U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

74–429 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

HAS THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE GIVEN PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO THE PRESIDENT

AND VICE PRESIDENT?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 20, 2000

Serial No. 106–256

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 20, 2000 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Robinson, James K., Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice ....................................................................................... 27

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia,

transcript of testimony of Al Gore, Jr ......................................................... 83

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 6

Chenoweth-Hage, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Idaho, prepared statement of ......................................................... 331

Robinson, James K., Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, prepared statement of ................................................ 32

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut:

Exhibits used in hearing ........................................................................... 69

Letter from Janet Reno ............................................................................. 304

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California:

Letter from Charles Ruff .......................................................................... 18

Letter from Craig Gillen ........................................................................... 14

Letter from James Cole ............................................................................ 16

Letter from James McKay ........................................................................ 12

Letter from Michael Zeldin ....................................................................... 49

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 20

(1)

HAS THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE GIVEN

PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT?

THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:10 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Burton, Waxman, Maloney, Cummings,

Kucinich, Norton, Barr, Shays, Souder, Horn, Ose, ChenowethHage, Morella, and LaTourette.

Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Daniel R. Moll, deputy

staff director; James Wilson, chief counsel; David A. Kass, deputy

counsel and parliamentarian; M. Scott Billingsley and James J.

Schumann, counsels; Robert A. Briggs, clerk; Robin Butler, office

manager; Michael Canty, legislative assistant; Leneal Scott, computer systems manager; John Sare, staff assistant; Corinne

Zaccagnini, systems administrator; Phil Schiliro, minority staff director; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kenneth Ballen, minority chief investigative counsel; Kristin Amerling, minority deputy

chief counsel; Paul Weinberger, minority counsel; Michael Yeager,

minority senior oversight counsel; Ellen Rayner, minority chief

clerk; Jean Gosa and Earley Green, minority assistant clerks; and

Chris Traci, minority staff assistant.

Mr. BURTON. Good afternoon.

A quorum being present, the Committee on Government Reform

will come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members’ and witnesses’ opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and extraneous or tabular material referred to be included in the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the FBI interview summary of

Donald Fowler dated August 6, 1997 be included in the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that questioning in this matter proceed

under clause 2(j)(2) of House rule 11 and committee rule 14 which

the chairman and ranking minority member allocate time to the

members of the committee as they deem appropriate for extended

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questioning, not to exceed 60 minutes equally divided between majority and minority. Without objection, so ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that questioning in the matter

under consideration proceed under clause 2(j)(2) of House rule 11

and committee rule 14 in which the chairman and ranking minority member allocate time to committee counsel as they deem appropriate for extended questioning not to exceed 60 minutes equally

divided between the majority and minority. Without objection, so

ordered.

Today, we are holding another in our series of hearings into the

Justice Department’s handling of the campaign fundraising investigation. We have a number of senior Justice Department officials

here. We have Assistant Attorney General James Robinson, the

head of the Criminal Division; we have his Deputy, Alan Gershel;

we have the head of the Campaign Financing Task Force, Robert

Conrad; and we have the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, Robert Raben.

We have a lot of questions about what has been happening in

this investigation. Before we get into that, I want to restate why

we are concerned about this.

When the Attorney General decided she wasn’t going to appoint

an independent counsel, she testified before our committee. She

promised that the Justice Department would leave no stone

unturned. This is what she said, ‘‘In this particular campaign finance investigation, as in all others entrusted to the Justice Department, we are going to follow every lead wherever it goes.’’ That

is the standard I hold her to. So let us review what we have

learned about this investigation.

In December 1996, at the very outset, Lee Radek, the head of the

Public Integrity Section, had a meeting with two senior FBI officials. They testified that Mr. Radek said he was under a lot of pressure and the Attorney General’s job might hang in the balance. Director Freeh was so concerned that he went to the Attorney General to talk about it. She apparently doesn’t remember that meeting.

In the summer of 1997, the FBI learned that documents were

being destroyed at Charlie Trie’s house in Arkansas. Three FBI

agents got on a plane to Little Rock to get a search warrant and

seize the documents. They were called back by senior Justice Department officials. The search warrant didn’t get served for another

3 months. When it finally was served, they found out that Charlie

Trie’s staff has been hiding and destroying documents during that

period.

The President was interviewed twice by the task force in 1997

and 1998. He was never asked a single question, not one, about

James Riady, John Huang, Johnny Chung, or any aspect of the foreign money scandal.

The Vice President was interviewed four times in 1997 and 1998.

He was never asked a single question about the Hsi Lai Temple

fundraiser. We found out about that because we subpoenaed the

interview summaries. It wasn’t until we made it public that the

Justice Department got embarrassed and decided to go back and

reinterview these people.

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No fewer than seven senior Justice Department and FBI officials

have asked the Attorney General to appoint an independent counsel or special counsel. She was told that she needed to do it under

the mandatory section of the law by the Director of the FBI and

the head of the task force, Mr. La Bella. She refused every time.

In his memo, Mr. La Bella said that the Department was going

through contortions to avoid investigating senior White House officials. He said there was gamesmanship going on. He said they

were starting with predetermined conclusions and reasoning backward to avoid appointing an independent counsel.

A year and a half ago, they reached a plea agreement with John

Huang. They interviewed him for several days. He testified that

James Riady organized an extensive scheme to funnel $700,000 or

$800,000 in foreign money into Democratic campaigns in 1992. At

least that is how much we know of. Yet James Riady has not yet

been indicted.

What are we supposed to think about that kind of investigation?

I know that Janet Reno likes to point to the fact that they have

gotten a number of convictions. The vast majority have been low

level conduits. I think the record clearly shows that this Justice

Department has bent over backward to avoid investigating the

President, the Vice President and other senior White House officials. Why else would they wait more than 31⁄2 years to ask the

Vice President one single question about the Hsi Lai Temple? That

is why we needed an independent counsel in the first place.

So who is to blame for all this? The FBI? The Director of the FBI

pushed harder than anybody to get an independent counsel. The

FBI wanted to serve the search warrant on Charlie Trie’s house

and they got overruled. It was the FBI that did the right thing

when they were told that Lee Radek said the Attorney General’s

job might hang in the balance. The prosecutors on the task force,

Charles La Bella, pushed hard for an independent counsel. He lost

a job as a U.S. attorney because of it. Robert Conrad, who is here

with us today, has pushed for a special counsel to investigate the

Vice President. I have met a few of the prosecutors from the task

force. I think they are hardworking professionals who want to do

the right thing. I think the blame rests squarely in the Attorney

General’s office because that is where the big decisions are made.

All of these things we talked about before. There are a number

of new issues we are going to talk about today with our witnesses.

I want to mention just a couple of them and then we will go into

more detail during the questioning.

First, what happened with the transcript of the Vice President’s

interview bothers me a great deal. As I said, the Department was

embarrassed because we revealed that the Vice President hadn’t

been asked any questions about the Hsi Lai Temple or foreign

money.

The Justice Department went back and reinterviewed him in

April. I issued a subpoena for the summary of the interview. I was

told by the Attorney General that turning over that interview to us

would jeopardize the investigation. It would show potential targets

of ongoing investigations, what direction prosecutors were headed.

Here is what she said: ‘‘The investigations would be seriously prejVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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udiced by the revelation of the direction of the investigations or information about the evidence that the prosecutors have obtained.’’

We did not contest that and we didn’t get a copy. Little did I

know that the Vice President already had a transcript or did get

a transcript of the entire interview. When news reports came out

that Mr. Conrad had asked for a special counsel, the Vice President

decided to release it to the press.

There is a double standard here. The Justice Department tells us

we can’t have it, yet they give it to the Vice President. He is the

target of the investigation. Why is it not OK for this committee to

have it but it is OK for the Vice President who is under investigation? Did the Vice President’s actions jeopardize the investigation?

If the Vice President put his own political damage control ahead

of the Justice Department’s investigation, that is a pretty serious

problem.

I also issued a subpoena for the Justice Department’s summary

of their April interview with the President. Again, I was told giving

it to us would jeopardize their investigation. Does the President

have a transcript of his interview like the Vice President? Is he

going to release it at some time when it serves his purposes?

Second, we reviewed the document subpoenas that the Justice

Department issued to the White House. There are some very important areas in which they didn’t even bother to ask for documents and that is troublesome.

Third is the issue of the tape of the December 15, 1995 White

House coffee. The President and the Vice President were in attendance. This was the coffee that Mr. Wiriadinata attended. He was

the Indonesian gardener. He and his wife gave $455,000 to the

DNC. During the coffee, he told the President that James Riady

sent me. It is what happens next that is very interesting.

Mr. Wiriadinata moves away from the camera and you hear a

voice in the background. It sounds very much like the Vice President. It sounds like he is saying, ‘‘We oughta, we oughta, we

oughta show Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad tapes.’’ That is

very troublesome.

If it is the Vice President, why does he want Mr. Riady to see

the issue ads? Mr. Riady lives in Indonesia. He was the person who

was the originator of a lot of these illegal foreign contributions, the

source of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why does the Vice

President want him to see these ads?

What is more troublesome is that I don’t think the Justice Department has even looked into this. In five interviews with the Vice

President, they didn’t ask him a single question about it. I don’t

think they have even asked to see the original tape.

People might listen to the tape and disagree about what exactly

he says. It is pretty clear to me but that is something the Justice

Department needs to determine. That is something the Justice Department needs to ask the Vice President about.

There is one final thing that came up recently that provides a

perfect example of what is wrong with the Justice Department’s investigation. Mr. Conrad is the supervisor of the task force. He reports to Mr. Gershel. Mr. Gershel is responsible for overseeing all

of their work, and that is a big job.

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We have been told that this is the largest investigation the Justice Department has ever mounted. You can imagine my surprise

when I read that Mr. Gershel was trying the James Bakaly case.

He spent an entire week at that trial. I don’t take any particular

position on the Bakaly case but there are thousands of lawyers at

the Justice Department. Why Mr. Gershel? Is he giving his full attention to the fundrasing investigation?

James Riady hasn’t been indicated and it has been a year and a half. He funneled $700,000 or $800,000 in illegal contributions

that we know about into the country. I don’t think anyone has really analyzed those videotapes. The Vice President certainly hasn’t

been questioned about them. Whole categories of documents were

never subpoenaed from the White House. The man who is supervising this massive undertaking is now out prosecuting Ken Starr’s

spokesman. Who is setting the priorities over at the Justice Department?

We have a lot of questions to ask and our witnesses are here and

we appreciate that. We thank you for being here. I note that Mr.

Robinson recently had some health problems and I am glad to see

he is doing better and glad that you are here with us today.

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. I would be happy to yield to Mr. Waxman now for

his opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you.

This hearing makes me think the Attorney General should revive

an old Johnny Carson routine. She should take the letter Mr. Burton sent her this week about the campaign finance investigation,

make a copy of it and file it away in a hermetically sealed jar. That

way, she will always have it as an irreplaceable and pristine memento of political absurdity.

There is something exquisite in Mr. Burton lecturing the Attorney General on how to run a competent investigation. Three years

ago, the chief counsel of this committee quit and told Mr. Burton

that he had ‘‘been unable to implement the standards of professional conduct I have been accustomed to at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.’’

