Time: Thu Apr 17 07:26:34 1997
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Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 07:47:01 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIR RESPONDS TO RENO LETTER
(fwd)
<snip>
>
>CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1997
>
>(Sen. Hatch/formal response to AG Reno) (3660)
>
>SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIR RESPONDS TO RENO LETTER
>
>Senator Orrin Hatch (Repulican-Utah), who is chairman of the Senate
>Judiciary Committee, made his formal response on the floor of the
>Senate April 15 to the letter he received the day before from Attorney
>General Janet Reno concerning her decision not to appoint an
>Independent Counsel in the matter of campaign finance allegations.
>
>Following is the official text by Senator Hatch:
>
>(begin text)
>
>STATEMENT OF SENATOR ORRIN HATCH
>
>BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE
>
>ON THE DECISION ON AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL
>
>April 15, 1997
>
>I had hoped to come to the floor today to deliver a statement
>commending the Attorney General for her courageous decision to do the
>right thing and request the appointment of an independent counsel to
>investigate fundraising violations in connection with the 1996
>presidential election. Regrettably, I am here today for a much
>different reason -- to express disappointment and frustration with her
>refusal to even initiate an independent counsel's appointment. I
>appreciate the fact that the Attorney General is under enormous
>pressure from the White House, the Congress, the media and the public,
>and that she is in an unenviable position. I have always had respect
>and admiration for the Attorney General, but her refusal to do what
>the law permits and indeed requires her to do frankly does not
>engender respect or administration. "The Clinton Administration and
>Department of Justice is trying to cast her decision as a legal one
>when, in fact, it is a decision within her power and, in my opinion,
>one which she is ethically obliged to make. As Chairman of the Senate
>Judiciary Committee which, pursuant to its statutory responsibilities,
>requested 33 days ago that the Attorney General apply for the
>appointment of an independent counsel, I am compelled to respond to
>what can only be characterized as an inadequate response.
>
>In all candor, the substance of the Attorney General's report is vague
>and ambiguous at best, and, at times, legally disingenuous. Especially
>in light of the fact that the committee requested that she evaluate
>and report on "all of the information before (her)," not just a few
>isolated allegations, the Attorney General's report also is
>incomplete, and in a rather selective way at that. A judge in a court
>of law would recognize the Attorney General's report as a defense
>brief too clever by a half, carefully and zealously crafted to serve a
>client's interest. But the Attorney General's client here is not the
>President or her political party. It is the public, and the public's
>confidence that this investigation will be as fair, as thorough and as
>tough as any other, altogether untainted by political considerations.
>I am afraid that this client has been disserved. Given the evasiveness
>of the Attorney General's report, together with the delay in its
>transmission and the fact that, as the Attorney General herself
>admits, "much has been discovered" since the committee sent its
>letter, I have little choice but to conclude that, much to my
>disappointment, Attorney General Reno did not receive our request with
>a mind fully open to doing what is plainly in out nation's best
>interest.
>
>Before responding to the Attorney General's report in more detail, I
>feel I should briefly review what the independent counsel statute
>provides for. An independent counsel can be triggered in one of two
>ways: where there is sufficient information to investigate whether any
>person "covered" by the statute may have violated federal law, or
>where an investigation of someone else who may have violated the law
>may result in a political or other conflict of interest. It's that
>simple.
>
>1. Mandatory Trigger. With respect to the first mandatory trigger
>where "covered individuals" are at issue, the Attorney General's
>report does little but make reference to legal "factors that must be
>considered" and then repeatedly draw the summary conclusion that she
>does not have specific and credible evidence that a covered individual
>may have violated the law. Despite the White House's characterization
>of the Attorney General's decision as simply "applying the law to the
>facts," there is virtually no application of the pertinent law to the
>pertinent facts actually before the public, let alone the facts before
>the Attorney General. While the statute requires the Attorney General
>to set forth the reasons for her decisions with respect to each matter
>before her, in my view she has utterly failed to do so here. To
>illustrate just a few examples of the inadequacy of the Attorney
>General's response, let me point out that she fails to specifically
>explain why an independent counsel is not warranted to further
>investigate the abundant evidence that covered individuals made
>extensive and deliberate use of federal property and resources for
>campaign purposes, including, for example, the Lincoln Bedroom and
>other areas of the White House, Air Force One and a computer database
>costing the taxpayers $1.7 million. An authority higher than me and
>more independent than the Attorney General needs to determine the
>scope of the various laws implicated by this conduct, and whether any
>of these laws were violated.
