know where we are going and what we are doing. I chose to do that because I think that is my responsibility and I do feel strongly about this. So we can spin it any way we want, we can define it any way we want, but I know what I have said and I know what I am doing and I am pleased that the gentleman has joined with me to do it, no matter how much he may not have liked the fact that I brought it, no matter how much the gentleman may not have liked the fact that I raised the kinds of questions that are oftentimes embarrassing. None of us like to think that we invest so much in our intelligence community to have those kinds of terrible costly mistakes. Having said all of that, Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is we move forward with the substitute amendment that I have embraced. And, hopefully, this is a bipartisan concern, a bipartisan effort to do the right thing, to focus the attention on what happened there, get the answers that we can get and then move to make sure that it does not happen again.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of how much time I have remaining?