Two years ago when the chairman released the doctored Webb

Hubbell transcripts, one Republican investigator was quoted as

saying, ‘‘I am ashamed to be a part of something that is so unprofessional.’’ In the days after the Hubbell transcript debacle, Newt

Gingrich, no shrinking violet when it came to investigations into

Democrats, insisted that Mr. Burton’s chief investigator be fired

and told Mr. Burton he should be embarrassed.

In 4 years, the chairman has run through four chief counsels by

my count, we have had at least three different chief investigators,

at least three of his press secretaries have come and gone, and altogether nearly 70 people have left the committee staff. That is a remarkable record. It explains why the congressional expert Norman

Ornstein said, ‘‘The Burton investigation is going to be remembered

as a case study in how not to do a congressional investigation and

as a prime example of investigation as farce.’’ Moreover, the Attorney General should be especially attentive to

any letter from the chairman that purports to interpret words from

tapes, as his most recent letter does.

Mr. Burton is convinced that Vice President Gore is saying on

the tape, ‘‘We ought to, we ought to, we ought to show Mr. Riady

the tapes, some of the ad tapes.’’ Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe the reference is to ‘‘Dottie’’ or ‘‘Lottie’’ or even ‘‘John Gotti.’’

Who is to know?

This episode has made me think back to October 1997 when the

White House released videos of the infamous coffees. Mr. Burton

was sure that the videotapes had been altered to conceal incriminating information. In fact, he was so sure that they were altered

that he told the country on Face the Nation that he was hiring lipreaders to get to the bottom of things. He did investigate this, as

did others, but no one was able to find any incriminating statements.

Then in April 1998, Mr. Burton released the doctored Web Hubbell transcripts. Some reporters initially accepted his interpretations as fact but they weren’t. The chairman or his staff had systematically changed words and left out passages to make the transcript seem incriminating. In one excerpt, for example, the chairman had Mr. Hubbell saying, ‘‘The Riady is just not easy to do

business with me while I am here.’’ In fact, Mr. Hubbell never

mentioned Mr. Riady at all. He simply said, ‘‘The reality is that it

is just not easy to do business with me while I am here.’’ But if

you are dead set on wanting to hear Riady at every possible opporVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tunity, it is easy to mistake Riady for reality. This and other unfortunate distortions in the doctored transcript brought mounds of ridicule to this committee.

In one memorable Time Magazine piece, which I will make a

part of the record, Calvin Trillin tried to capture how absurd this

committee’s allegations can be.

All of this would be comical if it did no harm to people’s reputations but real harm is often done when the chairman wildly attacks

the integrity of others, particularly the Vice President and the Attorney General. These groundless and offensive attacks don’t reflect

just excessive partisanship, they have moved far beyond that. They

are reckless expressions of zealotry that take no account of the personal responsibility that each of us has to be accurate or factual

in our comments.

In the Attorney General’s case, Mr. Burton is increasingly shrill

despite the fact that FBI Director Freeh and former Campaign

Task Force Director Chuck La Bella have told him he is factually

wrong in questioning the Attorney General’s integrity.

The videotape the chairman has analyzed is a good example of

misguided efforts. How did Mr. Burton and his staff find this? They

must be spending thousands of hours and countless taxpayer dollars combing every videotape and every document this committee

has ever received to find anything possible to embarrass the Vice

President.

Now the chairman is upset that the Vice President received socalled special treatment by the task force and he points to the fact

that the Vice President received a transcript of his deposition. That

is one of the main reasons we are having this hearing.

I have tried to find out whether this is true. As usual in this

committee, it turned out it is not true at all. The fact is that many

other high-ranking officials, including several Republican officials,

have been treated in the exact same manner. When Edwin Meese,

the former Republican Attorney General was investigated by the

independent counsel, he was given a transcript of his deposition. I

have a letter from former Independent Counsel James McKay attesting to this and I want to include that in the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. When George Schultz, the former Republican Secretary of State, was interviewed by the Iran Contra independent

counsel, he was given a copy of a taped record of his session. I have

a letter from former Deputy Independent Counsel Craig Gillen attesting to this and I am going to include that in the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. When the House Ethics Committee interviewed

former Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of its investigation into his

ethical lapses, the committee provided him access to the transcripts. I have a letter from James Cole, Special Counsel to the

Ethics Committee investigation, attesting to this and I want to include that in the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Even this committee has followed the very procedures that Chairman Burton is complaining about. When this committee interviewed Charles Ruff, the former White House counsel

earlier this year, Chairman Burton gave him a transcript of his

interview. I have a letter from Mr. Ruff attesting to this and I want

to include it in the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. I have more examples but I think my point is

clear. Vice President Gore didn’t receive special treatment at all.

I think what really upsets some people is that the Vice President

released his transcript publicly. By putting out the facts, he made

it impossible for his attackers to try him by innuendo. Attacks

through innuendo have been the standard practice in this and too

many other investigations.

The obvious plan, and I say obvious only in retrospect, was to

have the news media in a frenzy for weeks speculating about what

new incriminating evidence could be behind Mr. Conrad’s recommendation, but the Vice President frustrated that plan the moment he released his transcript. That has made some of his political opponents very angry and resulted in the ludicrous hearing we

are having today.

I ask consent that the documents referred to be part of my record

if that hasn’t already been covered by the unanimous consent of

the chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. I appreciate the gentleman from California once

again refreshing our memories about everything that has happened

in the last 31⁄2 years, although we don’t quite agree with everything that was said.

Are there other Members who would like to make an opening

statement?

[No response.]

Mr. BURTON. If not, would the gentlemen please rise so you can

be sworn?

Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth,

so help you God.

[Witnesses affirm.]

Mr. BURTON. Do any of you have opening statements you would

like to make?

Mr. ROBINSON. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Robinson.

STATEMENT OF JAMES K. ROBINSON, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY

GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Chairman, ranking minority member and

members of the committee, since neither I nor my Deputy, Mr.

Gershel, nor Mr. Conrad, have previously appeared before this

committee, although Mr. Raben has, I would like to take a moment

to just tell you a bit about who we are and where we come from.

I have been the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division since June 1998. I have been a lawyer for 32 years. Before

my current position from 1993 to 1998, I was the dean and a professor of law at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, MI.

My principal area of academic interest in teaching and in writing

is in the law of evidence. I continue to be a tenured professor at

the law school on leave during my appointment to this position.

Prior to my appointment as Dean, I was a partner in the Detroit

law firm of Honigan, Miller, Schwartz and Cohn where I chaired

the litigation department and engaged in major complex litigation

including white collar criminal defense work.

From 1990 to 1991, I was the president of the State Bar of Michigan and from 1977 through 1980, I was the U.S. attorney for the

Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit.

Alan Gershel is a career Federal prosecutor. He has been a Deputy Assistant Attorney General since December 1999. In that capacity he has the responsibility within the Criminal Division for

supervising the Campaign Financing Task Force, the Fraud Section

and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

Before his current position, Mr. Gershel served since 1980 as an

assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Before

coming to the Criminal Division at my request, he was the first assistant and the Chief of the Criminal Division in that office. For

20 years he has been a Federal prosecutor. He has supervised or

personally prosecuted hundreds of Federal criminal cases including

public corruption and white collar matters, as well as a wide range

of other Federal criminal offenses.

He has a well-deserved reputation as an outstanding career Federal prosecutor. He is smart, aggressive, ethical and fair-minded.

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Bob Conrad, the current chief of the Campaign Financing Task

Force, like Mr. Gershel, is a career Federal prosecutor. Before

being selected with my participation in December 1999 to head the

Campaign Financing Task Force, Bob served for 8 years as the

Criminal Chief in the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of North Carolina where, like Mr. Gershel, he was responsible

for supervising hundreds of prosecutions involving white collar

crime, public corruption, narcotics trafficking, firearm violations

and a wide variety of other Federal crimes. He has personally tried

numerous cases ranging from bank robberies to capital litigation.

He has over 11 years of experience as a Federal prosecutor, he

has proven himself to be a highly talented, tenacious person with

tremendous personal and professional integrity.

Mr. Gershel and Mr. Conrad are both on detail to the Criminal

Division from their respective U.S. Attorneys Offices. They and

their families have made substantial personal sacrifices in order for

them to come to Washington and assume their important responsibilities. I am personally grateful to them and I believe the American people should be as well for undertaking this valuable service

to the country.

Mr. Chairman, in the letter you wrote to me requesting my appearance, you stated the purpose of today’s hearing would be to answer the question of whether the President and the Vice President

received special treatment from the Campaign Financing Task

Force, from the Criminal Division, or from the Justice Department.

I have great respect for Congress’ oversight responsibilities and

welcome a healthy exchange of ideas with this committee about the

Department’s policies and priorities and accept any criticisms that

might be made about our activities and take that into consideration.

However, it would be inconsistent with my ethical and professional responsibilities to comment publicly about specific aspects of

any criminal investigation. As you know, the interviews of the

President and the Vice President pertain to matters currently

pending before the Department. Indeed, as a result of information

improperly leaked, it has been widely reported in the press that the

Attorney General is presently considering a recommendation that

a Special Counsel be appointed to handle certain aspects of the

Vice President’s interview.

As is well known I am sure to members of this committee, the

McDade Act, 28 U.S.C. Section 530(b) makes Federal prosecutors

subject to State ethics rules governing the conduct of attorneys. I

am bound by the requirements of the rules of professional conduct

in Michigan and in the District of Columbia where I am admitted

to practice law. These rules prevent me from discussing matters relating to pending criminal investigations.

I am also bound by similar provisions of the U.S. Attorneys Manual which provides, among other things, ‘‘Personnel of the Department of Justice shall not respond to questions about the existence

of an ongoing investigation or comment on its nature or progress.’’

These are legitimate constraints on Federal prosecutors for good

and sufficient reasons and I would be in support of them even if

they weren’t required but they are.

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As the Attorney General emphasized in declining to answer questions about this same matter during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, it is essential to the fairness

and integrity of our criminal justice system that criminal investigations and prosecutions be handled in an appropriate way. It is my

firm belief that prosecutors should be doing their talking about

pending criminal cases only in court and only if charges are actually brought.

It would not be appropriate for me or my colleagues to make public statements that could potentially compromise or improperly influence the due administration of justice or unfairly prejudice the

rights of individuals who may be witnesses, subjects or targets of

our work.

If the Department were to provide congressional committees confidential information or engage in a dialog about active criminal investigations, it would place Congress in a position of appearing to

exert pressure or attempting to influence the prosecution or declination of criminal cases. It could appear that Congress was seeking to direct particular tactical and strategic decisions such as the

timing and sequence of witness interviews or the scope and nature

of our questioning or generally attempting to influence the conduct

and outcome of criminal investigations.

Such a practice would not only be inconsistent with the constitutionally based principle of separation of powers, it would also significantly damage law enforcement efforts and shape public confidence and judicial confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system by creating a perception that investigative and prosecutorial decisions were being improperly influenced by political considerations rather than the merits of the case.

This is not to suggest that prosecutors should be immune from

congressional oversight or not be accountable to the American people or not be subject to legitimate criticism by anyone who would

see fit to make such criticism. However, I think there is a legitimate and major difference between appropriate congressional oversight and the disclosure by prosecutors bound by ethical rules of

confidentiality with respect to confidential law enforcement information concerning pending matters.