>
>The Attorney General's somewhat evasive approach to this entire matter
>is aptly illustrated by her argument that the use of a government
>telephone does not constitute conversion of government property. I am
>sure it does not, but, as the Attorney General knows all too well,
>that is beside the point: the allegations of misuse of government
>property are not based on phone calls, but on the diversion of
>resources such as the White House, Air Force One and the White House
>Database for campaign purposes, while phone solicitations were not
>alleged to have violated the conversion laws, but rather the
>prohibition on solicitations from federal property. The conclusion I
>cannot help but draw here is that, however involved the Attorney
>General's career staff was in preparing this letter, in the end it was
>her political advisers who had the last word.
>
>In short, the Attorney General's carefully finessed, and in some cases
>deliberately irrelevant, legal arguments, combined with her summary
>conclusions that there is no specific, credible evidence that a
>covered individual may have violated the law, hardly persuades one
>that an independent counsel is not mandated under the statute, or, for
>that matter, that the question has been given a genuinely thorough and
>candid evaluation.
>
>2. Discretionary Trigger. Perhaps more fundamental, though, is the
>Attorney General's altogether inadequate explanation as to why she
>will not request an independent counsel pursuant to the second
>statutory trigger -- to avoid a conflict of interest. Here the test is
>quite simple: if the Attorney General is presented with a conflict of
>interest in investigating whether any individuals may have violated
>the law, she has the discretion to proceed with the appointment of an
>independent counsel. Try as the White House and the Attorney General
>might to cast this as a narrow and technical legal question, it is
>anything but that -- it is an ethical one requiring sensitive judgment
>as to what is necessary to ensure the public's confidence that an
>investigation can be supervised by the Attorney General and completed
>in a thorough and impartial manner.
>
>In the past, the Attorney General has had a rather broad view of what
>is necessary to protect the public's confidence that an investigation
>is not compromised by any perception of a conflict of interest. In her
>Whitewater independent counsel request, for example, Attorney General
>Reno concluded that an independent counsel was required because her
>investigation would involve investigation of James McDougal and "other
>individuals associated with the President and Mrs. Clinton" would
>amount to a conflict of interest. It was that simple. In her referral
>of the Nussbaum perjury allegation to the independent counsel, the
>Attorney General concluded that a conflict of interest existed because
>the investigation "will involve an inquiry into statements allegedly
>made by a former senior member of the White House staff." It was that
>simple. And, testifying before Congress in 1993, Ms. Reno stated that
>the Iran-Contra investigation "could not have been conducted under the
>supervision of the Attorney General and concluded with any public
>confidence in its thoroughness or impartiality." It was that simple.
>
>Indeed, the Attorney General's testimony, at that time, thoroughly
>explained her rather strong view that even the slightest appearance of
>a conflict of interest should, at all costs, be avoided by the
>appointment of an independent counsel. She testified:
>
>There is an inherent conflict of interest whomever senior Executive
>Branch officials are to be investigated by the Department of Justice
>and its appointed head, the Attorney General. The Attorney General
>serves at the pleasure of the President. Recognition of this conflict
>does not belittle or demean the impressive professionalism of the
>department's career prosecutors, nor does it question the integrity of
>the Attorney General and his or her political appointees. Instead, it
>recognizes the importance of public confidence in our system of
>justice, and the destructive effect in a free democracy of public
>cynicism.
>
>She further testified that:
>
>It is absolutely essential for the public to have confidence in the
>system and you cannot do that when there is conflict or an appearance
>of conflict in the person who is, in effect, the chief prosecutor....
>The Independent Counsel Act was designed to avoid even the appearance
>of impropriety in the consideration of allegations of misconduct by
>high-level Executive Branch officials and to prevent...the actual or
>perceived conflicts of interest. The Act thus served as a vehicle to
>further the public's perception of fairness and thoroughness in such
>matters, and to avert even the most subtle influences that may appear
>in an investigation of highly-placed Executive officials.
>
>See Hearing on S. 24, The Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of
>1993, S. Hrg. 103-437, at 11-12 (May 14, 1993).
>
>In her report to the Judiciary Committee, however, the Attorney
>General adopts a far narrower view of when an independent counsel is
>called for. Suddenly, the conflict of interest provision has become a
>complicated legal threshold which "should be invoked only in certain
>narrow circumstances." (Reno letter at 3). Directly contradicting her
>own public statements that it is impossible for the public to have
>confidence in an investigation where there is a "conflict or an
>appearance of conflict in the person who is, in effect, the chief
>prosecutor," S. Hrg. 103-437, at 12, now the Attorney General claims
>that her discretion is limited only to situations where there is an
>"actual" conflict of interest. Quite frankly, the Attorney General's
>efforts to distance herself from her 1993 testimony require her to
>render a rather creative reading of her testimony. Allow me to suggest
>that, to the extent an independent counsel was called for to ensure
>public confidence in an investigation of Mr. North, Mr. Nussbaum or
>Mr. McDougal and his associates, one certainly is called for here. If
>the Attorney General has adopted a new standard for evaluating when an
>independent counsel is necessary to ensure the public's confidence in
>an investigation, she should state as much and explain the basis for
>her new position.
>
>Although the Attorney General does not say as much in her letter, one
>can only surmise that her position is that 1) there is no conflict of
>interest in continuing to investigate any of the individuals already
>under investigation (i.e., Huang, Riady, Trie, Kanchanalak, John H. K.
>Lee, the Wiriadinatas, Charles DeQueljoe, Mark Middleton and Webster
>Hubbell), and 2) that there is no basis for investigating whether
>other high-ranking officials may have violated the law. Since General
>Reno fails to explain her reasoning, let's step back for a moment and
>review some of the facts here to determine whether either of these
>apparent positions can really be defended.
>
>Take Mr. John Huang, the former Lippo Executive whom the Riady's are
>widely reported to have bragged was "placed" in the Clinton
>Administration in exchange for generous donations by the Riady family,
>whose ties to the Clintons date back to Little Rock in the 1980's.
>See, e.g., The New York Times, October 7, 1996. Recall that the Lippo
>Group, Huang's former employer, is connected to a far-reaching network
>of seriously questionable activities, directly implicating not just
>the Riadys and Huang, but the other individuals that figure in this
>troubling scandal, including Charlie Trie, Pauline Kanchanalak, Soraya
>Wiriadinata, C. J. Giroir, Mark Middleton, Mark Grobmeyer, Wang Jun,
>Charles DeQueljoe and even Webster Hubbell. Since the department is
>already investigating Huang, there plainly are sufficient grounds to
>investigate whether he may have violated federal law. In declining to
>invoke the discretionary conflict of interest trigger, the Attorney
>General's position, therefore, must be that there is no potential
>conflict of interest in her investigating Huang. Let's take a look at
>the specific, credible evidence that has surfaced to date. Huang, who
>received a severance package from Lippo of $788,750 is reported to
>have:
>
>-- received a top secret security clearance that could have allowed
>him to review classified intelligence documents, for five months while
>still employed by the Lippo Group, and before he joined the Commerce
>Department, all after a lax security check that was limited to his
>activities in the United States;
>
>-- made at least 78 visits to the White House during his 18 months at
>the Commerce Department;
>
>-- received 37 intelligence briefings on issues relating to China,
>Vietnam and other matters of potential interest to Lippo;
>
>-- made more than 70 calls to a Lippo-controlled bank; received at
>least nine calls from Chinese Embassy officials;
>
>-- had at least three meetings with Chinese government officials;
>
>-- attended a breakfast at the Chinese Embassy in October 1995 and a
>dinner there that month;
>
>-- had nine phone calls to or messages from Webster Hubbell;
>
>-- had 30-plus phone conversations with Mark Middleton or his
>associates;
>
>-- had his transfer to the DNC orchestrated at a curious September 13,
>1995 Oval Office meeting attended by the President, Bruce Lindsey,
>James Riady and Lippo Joint Venture Partner and former Rose Law
>Partner Joseph Giroir;
>
>-- raised over $3.4 million dollars while at the DNC -- money used to
>re-elect the President -- retaining his top secret security clearance
>even though he was no longer working for the U.S. government;
>
>-- and had $1.6 million of that $3.4 million used to re-elect the
>President returned because of its suspicious sources.