The danger of congressional intrusion into pending matters is not

just a theoretical problem, indeed we are facing an issue at the

very moment created in connection with the Maria Hsia case as a

result of the hearing that was held last month in connection with

the Hsi Lai Temple matter. When Mr. Conrad was summoned to

testify last month before Senator Specter’s subcommittee, he was

asked questions about pending matters and appropriately indicated

it was inappropriate for him to make comments.

Notwithstanding the very limited nature of Mr. Conrad’s testimony, Ms. Hsia’s criminal defense lawyer not only attended a hearing, secured a transcript but has now filed a motion to dismiss the

indictment in that case or alternatively to disqualify the Department of Justice because of congressional attempts to influence the

Department’s handling of the Hsia case.

Although we will not be able to discuss the specifics of pending

matters, I am prepared, as are Mr. Gershel and Mr. Conrad. to discuss in general terms the tactical, ethical and legal considerations

30

that may influence prosecutorial decisions about the investigative

phase of a criminal matter generally. I will try to provide the committee a brief overview of some of the investigative practices and

issues that may help put the committee’s concerns in context in

connection with what I understand to be the chairman’s interest

and concerns.

Federal prosecutors have a wide variety of methods available for

gathering relevant facts from witnesses during a criminal investigation. Most witnesses in a Federal criminal investigation are initially interviewed by FBI agents or by agents from another Federal

law enforcement agency. These interviews are voluntary when they

occur. No witness can be compelled to give an interview and of

course, may refuse to do so relying on their constitutional rights to

refuse to provide information that may tend to incriminate them.

Sometimes prosecutors will participate in investigative interviews, sometimes not. Where a witness is represented by counsel,

the prosecutor typically will be involved. There are often privilege

issues that may limit the areas of questioning or may result in an

agreement between the prosecutor and the witness that certain

statements of the witness will not be used against him. These are

issues that the prosecutor and the witness’ attorney typically seek

to resolve through negotiation.

As I explained earlier in my statement, a prosector is prohibited

not only by grand jury secrecy rules where they apply, but also by

ethical and professional obligations from disclosing information

about pending criminal investigations. Witnesses and their lawyers, however, are not bound by these rules of confidentiality. Indeed, witnesses subpoenaed even to testify before a Federal grand

jury are free under rule 6(e) of the Rules of Federal Criminal Procedure if they choose to do so, to come right outside the grand jury

room to the steps of the courthouse and hold a press conference to

disclose every question asked and every answer given during their

grand jury testimony.

Similarly, witnesses are free to tell the world they were interviewed by investigative agencies or by prosecutors, what they were

asked and what they told. They also can pick up the phone and

talk to other people about the substance of these interviews.

Although a prosecutor may prefer that a witness not disclose information about a pending case, the Government does not have any

right to dictate who a witness can or cannot talk to. Witnesses do

not belong to either side of a matter. As a matter of due process

and prosecutorial ethics, the Government cannot threaten or intimidate a witness for the purpose of preventing a witness from

talking to a subject or target of investigation or from exercising

their first amendment rights. This does not mean that target subjects of an investigation may corruptly interfere with the Government’s investigation.

With that in context and in light of the public disclosures that

have already been made, I can say, without getting into the specific

details of the discussions between counsel, the Vice President’s

interview on April 18 was a voluntary interview. The arrangements

for that interview were worked out between counsel. Mr. Conrad,

in consultation with Mr. Gershel, handled the negotiations on behalf of the Department.

31

The negotiated agreement met fully the needs of the prosecutors

in the case. I am sure it also helped encourage the continuing cooperation of this witness. We agreed to proceed deposition-style and

our treatment of the transcript was consistent with standard deposition practice with regard to both parties getting copies of the

transcript.

As for the Vice President’s decision to release the transcript, that

was his choice and not ours. We would not have chosen to release

it and we have not released the transcript. We had no legitimate

basis for objecting to his decision to do so. The Justice Department

has no authority to prevent a witness from making a public disclosure about his or her interview or even his or her grand jury testimony, nor would it be appropriate for us to criticize a witness for

exercising the right to do so.

We cannot, as I said, even prevent a witness from disclosing

what was asked and what was said to him or her in front of a Federal grand jury. For us to instruct a witness to remain silent would

raise serious constitutional and ethical issues.

Within the constraints under which I operate with respect to the

discussion of pending criminal matters, we would be happy to make

every effort to answer the questions you have for us that we can

appropriately answer.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Robinson follows:]

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33

34

35

36

37

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

Do any other members of the panel want to make an opening

statement?

[No response.]

Mr. BURTON. If not, we will now start the questioning and under

the rules, there is 30 minutes allocated for each side. I will allocate

the first 15 minutes of our side to Mr. Barr of Georgia. Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Mr. Robinson, you say in the first paragraph on page

3 with regard to intrusion into pending matters, ‘‘might shape public and judicial confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice

system by creating a perception that investigative and prosecutorial decisions were being improperly influenced by political considerations rather than the merits of the case.’’ I don’t think any

of us could better express our concern. That is precisely our concern, that steps that normally should be taken and that prosecutors know ought to be taken and usually are taken, are not taken.

For about 4 years now, we have been going around and around and

around the same issue.

Initially with regard to the refusal of the Attorney General to

seek the appointment of an independent counsel when the law, we

believe and others in the Department of Justice and the FBI believe, that the law was pretty clear that the Attorney General was

required to seek the appointment of an independent counsel.

When the law is very clear and yet the Department of Justice at

the highest levels fails to take those steps that is even a reasonable

non-lawyer reading of the statute seems to require that does shake

public confidence that law enforcement is being applied fairly. That

is precisely the problem.

In this case, the Department, as the chairman has indicated, has

refused to turn over material to us and then the Vice President,

and yes, you are technically correct, the Government cannot, under

most circumstances, control what a witness who appears either before a grand jury or an investigative interview setting, does with

that information, much as the Government might like to be able to

control that.

I think some of the other members will go into this but it seems

rather odd to us that the Department maintains, releasing the

same transcript to the Congress that already has been released to

the witness, for whatever reason, and that the witness has thereafter used it for political purposes, as I suppose is the prerogative

of the Vice President to use a transcript for political purposes, by

claiming to Congress to release this transcript to you, even though

the witness already has it and is making it publicly available for

political purposes, would somehow impede an investigation raises

a question in our minds and in the minds of many members of the

public. That is precisely the point that brings us today.

A number of us do not feel that these cases are being pursued

and we have some questions about that. They are just questions

about some of the evidence that we have reviewed that I believe

is relevant here today.

The first and most troubling matter was the subject of the chairman’s letter to the Attorney General dated July 18, 2000. As you

know, the committee has obtained the original tape of the December 15, 1995 White House coffee. That coffee was attended by Mr.

38

Arief Wiriadinata, the Indonesian son-in-law of a co-founder of the

Lippo group who worked in the United States as a gardener. Mr.

Wiriadinata and his wife illegally gave $450,000 to the DNC, all of

that money coming from his father-in-law.

Up until now that coffee is most famous for Mr. Wiriadinata’s

statement to President Clinton as the President was going around

the room at this coffee being introduced to people that ‘‘James

Riady sent me.’’ That is not open to dispute. That is what he said

to the President when he was introduced to the President, ‘‘James

Riady sent me.’’ We spent a lot of time listening to this tape and I have listened

to the tape a number of times. The Vice President attended that

coffee. He is seen on the tape as he enters. As is the norm for these

sorts of political gatherings, the President will come in, followed by

perhaps some of his aides and scribes, and the Vice President happened to be there also. They will both make their way around the

room introducing themselves and engaging in small talk with the

people at the coffee or whatever event it is. That is standard operating procedure.

The Vice President attends the coffee. He comes in a bit behind

the President and he can be seen coming into the room. It is on

the Government’s tape. He can also be heard on the audio portion

of the tape. After the President is introduced to Mr. Wiriadinata,

the relative of Mr. Riady by marriage and who tells the President,

‘‘James Riady sent me,’’ very audibly, then the President proceeds

on down and Mr. Wiriadinata is sort of standing there, very much

out of place—and indeed, he is out of place. This was not a meeting

of the Gardener’s Association, this was a meeting of major donors

to the President’s and Vice President’s campaign.

Mr. Wiriadinata was not a prominent business person as these

others, or at least a major donor, and he doesn’t appear to know

anybody at this coffee, so he is sort of just standing there. You see

him just standing there as the President moves on behind him and

introduces himself and engages in small talk with other people.

About the time that it would be reasonable for the Vice President

to come up to Mr. Wiriadinata—he is following the President—you

see Mr. Wiriadinata turn and then talk with somebody. Granted

that conversation takes place off-screen. We are not trying to manufacture evidence here, but it is very clear to those of us who have

listened to the original of the tape, which I think you all have not,

even though you have commented on it, it is very clear that what

appears to be the voice of the Vice President of the United States

saying to Mr. Wiriadinata, ‘‘We oughta, we oughta, we oughta show

Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad tapes.’’

The concern that we have, and I will play this in a second, is

that this evidence is not being followed up and that is the question

we have. Let us roll the tape, please and we also have on the

screen the specific language as you see Mr. Wiriadinata pulled offscreen and the conversation takes place.

[Videotape played.]

Mr. BARR. Would you replay that, please, and I will stop it at a

couple of key points.

The President and Vice President are both clearly in the room.

Does there seem to be any dispute about that? I am asking the witVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
39

nesses, does there seem to be any dispute the President and the

Vice President are both in the room? Does that appear to be the

case?

Mr. ROBINSON. I would say, Congressman Barr, this is what it

is. I don’t think it would be appropriate for us to make comments

on anything that might be evidence but we are here and we are

watching.

Mr. BARR. Is this evidence in the case or is the universe about

which you are not commenting anything that might be evidence in

the case?

Mr. ROBINSON. I assume that as a former U.S. attorney and a

Federal prosecutor, you would agree with me that it would be inappropriate for a Federal prosecutor to be commenting on matters

that under 3.6 or otherwise, might be the subject of our investigation. I certainly don’t think it is appropriate.

Mr. BARR. Is this coffee the subject of your investigation?

Mr. ROBINSON. The Campaign Financing Task Force has a broad

subject of its review. As you know, we have had a number of prosecutions including many prosecutions of individuals who have been

donors to the campaign and it would be inappropriate for us to

make comments, and particularly to comment on evidence.

Obviously we are happy to see what this is and receive anything

we get from the committee and to evaluate it.

Mr. BARR. Is this the first time you have seen this tape?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment as to what we have been looking at and I might also say, earlier you made the point that we all have commented on this tape

and that is simply not the case. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us

to comment on the case. I think it would violate my ethical responsibilities as a prosecutor to do it. I think it would be inappropriate.

We are happy to view this.

Mr. BARR. We are glad to perform the public service of showing

you all evidence. Let us proceed then.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. This is the Vice President of the United States, Mr.

Al Gore. Proceed.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. This is Mr. Arief Wiriadinata shaking hands with the

President of the United States. Proceed.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. Stop the tape. This is Mr. Wiriadinata telling the

President, ‘‘Mr. James Riady sent me.’’ Proceed.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. Stop the tape. This is Mr. James Wiriadinata at the

lefthand side of the tape. Proceed.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. Stop the tape. This is Mr. Wiriadinata being drawn

off the visual screen here, being spoken to by somebody who has

pulled him aside. Proceed.

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. Stop the tape. With the interruptions, we missed the

part. Go back to the part where the statement is, ‘‘we oughta, we

oughta, we oughta show Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad

tapes,’’ please.

40

[Playing of tape.]

Mr. BARR. Stop the tape. What we have here, we have gone

through this a couple of times. It seems reasonable to deduce, even

if one does not want to, that the President and the Vice President

came into a room, Mr. Wiriadinata was there, he tells the President, Mr. James Riady sent me, he didn’t whisper, he says it, it is

audibly clear to ourselves and others that were in the room.

Very shortly behind the President comes the Vice President. I

can’t tell you for a certainty that it is the Vice President or one of

his people that pulls Mr. Wiriadinata off screen. It seems reasonable that is what happens because the voice that we then hear

talking to Mr. Wiriadinata saying, I think very clearly, ‘‘We oughta,

we oughta, we oughta show Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad

tapes,’’ and then somebody else says something else regarding that,

we can set it up or something. It seems to me at an absolute minimum, if the Department of Justice is interested in pursuing a full,

fair, comprehensive and complete investigation of these matters,

this tape ought to be analyzed and the Vice President ought to be

questioned about it.

Mr. BURTON. The gentleman’s time has elapsed, the 15 minutes,

and we are going to go to Mr. Shays next.

Go ahead and continue.

Mr. BARR. The concern I have about the Department commenting

on this tape arose in a CNN piece just yesterday entitled, ‘‘Justice

Says White House Coffee Tape Unclear. Hearing scheduled Tuesday.’’ I presume they meant Thursday. In that piece, a Justice Department source is quoted as saying that the tape, this tape is unclear because of poor audio. That is what I am talking about. The

Department of Justice, if you believe CNN and I guess we are all

free to believe or disbelieve them, is commenting on this tape.

Mr. ROBINSON. Can I say unequivocally, I haven’t commented on

this, I wouldn’t comment on it. It would be inappropriate for anyone from the Justice Department to make a comment on this. I am

quite confident that Mr. Gershel and Mr. Conrad haven’t made any

public comments or other comments about it. I don’t think we

ought to be making comments about it. It would be inappropriate.

Mr. BARR. I have absolutely no reason to believe that any of you

all have, but it appears that somebody at the Department of Justice has.

Our concern here is, there seems to be a piece of evidence that

very clearly raises substantial questions regarding what we have

been led to believe is an investigation that we are told is being conducted very aggressively and comprehensively by the Department

of Justice concerning the very issues raised in this tape and in the

audio portion of the tape. That is that the Vice President’s involvement in these issue ads, the problem with having foreign money,

including from Mr. Riady, come in, and you have three key players

right here in the same room, the President, Mr. Wiriadinata and

the Vice President, engaging in conversations that by every appearance relate directly to these matters.

Yet, as far as we can tell, they have not been looked into. This

is the original of the tape provided to us. It is a copy of the original. One presumes that no matter how good a quality a copy is, the

41

original is always at least marginally better. We think this ought

to be looked into.

I ask again, is this tape, is this coffee, are these individuals, is

this language, of interest to the Department of Justice?

Mr. ROBINSON. I cannot comment on the investigative matter but

obviously we are here, we have heard it and we receive lots of information from Congress and other sources. Whenever we get information, we look at it carefully as a general proposition, but I can’t

comment on the specifics of our investigations. It would be inappropriate.

Mr. BARR. Will you commit to look at this as more than just a

general proposition?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would be inappropriate for me to make

a statement about how we are going to conduct an investigation

but I think we are all here and we have seen this information. We

take information that we get from Members of Congress seriously,

obviously, and others as well. It wouldn’t be appropriate, I think,

for us to make any comments about how we are going to handle

particular items of evidence.

Mr. BARR. We would urge you to. It seems to me this tape being

not new, it has been around for a while, should have been looked

at by now, and we would hope at this late stage, because apparently these investigations are continuing, that it be looked at and

looked at very carefully in the full context of the allegations. We

would appreciate that very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Unfortunately, gentlemen, we have a vote on the

floor. I think we have two votes. Before we yield to Mr. Shays, we

will come back as soon as we vote and we will stand in recess until

the call of the gavel.

[Recess.]

Mr. BURTON. The committee will come to order.

I will now recognize for the remainder of my time, the gentleman

from Connecticut, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Robinson, Mr. Raben, Mr. Conrad and Mr. Gershel, good

afternoon.

I have strong feelings like the ranking member of this committee

but I come to a different conclusion. I think our committee work

would have been done a long time ago if we had had the cooperation of the administration. I have a hard time with 120 witnesses

not cooperating with House and Senate committees, with 79 taking

their fifth amendment rights, 18 percent leaving the country, 23

foreign witnesses simply refusing to cooperate. I think we would

have been done a long, long time ago and frankly I think probably

the Justice Department might have had more success as well if

they had had cooperation of witnesses.

I am interested in trying to learn more about two things, why it

took almost 4 years to ask the Vice President about the Hsi Lai

Temple fundraiser and why the Vice President was able to release

his last interview transcript to the media, which I know you talked

about a bit.

By now, it is well documented that the Hsi Lai Temple event was

a fundraiser. Charlie Trie testified in March before this committee.

42

I asked the following. ‘‘The idea of this event was as a campaign

fundraising event and you helped initiate it with the DNC. Isn’t

that correct?’’ Charlie Trie answered ‘‘Yes.’’

When John Huang testified before this committee in December

1999, I asked him, ‘‘Is it true that some people came to the event

expecting they should make a contribution?’’ Mr. Huang answered,

‘‘Yes, yes.’’ Then I said, ‘‘But in fact, it was a fundraising event, is

that correct?’’ Mr. Huang answered, ‘‘There was money whether before or after being raised, yes.’’

We have a memo from John Huang to Kim Tilley, who was Vice

President Gore’s director of scheduling. The subject is ‘‘Fundraising

lunch for Vice President Gore.’’ The proposed location is the Hsi

Lai Temple, Hacienda Heights, CA. The Secret Service knew it was

a fundraiser and described the event as a fundraising luncheon.

The National Security Council expert 2 weeks before the event

noted in e-mail that the head of the Hsi Lai Temple ‘‘would host

a fundraising lunch for about 150 people in the VP’s honor.’’

Then we also have money being returned by the Democratic National Committee and they list reasons for returning money—‘‘unable to substantiate sources of funds.’’ They returned one $5,000 on

November 16 and this is the reason they returned it, ‘‘It was a

Temple, you idiot.’’ That is what they said. It makes you wonder

how we would describe the Vice President.

The bottom line, Don Fowler, former chairman of the DNC, attended the event at the Hsi Lai Temple. Didn’t he attend that

event?

Mr. CONRAD. Congressman Shays, I feel like I am in the same

awkward position of not wanting to comment on pending matters.

Mr. SHAYS. I am not talking about pending matters. I am just

asking if he attended an event. Do you know if he did or not?

Mr. CONRAD. I think you are asking me to comment on things

that have come before the task force.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to read something from the task force

interview of former DNC Chairman Fowler. ‘‘Fowler stated that he

never discussed the temple event with Huang before it started.

Fowler recalled that David Devkin, who was from East India, drove

him to the Temple. Fowler and Devkin were discussing the fact

that the fundraiser was at a temple. Devkin was telling Fowler

that in the Buddhist religion, many things happen at a temple besides worship. Devkin said he did not think it was unusual they

would be having a fundraiser at the temple.’’

Right after that, it says, ‘‘Fowler stated that he did not now that

Maria Hsia, although he believes that she had visited his office on

at least one occasion.’’ Isn’t it true that Maria Hsia was found

guilty of illegal campaign contributions?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conrad, the chairman of the DNC says that he

did not talk to Huang and he did not know Maria Hsia but he

knew beforehand that the temple event was a fundraiser. Do you

know how Don Fowler knew the temple event was a fundraiser?

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t think I would want to comment on that.

Mr. SHAYS. Based on this admission, did Chairman Fowler knowingly allow the DNC to hold a fundraiser at the temple?

43

Mr. CONRAD. Same thing. I don’t feel I am in a position where

I could comment on that.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there any evidence the DNC withheld any information about the temple event from the Vice President’s office?

Mr. CONRAD. My answer would be the same, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. The evidence goes on and on about the Buddhist temple event being a fundraiser, so I guess one of the things I really

want the Justice Department to tell me is, why did it take nearly

4 years to ask the Vice President a single question about the Hsi

Lai Temple? Mr. Conrad, do you know why it took 4 years?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gershel, do you know why it took nearly 4 years?

Mr. GERSHEL. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Robinson, do you know why it took nearly 4

years?

Mr. ROBINSON. No.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conrad, when John Huang testified before this

committee, he was asked about the following statement made by

Vice President Gore, ‘‘I did not know that the money was being

contributed at the time. The people with me did not know. Obviously someone did not handle it right.’’ Huang said that the Vice President’s statement was ‘‘not true.’’ Huang said, ‘‘I believe that Fowler knows about that and also Mr.

Strauss,’’ and I think he is referring to David Strauss, ‘‘probably

knew about that as well.’’ Has the contradiction between Mr. Huang and the Vice President

served as the basis for your recommendation that a special counsel

should be appointed to investigate the Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t think I can comment on that at this time.

Mr. SHAYS. Can you comment on whether you have recommended that a special counsel be appointed to investigate the

Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. I think the Attorney General has indicated that

there is a recommendation on her desk from me and beyond that,

I don’t think I could comment.

Mr. SHAYS. Let us turn to a related matter, the subject of why

Congress couldn’t get copies of the President and Vice President’s

April 2000 interview transcripts while the Vice President could provide his transcript to the media.

Mr. Conrad, early this year in April, you interviewed the Vice

President, correct?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Was the information in the Vice President’s interview

only related to your investigation of the Vice President’s conduct?

Mr. CONRAD. I couldn’t comment on pending matters, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Are there questions that relate to your investigation

of other individuals?

Mr. CONRAD. I think to comment on what particular

questions——

Mr. SHAYS. Prior to this interview, the Vice President was interviewed four times. A transcript of these interviews was not prepared, correct?

Mr. CONRAD. My participation was in the interviews in April and

transcripts were prepared of those interviews.

44

Mr. SHAYS. Do you know if transcripts were prepared for the

President in any of the other interviews?

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t believe there were.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Robinson, do you know if any were in any of the

first four interviews?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think Mr. Conrad is right, most of those occurred before I arrived, but I think Mr. Conrad is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Why was a transcript prepared for the fifth interview, the one taken in April of this year, and not for the first four?

Mr. CONRAD. I can’t speak for the first four but I know with respect to the interviews in April, they were a product of negotiations

between myself and counsel for the two witnesses. As a result of

those negotiations, voluntary sworn testimony was taken under

oath and transcribed.

Mr. SHAYS. So you had the ability to negotiate with the President

about his fifth interview and you set certain criteria for that interview or he made certain requests, there was an agreement?

Mr. CONRAD. Counsel for the President, the Vice President and

myself, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So you worked out an agreement where you would

tape it and you would give him the interview. Why would you have

given it to the Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. The voluntary interviews of the Vice President and

the President were taken deposition-style and as a result of the negotiations between counsel and myself, it was agreed that a transcript would be provided to myself and the counsel for the witnesses.