>
>As we now know, Huang has taken the 5th Amendment, while the Riady's
>have not only taken the fifth but also have fled the country. Doesn't
>an investigation of Huang and the Riady's who, like the McDougals, are
>political supporters and "individuals associated with the President,"
>raise a conflict of interest?
>
>Then there is Mr. Charles Yah Lin Trie. Trie:
>
>-- is a former Little Rock restaurateur and, reportedly, a longtime
>friend of Mr. Clinton who now runs an international trading company in
>Little Rock, Arkansas;
>
>-- has also taken the 5th Amendment, and has even fled the country;
>
>-- is a business partner with Ng Lap Seng, a Chinese government
>official;
>
>-- received a $60,000 loan from the Lippo Group;
>
>-- raised $645,000 in questionable funds which have been returned by
>the DNC;
>
>-- raised $639,000 for the Clinton "Legal Defense Fund," which was
>returned because the source of the money could not be identified;
>
>-- was during this period receiving wire transfers in very large sums
>from the Bank of China, owned by the Chinese government;
>
>-- visited the White House 37 times;
>
>-- escorted Mr. Wang Jun, a Chinese arms merchant, to a White House
>coffee last year, which, when revealed, was described by the President
>as "inappropriate";
>
>-- wrote the President in March 1996 to question his decision to
>deploy aircraft carriers to the Taiwan straits when the Chinese
>test-fired missiles in Taiwan's direction, receiving a personal letter
>back from the President assuring Trie that the United States only
>wanted peace in the region;
>
>-- arranged a Hong Kong dinner for former Commerce Secretary Ron
>Brown;
>
>-- and, finally, was formally appointed to a Presidential Commission
>on Asian Trade in April, 1996.
>
>To the extent there was a conflict of interest preventing public
>confidence in the Justice Department's investigation of Oliver North
>or James McDougal, certainly the same conflict exists with respect to
>an investigation of Huang, the Riady's and Trie, not to mention the
>handful of other individuals who have taken the 5th amendment, fled
>the country, or done both, including Pauline Kanchanalak, Arief and
>Soraya Wiriadanata, John H. K. Lee, and Charles DeQueljoe. Frankly,
>there is even more of a conflict here.
>
>Moreover, it has become clear that there is specific, credible
>information providing sufficient grounds to investigate whether
>various high-ranking members of the administration may have known of,
>or conspired in, any of these apparent fundraising violations. Indeed,
>we now know from the Ickes files that the decision to transfer Huang
>from the Commerce Department to his fundraising role in the DNC was
>made at the September 13, 1995, Oval Office meeting which included not
>just Huang, James Riady, and Lippo Joint Venture Partner and former
>Rose Law Partner Joseph Giroir, but Bruce Lindsey and President
>Clinton himself, and that a participant at this Oval Office meeting
>reportedly recommended that the President "reassign Huang from his
>government job to a political fund-raising job, where he could extract
>contributions for favors done and favors yet to come." The New York
>Times, March 5, 1997. Mr. Ickes' notes expressly indicate that Huang
>had specifically targeted "overseas Chinese." And it has been reported
>how this decision to transfer Huang to the DNC, made at that September
>13, 1995 Oval Office meeting, was directly linked to a plan, agreed to
>just days earlier by the President, Dick Morris, Harold Ickes and
>others, to raise funds to wage a preemptive television ad campaign.