Mr. SHAYS. Did you agree the transcripts would be provided to

anyone else?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. What conditions did you set regarding the Vice President’s possession of the transcript? For example, did you allow him

to keep a copy of the transcript as long as he promised not to release the transcript to anyone else or to discuss the transcript with

any others than his attorneys?

Mr. CONRAD. There were no conditions like that.

Mr. SHAYS. Did it ever occur to you that the release of the Vice

President’s transcripts might harm the Justice Department’s investigation of campaign financing legalities?

Mr. CONRAD. Throughout the course of setting up the interviews

and conducting the interviews and since then, I took steps I

thought were in the best interest of the Campaign Financing Task

Force investigation. The way the interviews were set up, I thought

then and think now, they were in the best interest of the investigation.

Mr. SHAYS. Did you make it clear to the Vice President if he released these documents, it would be harmful to the investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Did anyone at the Justice Department speak to the

Vice President or his lawyers before he released the transcript of

his April interview to the media?

Mr. CONRAD. That I would feel uncomfortable talking about.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Robinson.

45

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it wouldn’t be appropriate to talk about

the details except to suggest that there was a discussion of notifying us of the intention to release this transcript and there was no

basis, as I indicated in my submitted testimony, for the Department to object to that.

Mr. SHAYS. That is interesting. You would certainly object if we

released it and you sent a letter—excuse me, the Attorney General

sent a letter and on page 2, she says, ‘‘The disclosure of the records

of such recent interviews is of particular concern because revealing

information, especially the questions posed in the interviews, could

disclose significant aspects of our ongoing campaign finance investigation which includes multiple matters. No prosecutor would

want other witnesses to have the benefit of these witness interviews. The investigations would be seriously prejudiced by the revelation of the direction of the investigations or information about

the evidence that the prosecutors have obtained.’’ Mr ROBINSON. We would not have released it, we didn’t release

it and if we had been asked by anybody, including the Vice President’s counsel that the Department release it, we would not have

done so.

Mr. SHAYS. But you wanted us to know it would be harmful and

we couldn’t have it but you didn’t seem to want the Vice President

to know if he released it, it would be harmful and I find that typical.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Shays, your time has expired.

Mr. Waxman, you are recognized for 30 minutes.

Mr. WAXMAN. At the outset, let me indicate that I think Mr.

Shays’ characterization of the testimony by John Huang regarding

the Hsi Lai Temple is different from the one I heard and I want

to insert in the record the precise language from that hearing so

it will be very evident to people as they look at the record of this

hearing.

On to the questions before us today and the issue before us is

whether the Attorney General, as the chairman has charged—and

these are serious allegations which attack her integrity—whether

she or others in the Department of Justice tried to block this investigation of the President and the Vice President.

Unlike the chairman, you have had an opportunity to observe the

Attorney General firsthand. You have not always agreed with her

decisions but you have been able to assess her integrity so what

I want to do is ask you about the chairman’s allegation.

Chairman Burton has recently asserted that ‘‘Janet Reno has

been blatantly protecting the President, the Vice President and

their Party from the outset of this scandal.’’ He has also stated

that, ‘‘Janet Reno has been running interference for the President.’’

FBI Director Freeh, however, has repeatedly testified before this

committee that the Department’s campaign investigation has been

aggressive and thorough. On December 9, 1997, Mr. Freeh testified, ‘‘I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that the FBI is not being

impeded in any way in conducting our investigation. The task force

was formed last December. Their marching orders are to go wherever the evidence leads them.’’ That is from Director Freeh.

In testimony before this committee on August 4, 1998, Director

Freeh and former campaign task force head Charles La Bella proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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vided additional testimony on this issue. I asked whether either

had been asked to pull a punch because of politics. Both answered

no.

In that same hearing, I asked Director Freeh about the chairman’s allegations. Our discussion went as follows:

Mr. WAXMAN. I want to ask one question. The chairman has made the statement

that he thinks the Attorney General is covering up for the White House and the

Democrats and that is why she is not cooperating. Do any of you believe that?

Mr. FREEH. No, I do not believe that at all.

That is from the transcript. Mr. Conrad, do you agree with Director Freeh’s statement that the FBI and the Department of Justice

have conducted a thorough investigation of the allegations of campaign finance violations?

Mr. CONRAD. Speaking for myself, I feel very comfortable saying

that I have pursued the task force since January of this year in as

aggressive a way as possible.

Mr. WAXMAN. That what?

Mr. CONRAD. That I have pursued the investigation in as aggressive a way as possible.

Mr. WAXMAN. What about you, Mr. Robinson or Mr. Gershel, do

you agree that the Justice Department has conducted a thorough

investigation of the allegations of campaign finance?

Mr. ROBINSON. I believe so. One of the reasons we picked Bob

Conrad as a career prosector, one of the reasons I brought Alan

Gershel, a 20-year prosecutor who I hired in 1980 when I was U.S.

attorney down here, was to have aggressive prosecutors who would

work with competent FBI agents in conducting these investigations

and doing it thoroughly. That is our intention and continues to be

our intention.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Gershel.

Mr. GERSHEL. I would agree with that.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Conrad, do you agree with the chairman’s assertion that the Attorney General has been ‘‘blatantly protecting

the President and the Vice President?’’

Mr. CONRAD. Just speaking from personal experience, my experience has been that I have had a fair hearing from her on issues

that I have brought before her and my expectation would be that

I would have a fair hearing on any recommendations in the future.

Mr. WAXMAN. You have had a fair hearing from her?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. You expected to have a fair hearing from her?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Therefore, that would be inconsistent with the idea

that she is trying to have you conduct an unfair hearing in order

to protect the President and the Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. I am telling you what my experience has been and

what I expect it to be, yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. So as far as your experience is concerned, you have

not seen any conduct on her part that would support the idea that

she is trying to blatantly protect the President and Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Robinson, is your view the same?

Mr. ROBINSON. It has been the same since I joined the Department in June 1998. I have been involved in this process since that

47

time. Among the first things that hit my desk when I took this job

were these matters, particularly in the independent counsel area.

I have found the Attorney General to be thoroughly interested in

airing all of the ideas of those who advise her in making sure that

all of the legal and factual issues are fully explored and ultimately

under the Independent Counsel Act and now it is her responsibility. That is what she is charged with doing. I found her to be fair

and open. At times she listens even more than I think most would

to everybody’s view. I see no indication whatsoever that she is trying to protect anyone other than to reach, as she sees it, the correct

decision in the application of the facts to the law as she sees it.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Gershel, what are you views on that?

Mr. GERSHEL. I have been here about 6 months now, the same

time that Mr. Conrad got here, and I have had the experience on

a fairly regular basis to meet with her, along with Mr. Conrad and

Mr. Robinson and others where we discuss campaign finance investigations, the status of those investigations. My own experience is

that she is interested, participates, at times will offer suggestions

and generally wants us to do the right thing. I have never felt that

we have been inhibited in our investigative efforts.

Mr. WAXMAN. One of the questions the majority is raising at this

hearing is whether the arrangements concerning an interview Mr.

Conrad conducted with the Vice President of the United States on

April 18, 2000 demonstrate ‘‘preferential treatment’’ of the Vice

President. As you know, this interview was transcribed, the Vice

President had access to a copy of the transcript and the Vice President released the transcript publicly.

The chairman recently suggested wrongdoing on the part of the

Department of Justice concerning this arrangement. Mr. Conrad, I

would like to ask you a few questions about the transcribed interview of the Vice President that you conducted on April 18, 2000.

The chairman says giving the Vice President a transcript was

special treatment but my understanding is that when former Independent Counsel James McKay took a deposition of former Attorney General Ed Meese, he gave him a copy of the transcript. Mr.

Conrad, do you know whether that is correct?

Mr. CONRAD. I heard you mention that in your opening statement. I had knowledge of that beforehand.

Mr. WAXMAN. My understanding is as part of the Iran Contra

independent counsel investigation, the independent counsel conducted a taperecorded interview of former Secretary of State,

George Schultz, and gave him a copy of the tape. Do you know

whether that is true?

Mr. CONRAD. My answer to all the examples that you pointed out

in your opening statement would be the same. I don’t have any

prior knowledge.

Mr. WAXMAN. Just to mention the others so we can point them

out—the independent counsel investigations on alleged mishandling of passport information, there it was the general practice

to take the depositions of senior administration officials and provide them with full access to deposition transcripts.

Then I have a letter from former Independent Counsel Michael

Zeldin, where he says he used this procedure to take depositions

of two former Secretaries of State, James Baker and Lawrence

48

Eagleburger, former National Security Advisor, Brent Scrowcroft,

and former CIA Director Gates. I would like to have those entered

into the record.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

49

50

Mr. WAXMAN. These are just a few examples, Mr. Conrad. It appears you were not the first to use this procedure or to provide a

transcript to a witness after an interview. Is that your understanding?

Mr. CONRAD. It appears to be that way, yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. You didn’t know about the other examples. Did you

feel you were doing something unprecedented?

Mr. CONRAD. I thought at the time and I still think today, that

both as to the manner of the interviews and the form of the interviews, they were taken in the best interest of the investigation.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Gershel, I understand you have experience in

conducting criminal investigations prior to the campaign finance

investigation. I would like to know whether you think you have

used a procedure like the arrangement with the Vice President in

past criminal investigations?

Mr. GERSHEL. On occasion, Congressman, I have done that. The

circumstances of each case are different and sometimes it lends

itself to that kind of format. I should also indicate that Mr. Conrad

and I discussed, while this process was ongoing, the sort of ground

rules for the interview and I fully agreed and supported Mr.

Conrad’s decision in that.

Mr. WAXMAN. So Mr. Conrad, you made a decision that you

would interview the Vice President in a deposition format and provide him with a transcript? That was your understanding with the

Vice President and his counsel and that is what you did?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. It sounds like there were sound prosecutorial reasons behind the type of arrangements you made with the Vice

President regarding the April 18, 2000 interview and the arrangements do not reflect an effort to provide the Vice President with

special treatment. Is that correct, Mr. Conrad?

Mr. CONRAD. From my perspective, that is absolutely correct.

Mr. WAXMAN. Janet Reno gets blamed for a lot of things. Did she

have any personal involvement with that decision of yours on how

to conduct the interview?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would like to turn to another allegation the majority is focusing on in this hearing. This week, the chairman wrote

Attorney General Reno regarding a videotape of a coffee Vice President Gore attended on December 15, 1995. The Chairman believes

this videotape contains ‘‘deeply troubling and significant information’’ and we had an opportunity to witness the videotape.

According to the chairman, on the videotape the Vice President

says to Arief Wiriadinata, ‘‘We oughta, we oughta, we oughta show

Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad tapes.’’ The chairman is concerned that the Department of Justice was aware of this videotape,

yet did not ask the Vice President about this alleged comment during the April interview with the Vice President.

In his letter, the chairman alleges that the Attorney General has

‘‘chosen to ignore this evidence’’ and states the Department’s conduct regarding this evidence raises concern that your department

has been sitting on important information in order to benefit the

President and the Vice President.’’ He further alleges that the AtVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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torney General gave the Vice President ‘‘preferential treatment by

failing to ask necessary questions.’’ Mr. Conrad, you conducted the April 18, 2000 interview with the

Vice President. Were you restrained by the Attorney General from

pursuing the questions that you, in your best judgment, believed

should have been asked at this interview?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Did anyone at the Department of Justice restrain

you from asking the questions that you, in your best judgment, believe should have been asked at this interview?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. As I said earlier today, the minority has watched

the December 15, 1995 videotape and we listened to the enhanced

audio tape and we listened to it today as well. I can’t tell what the

tape says. It doesn’t sound to me like he is saying Riady but it is

not clear what the Vice President says or whether he said Mr.

Riady or John Gotti or whatever.

Mr. Conrad, why didn’t you ask the Vice President about this

videotape?

Mr. CONRAD. Congressman, I think it would be very inappropriate of me to talk about strategic decisions I made during the course

of an ongoing investigation. I wouldn’t be in a position to answer

that question.

Mr. WAXMAN. I accept that.

Let me ask you this, if it is not inappropriate. Were you trying

to give the Vice President preferential treatment?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Beyond his specific allegations regarding the Department of Justice’s investigation of the December 1995 videotape,

the chairman has broadly stated that the Department campaign finance investigation has intentionally avoided asking the Vice

President and the President important questions. In his July 18

letter to the Attorney General, Mr. Burton said, ‘‘There is no excuse for your waiting nearly 4 years to ask the President about foreign money or ask the Vice President about the Hsi Lai Temple.’’

I would like to ask this question of all the members of this panel.

Do you have any reason to believe that the Attorney General tried

to prevent the task force attorneys and FBI agents that conducted

the interviews with the Vice President and the President from asking the questions which they believed in their best judgment

should have been asked?

Mr. ROBINSON. I can say unequivocally that the Attorney General made no such effort to control the strategic judgment calls of

prosecutors and investigators in connection with this matter at all.

Mr. CONRAD. I can only speak to my involvement in the April

interviews and I was not impeded in any way from asking whatever questions I thought were relevant by the Attorney General.

Mr. GERSHEL. Congressman, I see no evidence of that whatsoever.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you believe that in the interviews with the

President and Vice President the Department of Justice prosecutors were free to ask the questions which in their best judgment

they believed should have been asked?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

52

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you agree with the chairman that the Department of Justice’s interviews of the Vice President and President

demonstrate there has been no thorough investigation of the President and Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. I wouldn’t want to agree or disagree. I know that

my approach was to do the best job I could do under the circumstances I was in and for good or for ill, that is what I attempted to do.

Mr. WAXMAN. You have the reputation of being a thorough prosecutor, very professional. Do you feel that you have been doing a

thorough job?

Mr. CONRAD. I believe I have done the best that I could, yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. We have had a dispute as to whether there ought

to have been an independent or special counsel. It is clear from

documents provided to the committee there were vigorous arguments within the Department of Justice regarding whether to appoint an independent counsel. Mr. Freeh and Mr. Radek have testified that these arguments reflected good faith disagreement regarding the relevant legal standards.

Do you gentlemen agree that there is a dispute regarding the relevant legal standards?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think on this panel, I am probably the only one

that can at least answer this question since June 1998 since the

others came here after the Independent Counsel Act had expired.

Since I was involved at least since June 1998, and although I can

tell you that I wasn’t particularly happy with the notion that all

these deliberative documents were released, I can tell you I think

it wasn’t helpful but nevertheless, I think the release of those documents make them fully available to anyone who wants to read

them, to explore the depth of the kind of analysis that occurred,

honest good faith differences of opinion between prosecutors and investigators who are not shy about expressing their views.

I think anybody who looks at the material there will see that a

lot of thought went into the recommendations that were made by

the FBI and by prosecutors on the task force, by people in the Justice Department, and there were disagreements and the Attorney

General had to listen to this and look at it carefully and ultimately,

under the statute that Congress passed, it gave her the responsibility of making these judgments. I think the record demonstrates

that she worked very hard to come up with what she thought

would be the best decision under the circumstances.

All the experience I have had since June 1998, convinces me that

she was working strenuously to come up with what she thought

was the appropriate application of that standard to the facts.

People can disagree but I don’t think they should after looking

at this material about her good faith effort to reach absolutely the

correct view from her vantage point as the decisionmaker under

the Independent Counsel Act. The Congress gave her that responsibility and I think she did it correctly.

Mr. WAXMAN. I appreciate that, Mr. Robinson. So your view is

that it was a dispute, that it was a good faith disagreement regarding relevant legal standards and that went back and forth and she

had to make the decision.

53

Mr. ROBINSON. As the record demonstrates, I had disputes myself between various people at various times, which are exhibited

in memos that I wrote personally and memos that I approved personally. And I think that there was a lot of meetings, a lot of debate, a lot of discussion between all the parties involved. And just

as the Supreme Court often reaches decisions on a five to four

basis, ultimately the Attorney General has to make the call.

She couldn’t make everybody happy, because there was disagreement and there were very interesting and difficult legal issues involved in each of these decisions.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Gershel, I don’t know how much you were

around in those disputes. But from your knowledge and experience

with this whole Campaign Finance Task Force, is this an area

where there was a good faith disagreement regarding legal standards and the dispute on the question of independent counsel or special counsel was presented to the Attorney General on that basis?

Mr. GERSHEL. Congressman, as Mr. Robinson indicated, I was

not here at that time. But in a broader sense, in my experience,

it’s certainly very common for prosecutors to engage in good faith

discussions, disagreements, debates on the application of the law,

the application of the facts, the appropriate way to charge or not

charge a case. So it does not strike me as unusual at all.

Mr. WAXMAN. And Mr. Conrad, you’re also relatively new to the

Campaign Finance Task Force. But what’s your view? Were the

disagreements the result of good faith disagreements about the

legal standard, as Mr. Radek and Mr. Freeh have testified?

Mr. CONRAD. I really am not in a position to comment at all on

the independent counsel decisions. I wasn’t part of them in any

way and don’t feel like I can comment on them.

Mr. WAXMAN. In the case of the Vice President, it appears that

there was widespread agreement that no case should be brought

against him. The dispute wasn’t primarily about the facts, it was

more of an academic dispute about who should be the decisionmaker. For example, Charles La Bella, in a November 1997 memo

to Mark Richard wrote, ‘‘Ten out of ten prosecutors would decide

that no further investigation would be warranted.’’ That’s what he

said.

In another memo to Mark Richard on November 30, 1997, Mr.

La Bella wrote that, ‘‘On the whole, I find the Vice President to be

credible and forthcoming.’’ Similarly, Mr. Litt, another experienced

prosecutor at the Justice Department, wrote to the Attorney General on November 22, 1998, ‘‘As a prosecutor, I would not bring this

case.’’

Given these and other statements made by investigators about

the Vice President’s case, it seems to me that we’re not talking

about a disagreement regarding the facts. Rather, this was a dispute among lawyers and people of good faith as to whether the

final decision not to bring a case should be made by the Attorney

General or an independent counsel. Would you agree with that, Mr.

Robinson?

Mr. ROBINSON. I agree, and I think one thing you have here that

you don’t ordinarily have on decisions by prosecutors is that under

the Independent Counsel Act, in each instance, there is a notification filed with the court that described in detail the reasoning procVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ess. And in addition to that now, we have all the underlying memos

out there for anybody to examine. I’m sure there will be disagreements between people who examine them.

But I believe people of good faith who understand how this works

will look at this and say they were honest disagreements between

people trying to reach the correct decision. That certainly was my

position when I tried to give my advice to the Attorney General

and evaluate the kind of information that was coming to me to review carefully. I think it’s the kind of process that Congress had

in mind when it created the statute.

And so I think the record is there that we need not speculate

about it, it’s there for anyone to read. And those who haven’t, I

commend it to them, since it’s out there. Although I do think it

isn’t helpful to the deliberative process to have these kinds of internal memos. I worry about, frankly, whether we’re going to get the

kind of candid memos that we’d like to have in decisionmaking.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Conrad, earlier on the other side, you were asked, or they

made the charge that they thought it was improper for the Vice

President to release the transcript of his interview. And I just

wanted to ask you some questions about whether the leak was improper. Your memo about the need for a special counsel was leaked

to Senator Specter.

And I want to ask you about this. Were you concerned about that

leak? After all, when you have leaks there are innuendo that’s

often attached to those who want to give a spin the way they may

want to. Were you concerned about the leak about your memo

about the need for a special counsel?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. And are you investigating the leak?

Mr. CONRAD. I couldn’t comment on that one way or another.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you know how the leak occurred?

Mr. CONRAD. No.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you know how many individuals had access to

your memo?

Mr. CONRAD. Again, you’re asking me questions about the internal deliberative process of the——

Mr. SHAYS. Could the gentleman get closer to the microphone,

Mr. Chairman? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I just couldn’t

hear you.

Mr. CONRAD. You’re asking me questions about the internal deliberative processes of the Department of Justice on pending matters, and I think it would be inappropriate to comment on those.

Mr. WAXMAN. I don’t want to violate your professional views on

this. But the fact of the matter was that Vice President Gore was

hurt by the leak of your memo. It was used in a way to damage

him politically. And that’s why I’m asking these questions.

Have you had discussions within the Department of Justice, and

I won’t ask you what they are, but have you had discussions to prevent future leaks?

Mr. CONRAD. I think those questions are better, respectfully,

they’re probably better referred to Mr. Robinson.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK, Mr. Robinson.

55

Mr. ROBINSON. I have always been concerned about leaks. And

those of us who come down to Washington from the provinces, as

the three of us have, have been surprised by the amount of leaking

that happens. When I was U.S. attorney, I didn’t talk about pending matters. In this job, I don’t talk about pending matters to the

press. I think it’s inappropriate. I think it violates prosecutors’ professional responsibility.

I think when people who attempt to influence decisionmaking by

prosecutors decide that they’re going to leak information as a general proposition, it hurts law enforcement. It interferes with our investigative activities. It causes harm to people who may never be

charged with a crime.

So it’s a matter of great concern to me. And I think it’s entirely

inappropriate to have this occur. It should not happen. I make a

point of not doing it. And if I find somebody who does it, I think

it would be dealt with appropriately. I’m sure that that would be

true of leaks by members of your staffs or by your committees.

It’s not appropriate, it doesn’t help the process. It gets in the way

of your investigative activities, and it can harm people improperly

and inappropriately. That’s why I think we, the lawyers have these

rules that say they’re not supposed to talk about pending matters.

I take it seriously and always have and continue to do it while I

have this job.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Conrad, my guess is you probably would rather not be here today.

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. And you’d rather be doing your job of heading up

this Campaign Finance Task Force, pursuing your case. Political

charges have been made, they haven’t been made about you, but

they have been made about the Attorney General. And you’re in

charge of the task force. If there are problems in the task force

doing its job, then they’re your problems. And I guess the question

I really want to have clear is whether you are in any way feeling

impeded to pursue the most thorough, professional and aggressive

investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. That was my expectation coming here, that I would

do a thorough and aggressive investigation. And I’m pretty proud

of the efforts of the line prosecutors that work with me and the

agents who have worked on various matters. And I, just in June,

for example, we obtained plea agreements from five different Campaign Finance Task Force defendants, and the agreement to cooperate from all five individuals. And that cooperation is being pursued. And that’s indicative, I think, of the active nature of the task

force.

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Waxman, can I say, you made a point that

no, Mr. Conrad hadn’t been accused of anything. And let me just

say that there have been a few comments. And I want to make it

quite clear that I think Bob Conrad is doing a fine job and it would

be inappropriate to impugn his integrity or his intentions and any

recommendations he’s made. I’ve seen no indication that Bob

Conrad is doing anything other than a first rate job at the task

force.