>See "New York Times," April 14, 1997. In short, isn't there sufficient
>information at least to investigate whether any of these top-level
>White House advisers were aware of or involved in Huang's and the
>Riady's far-reaching scheme to launder foreign funds into Democratic
>campaign coffers? Does the Attorney General expect the public to have
>confidence that she can thoroughly and dispassionately investigate
>individuals among the President's closest advisers without any
>conflict?
>
>Similarly, there is now a wealth of information documenting the
>extensive involvement from the President down through Mr. Ickes and
>other White House advisers in the plans, discussed earlier, to use the
>Lincoln Bedroom, the White House, Air Force One and the White House's
>computer database to further campaign purposes, and that campaign
>contributions were received at the White House. The Attorney General
>claims she is "actively investigating" whether laws were violated.
>Doesn't this investigation of these high-level White House advisers,
>even if not covered individuals, present a conflict at least as great
>as the conflict that apparently existed with regard to the
>investigations of Mr. North and Mr. McDougal?
>
>How can one say there is no conflict when the FBI and White House are
>publicly squabbling over whether the White House should receive
>information about the investigation, and the Attorney General is smack
>in the middle of this squabble? When the White House falsely accuses
>the FBI of telling NSC staff not to pass on information regarding
>Chinese attempts to influence U.S. policymakers? Indeed, the very fact
>that the FBI, an agency within the Justice Department, refused to
>present this information to the White House on the eve of Secretary
>Albright's visit to China clearly suggests that the investigation has
>already reached high into the White House. It is curious, to say the
>least, that the Department of Justice leaked its decision to the press
>over the weekend, but did not actually notify the Judiciary Committee
>of its decision until 6:30 last night, two days after it was due.
>Furthermore, the Acting Deputy Attorney General's assertion that the
>fact that both Judiciary Committee's have made a formal request would
>"emphatically" not have any impact on their decision, suggests to me
>that the department is in defense mode.
>
>In short, I think there is little doubt that there is, at the very
>least a potential conflict of interest in having the Justice
>Department investigate these matters. Simply claiming to defer to
>career Justice Department officials will not do. Would the public
>accept a member of Congress's not recusing himself from a particular
>matter on which he or she had a conflict of interest because staff
>recommended not doing so? Would the public accept a judge's refusal to
>recuse himself in the face of a conflict because a clerk advised
>against it? The fact of the matter is that the DNC has -- simply on
>the basis of its own audit -- already identified over $3 million in
>improper contributions. A significant portion of this illicit money
>has not even been returned yet, only confirming that this $3 million
>has already been spent -- spent to re-elect President Clinton.
>
>The need for an independent counsel is not merely a matter of applying
>the law to the facts, the chorus we are now hearing from the
>President's Press Secretary and Democratic apologists. In my opinion,
>Attorney General Reno was presented with an ethical question, a
>question ultimately of whether the public can have confidence in this
>investigation, in the Department of Justice, and in the Clinton
>Administration itself. Make no mistake about it: Attorney General
>Reno's decision yesterday was a significant political event, one
>which, much to my regret, will subject her to serious and justified
>criticism. This is not a happy day for the Department of Justice, or
>for public confidence in our system of justice. By continuing to
>permit what certainly appears to be a very serious conflict of
>interest, the Attorney General regrettably has, to use her own words,
>brought upon the nation "the destructive effect in a free democracy of
>public cynicism."
>
>(end text)
>
<snip>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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