Mr. WAXMAN. My question, Mr. Conrad, didn’t go to his reputation. I accept the fact that he’s got a very high reputation. My

56

question goes to the question of this task force investigation and

whether it’s being conducted in a thorough, professional, aggressive

manner, whether by Mr. Conrad or those working for him. Mr.

Conrad, do you feel that you’re doing that kind of job or the people

working for you are doing that kind of job?

Mr. CONRAD. I personally feel that way, yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. And do you feel the Attorney General in any way

is trying to stop you from doing your job?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. You know, I just want to say from my point of

view, I want you to do that kind of job. I want you to do a fair job,

an aggressive job, a thorough job. Follow the evidence wherever it

may lead. What I don’t want is this whole thing politicized, and it’s

inevitable, I suppose, in this election year that will continue to be

the case. And certainly this hearing is a hearing I must tell you

I would rather not be attending, either. Because I’ve never been

through a more ludicrous hearing than this one where these

charges are made about a tape. I could barely hear the witnesses,

let alone what’s being said on the tape.

And I don’t know what difference it would make whatever that

was said on the tape. If you’re doing the job of looking at all the

evidence and going after anybody who committed crimes, that’s

what we need from law enforcement, not innuendo from the people

on this committee who have their own political agenda. I thought

it was interesting—— Mr. BURTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, if I can just—I’ll abide by the time.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Waxman.

Let me start off by saying that I’m glad that we have civility conferences that you attend, because I hate to think of how these

meetings would be if you didn’t go to those civility conferences.

Let me start off by saying, we had, and I don’t want to impugn

any of your integrity. I think you’re all competent and honorable

men. We had Mr. La Bella and Mr. Freeh and Mr. DeSarno before

the committee, and they all said that Ms. Reno was doing a good

job and wasn’t partisan and didn’t cause any problems. And then

after 21⁄2 to 3 years, I received the La Bella and Freeh memos. And

I’d like to read to you just a little bit about what they said in private correspondence with the Attorney General.

Mr. La Bella, you cannot investigate in order to determine if

there is information concerning a covered person. Rather, it seems

that this information must just appear, out of the blue, I guess. La

Bella memo, if these allegations involved anyone other than the

President, the Vice President, senior White House or DNC and

Clinton-Gore 1996 officials, an appropriate investigation would

have commenced months ago without hesitation.

A La Bella memo, the debates appear to have been result oriented from the outset. In each case, the desired result was to keep

the matter out of the reach of the Independent Counsel Act. A La

Bella memo, the contortions that the Department has gone through

to avoid investigating these allegations are apparent. The La Bella

memo, one could argue that the Department’s treatment of the

common cause allegations has been marked by gamesmanship

rather than an even-handed analysis of the issues.

57

The La Bella memo, in Loral, avoidance of an Independent Counsel Act was accomplished by constructing an investigation which ignored the President of the United States, the only real target of

these allegations. A La Bella memo, it is time to approach these

issues head on, rather than beginning with a desired result and

then reasoning backward.

Steve Clark’s memo, never did I dream that the task force efforts

to air the issue would be met with so much behind the scenes maneuvering, personal animosity, distortions of fact and contortions of

law.

This isn’t me talking. I hope everybody in America will not listen

to what I’m saying and read the La Bella and Freeh memos. Because evidently, what was said directly to the Attorney General

through these memos was a little bit different than the appearance

of comity that we saw before this committee.

Now, I’m not faulting Mr. La Bella or Mr. Freeh. I understand

the position they were in. But when you read their memos, they’re

very clear that they were not happy. Mr. Freeh, from the Freeh

memo, I have to get my glasses here, because this print’s a little

small, the DOJ attorneys have been extremely reluctant to venture

into areas that might implicate covered persons. This reluctance

has led to a flawed investigation in several ways. That’s the head

of the FBI.

Freeh memo, the chief campaign investigator, Director Freeh,

has concluded that the investigation presents the Department with

a political conflict of interest. Political conflict of interest.

Now, if you read the memos, which we could not get, we had to

force it, after 21⁄2 years, it’s very clear that Mr. La Bella and Mr.

Freeh felt this went way beyond just a difference of opinion.

Mr. ROBINSON. Would you like me to comment?

Mr. BURTON. You can comment in a minute.

Mr. ROBINSON. Oh, I’m sorry.

Mr. BURTON. In addition to that, Louis Freeh, Larry Parkinson,

James DeSarno, Robert Litt, Charles La Bella, Robert Conrad and

Judy Fagan said there should either be an independent counsel or

a special prosecutor. It wasn’t just me. It was seven or eight different people at the Justice Department.

Now, I understand the final decision rests with the Attorney

General. But our argument has been, with all of these people making these recommendations, coupled with the Freeh and La Bella

memos and the reasoning behind them, why in the world would she

not appoint an independent counsel to investigate these things,

rather than she and her department investigate her boss, the man

who appointed her? That’s the concern that we’ve had.

Now, Mr. Robinson, do you have a comment?

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. I would only say this, Mr. Chairman, that

I think that while, as I indicated, I have some concerns about the

release of deliberative materials, I think the fact that it’s all out

there and being an old evidence teacher, I would refer you to the

completeness doctrine. I think it is well for people to look at the

Freeh and La Bella memos. But that isn’t what they, they ought

to not to stop looking at those memos. They ought to look at the

entirety of what’s out there, including the memos, including ones

58

that I wrote and others wrote on this very issue, as well as the

final decisions in each of these instances that were filed.

Mr. BURTON. I have no problem with that. But the problem is

Justice, even though we sent subpoenas to them, fought us for 21⁄2

to 3 years. And only when we finally forced the issue, really forced

it, did we get them. And they didn’t want the public to know what

was in those memos, because it gave a black eye to the Attorney

General.

Now, you may disagree with that. That’s why I ask the American

people and anybody interested to read them themselves and make

a decision.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have more questions, but I’ll yield my 5 minutes to Mr. Horn

so he can ask questions.

Mr. HORN. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut.

I’m a historian by background. And let me start on this Independent Counsel Act.

Once it expired, Justice issued regulations allowing the Attorney

General to appoint a special counsel in cases where criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted, or to investigate or

prosecute would present a conflict of interest for the Department

or ‘‘other extraordinary circumstances.’’ Justice Public Integrity

section handled those matters. And they relate to the appointment

of special counsels.

Yet when he testified before the committee on June 6, 2000,

Chief of Public Integrity Section Lee Radek stated that there was

no pending decisions on appointing special counsels in any campaign finance matter. However, by June 22, 2000, a number of

newspapers reported that the head of the Campaign Financing

Task Force, Mr. Conrad, had recommended that the Attorney General appoint a special counsel to investigate Vice President Gore.

Now, the committee also recommended that the Attorney General appoint a special counsel to investigate the White House email matter. Again, the Attorney General declined.

So Mr. Robinson, I’m going to ask you this. Would you briefly the

process for making a determination of whether the Attorney General should appoint a special counsel for a matter? What’s that

process?

Mr. ROBINSON. The regulations, as you’ve indicated, are new.

And the process I think will evolve from the regulations, which are

in the Code of Federal Regulations. The standards are set out

there. We’ll have the opportunity to address those standards. We’re

going to make it up the first time we’re addressing this issue, and

we’re in the process of evaluating a variety of matters that I can’t

discuss in detail that will obviously do that.

Mr. HORN. Well, what’s the role of the Public Integrity Section

in that process?

Mr. ROBINSON. As a general proposition, the people in the Public

Integrity Section, outstanding career prosecutors that have a lot of

experience under the Independent Counsel Act over many, many

years through Republican and Democratic administrations, have

had a role with regard to the Independent Counsel Act, and obviously will have an advisory role, it seems to me appropriately, in

59

connection with the regulations. The regulations were in large part

drafted with the assistance of the Public Integrity Section, with

people who are used to this process and have applied it, I think,

very carefully and even-handedly.

The way it would ordinarily work, and we’re going to have to

evolve the process, obviously, in connection with the new regulations, but I would think Public Integrity would have a role. But

others in the, anybody within the Department—— Mr. HORN. How about the people at this table? Would all of you

have a role in this?

Mr. ROBINSON. I would suspect that if it fell within the jurisdiction of the Criminal Division, particularly, that would be the case.

As you know, there are other divisions of the Department that arguably have some criminal jurisdiction that could be implicated. I

mean, if this were a criminal, if there were a criminal anti-trust

or a criminal environmental matter or another matter, you would

expect that components, the Tax Division, others might be involved.

I would think that the role of Public Integrity would be there as

an advisor. But in each of these instances, and I think if you can

look at the material that you have, other sections besides the Public Integrity Section have been consulted.

Mr. HORN. Well, I understand that, it’s relevant to the type of

jurisdiction. But Mr. Radek testified that there were no pending

decisions on whether to appoint a special counsel for any matter related to campaign finance investigations. Would you agree with

that statement or disagree with it?

Mr. ROBINSON. As of when he made it, I’m sure that it was correct, according to his likes.

Mr. HORN. That’s June 6th. So nothing’s doing, is what it sounds

like.

Mr. ROBINSON. What it sounds to me like is that when Lee

Radek testified, at that particular juncture, he answered correctly.

Mr. HORN. In other words, that there were no pending decisions?

Are there any decisions since then or in process?

Mr. ROBINSON. There has been public information, leaked information, inappropriately leaked information, I think, with regard to

a recommendation. And I think it would be inappropriate for any

of us involved in that process to comment on that pending matter.

Mr. HORN. Well, let’s go back to the White House e-mail matter,

which we’ve all sat here for hours listening to that one. The committee had recommended, as we understand it, that a special counsel be appointed for the White House e-mail matter as early as

March 2000. Did anyone at Justice take that request seriously?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think we always take requests like this from

Congress seriously. And the answer would be yes. I would also say

that whether, I think Mr. Radek, somebody indicated Mr. Radek’s

comment, I’m sure may or may not have, was his best recollection,

whether it was literally true or not at that time.

Mr. BURTON. Excuse me, Mr. Horn. Mr. Shays’ time has expired,

and now you have your time.

Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Attorney General Reno has not announced whether she intends

to appoint a special counsel for the White House e-mail matter.

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And were any of you involved in the decisionmaking process for the

e-mail, for special counsel?

Mr. ROBINSON. It would be inappropriate to comment, except I

would say this. We would be involved in any such recommendations.

Mr. HORN. You certainly would, as Assistant Attorney General.

Mr. ROBINSON. I certainly would be involved in that. The Public

Integrity Section reports to me in the Criminal Division, as do

about 15 other sections.

Mr. HORN. Has the decision yet been made to appoint that special counsel for e-mail? I realize the Attorney General is in and out

of town. That’s what Cabinet officers do. But what can you tell us?

Is that underway?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think that any statement about that would have

to be made by the Attorney General. Because she’d be the one to

make the decision.

Mr. HORN. Did any of you see a conflict in Justice defending the

White House in a lawsuit regarding e-mails while at the same time

investigating the e-mail matter? And wouldn’t that be like a law

firm representing both the plaintiff and the defendant?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would be, I think it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment. It is the case that the Civil Division is

involved in litigation. And the Criminal Division is involved in

other matters. And that happens with some frequency in the Government when the Justice Department has the responsibility in

two separate areas. They report to two different Assistant Attorneys General.

Mr. HORN. Well, let me move to Mr. Conrad, since time is running here. During a July 13th press conference, Attorney General

Reno stated she received a recommendation to name a special

counsel to investigate Vice President Gore regarding the truthfulness of the statements he made about his 1996 fundraising activities. Mr. Conrad, did you make such a recommendation?

Mr. CONRAD. I think the Attorney General’s public comments

would be as far as anybody at this table could go with respect to

discussing pending matters. And so I would agree with her public

comment, yes, sir.

Mr. HORN. To whom, when you make that recommendation, to

whom do you submit your recommendation for a special counsel?

Does it go to the Deputy Attorney General or directly to the Attorney General, or through Assistant Attorney General Robinson?

How does the system work?

Mr. CONRAD. I can tell you my chain of command is up through

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alan Gershel, Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson and then to the Deputy and the Attorney General.

Mr. HORN. Is that always the process, or is it just on the political

problems here, on the conflicts of interest?

Mr. CONRAD. On the significant matters that I’ve been involved

with and where significant decisions need to be made, that is the

process.

Mr. HORN. And I take it your recommendation was in writing?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

61

Mr. HORN. It’s easier to leak those, I believe. And to whom was

that recommendation distributed? As we’ve learned in earlier cases,

that all sorts of people that were political appointees, not necessarily you as the Assistant Attorney General, but special assistants and this and that were sort of, some of us felt, putting pressure on the Attorney General. So who all else is in that room?

Mr. CONRAD. I can tell you that any recommendation on a significant matter that I would have for the Attorney General would go

up through Mr. Robinson.

Mr. HORN. So you haven’t been in the office yet where they’ve

got special assistants that might well have strictly a political, not

a legal or Justice matter?

Mr. CONRAD. I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.

Mr. HORN. Well, it’s a question of, you’ve written the recommendation. It’s gone up through the Assistant Attorney General.

It’s gone to the Deputy Attorney General. And it could be sitting

there. Is it in the Attorney General’s office? And in some cases it’s

been shown that she brings in the person that writes the memo.

And in others, we’ve learned that you have a whole bunch of people

that aren’t really in the hierarchy of the Department of Justice.

They’re special assistants, they’re not people in line authority.

So I just wondered what your kind of treatment is getting, is

that from the assistants or from the people in line authority?

Mr. CONRAD. I meet with the Attorney General personally on a

weekly basis.

Mr. HORN. I see. So if she had any questions, you’d know all

about it. Now, has that happened on recent recommendations by

you?

Mr. CONRAD. With respect to any pending recommendations, I

would feel uncomfortable, I would believe it to be inappropriate to

discuss.

Mr. HORN. Well, I can understand that.

Mr. Robinson, have you acted on Mr. Conrad’s recommendations

that a special counsel be appointed? Is there a memo covering his

memo, at a glance on her desk?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would be inappropriate, this is really

a pending matter, and discussing where that is would not be appropriate, Mr. Horn.

Mr. HORN. Well, I can understand that, too. But it just seems to

me, I would think the hierarchy usually, having been a captain assistant years ago, it goes up and people initial, etc.

Mr. ROBINSON. I will be in the process.

Mr. HORN. Yes.

Mr. ROBINSON. In any such process, I would be involved, and I

would be making recommendations. But I wouldn’t think it appropriate for me to comment on what those recommendations were or

their form. Ultimately, this will be a decision by the Attorney General.

Mr. HORN. But we do know that she has the memo, and not the

Deputy Attorney General, sitting on the Deputy Attorney General’s

desk.

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t know that you know that from us.

Mr. HORN. No.

62

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. Thank you. I thank the gentleman, his

time has expired. And we’ll go with Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage, you

have the floor for 5 minutes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Conrad, you stated that you thought it was not unprecedented to transcribe meetings, such as the meeting you had with

the Vice President, Al Gore. Do you feel that any of the information

contained in those transcripts could have or did undermine your investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. I think my testimony was that I heard Mr. Waxman talk about other precedents that I had previously been unaware of. So I don’t know whether I—I didn’t intend to testify that

there was precedent for the actions I took.

What I did testify to and what I believe today is that the way

in which the Vice President’s examination was set up, and the form

that it occurred, was in the best interest of our task force investigation. And—I think I lost the train of your question in the midst of

my answer. If you could ask me again.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Let me ask you another way. As a matter of policy there at the Department, is it usual to transcribe these

kinds of interviews?

Mr. CONRAD. I think it’s one of the investigative tools that you

have at your disposal, and was chosen by me in this circumstance

because I believed it to be the best thing.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I see. But can you say it doesn’t happen

in every case?

Mr. CONRAD. Oh, yes. Oftentimes witnesses are interviewed either in the grand jury, where grand jury rules apply, or interviewed by FBI agents, in which there is a summary of interview

prepared. But there are myriad ways in which we go about gathering information, the sworn transcript form being one of those ways.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Could you explain to me why General

Reno might assert that there was information in that particular

interview, the third one, I believe, that could undermine your investigation and yet the transcript was released to the press? Just

to remind you, Mr. Conrad, she made that assertion in a letter to

Chairman Burton on May 3rd, and I think you have a copy of it.

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t, I don’t wish to engage in semantics with

you. But the fact is, we never released anything. The deposition

was done, the transcripts were prepared. We got one, the witness

got one. That is what happens in a deposition context, and that’s

basically what was going on with the examination of the Vice

President.

What the Vice President did with that transcript is his business,

his decision, and we had no part in releasing anything that led to

that situation.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Well, let me ask you this, do you feel

that any of the information contained in those transcripts could

have undermined your investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. I would think it would be inappropriate for me sitting here today with pending investigations ongoing to comment on

the impact on those investigations. I think it would be entirely outside the scope of my ethical responsibilities.

63

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Well, let me ask you on another subject.

If the Vice President was called to the grand jury, then would there

have been a transcript at that time, for the Vice President?

Mr. CONRAD. If any grand jury witness, the process would be

that the witness appears before a grand jury, a transcript is most

often prepared. But grand jury rules would apply to that transcript.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. And is it usual, then, in every case, that

the witness would have gotten a copy of the transcript?

Mr. CONRAD. No. If it were a grand jury witness, then grand jury

rules would apply, and the witness might or might not get a copy

of the transcript, depending on the stage of the judicial proceeding,

orders of the court or other examples of getting a transcript. A witness could get a transcript, but they wouldn’t normally do that

until a certain stage in a judicial proceeding.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I just have one final question. Why

didn’t you call the Vice President in front of the grand jury then?

Mr. CONRAD. I think that question would call for a strategic response from me, and I think it’s outside the purview of what I can

talk about publicly in terms of ongoing pending matters.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Thank you, Mr. Conrad.

Mr. SHAYS. The gentlelady’s time has expired, and Mr. Waxman,

you have, for your second round, you have time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Before today’s hearing, Chairman Burton has often used the

Freeh and La Bella memos to try to illustrate his point, which I

think is a political point. And that is that the investigation is not

on the level. It’s not a fair investigation.

Which means to me that, even though they said under oath that

they were conducting their investigation without any interference

and honestly, fairly, and freely, that they, you’d have to interpret

what the chairman has said as that, even though they testified to

that under oath, that wasn’t really reflective of their real views.

And I guess I, because of that, have to try to clearly get on the

record a statement, your testimony. You’ve all answered this.

You’ve all given answers to my questions about it.

So let me ask, so far as your personal knowledge, each of the

three of you, the question of whether appointing an independent

counsel is one that should be interpreted as a legal dispute between people with different points of view, or whether we should

look at it as one of the Attorney General trying to protect the President or the Vice President? Mr. Robinson.

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, I can say that when I took this position,

Chuck La Bella was still head of the task force, Jim DeSarno was

still there. I worked with them. I think Chuck is an able, tough

prosecutor. I think the agents that were assigned to the task force

were good agents. I think they’re still good agents, good prosecutors. I think they were working hard to investigate these cases

thoroughly and appropriately.

The disagreement was over the Independent Counsel Act. And

there were disagreements and they’re all out there for anyone to

read. And I think they’re reasonable, good faith, hard fought disagreements. There are some adjectives in some of the memos that

I’m sure might not have been said if they thought it was going to

64

be published on the front page of the New York Times, some tough

language. But lawyers get tough with each other.

We had spirited discussions, good faith discussions.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Gershel.

Mr. GERSHEL. Mr. Waxman, I got here after the statute expired,

and also, I have no prior experience with the independent counsel

statute.

But as I indicated earlier, these kinds of exchanges are quite normal. What did surprise me was that in fact so much was written

about this, so many memos, so many people were able to express

their opinions and discuss the issue. And that was more than I had

seen in my experience.

Mr. WAXMAN. And Mr. Conrad, let me ask you the same question, but let me ask it also in a different way. Because I want you

to pursue an honest, thorough, aggressive investigation. I think

that’s what the American people want you to do. That’s your job.

And I want to know whether you feel that the Attorney General,

as she listens to the legal dispute over the independent counsel,

whether one should or shouldn’t be appointed, and regarding your

contacts with her, do you in any way feel you’re being interfered

with or being kept from doing a professional, competent investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. It’s a frustrating situation being here. You have a

disagreement with Chairman Burton, and I don’t have a bone to

pick with you, nor do I have a bone to pick with—— Mr. WAXMAN. Nor do I have with you.

Mr. CONRAD [continuing]. Chairman Burton. But you’re asking

me to agree or disagree with the chairman’s view of things or you,

your view of things.

Mr. WAXMAN. No, no. I’m asking you, from your personal knowledge and experience, as the head of this task force, if this is not

an honest, on-the-level task force, doing an aggressive, thorough

job, that means you’re not doing that job, or you’re being kept from

doing that job. Are you doing that kind of job? Or are you being

kept from doing that kind of job?

Mr. CONRAD. I think the matters that have come within my purview in the 7-months that I’ve been on the task force, that I have

looked at things aggressively with other line assistants and other

agents and I’ve pursued those things. And I don’t feel that I’ve

been impeded in any way.

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, you’ve said that under oath. Would you say

something privately than what you’ve said here in your testimony

here today? Is this your view? Privately and publicly and under

oath, under penalty of perjury?

Mr. CONRAD. That is my view.

Mr. WAXMAN. I don’t have much time left. I was going to ask if

there’s anything else you wanted to add. Anything else, Mr.

Conrad, you want to say about all this.

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. I wish you can get back to work as fast as possible.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. This time, Mr. LaTourette, you have the floor for 5

minutes.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

65

Part of the discussion on the independent counsel, it’s not only

what Mr. Waxman was talking about, and that is, is the Attorney

General interfering, but what we were always told on the committee is that in some instances, we don’t need an independent counsel

because the task force can take care of it in-house.

And I want to ask a series of questions about some people that

have come before the committee, and like Mr. Barr, I served as a

State prosecutor before this service. And some of the things that

we’ve received back from the White House have caused me to have

some questions that I’d like to ask you.

A few weeks ago, we sent a subpoena down to the White House,

and asked them for all the subpoenas and documents, document requests that they had received from the Justice Department relative

to the task force’s work. The subpoenas that we received back, at

least what we’ve reviewed so far, indicate that Maria Hsia, who

was involved with the Hsi Lai Temple, was never the subject of a

subpoena request of the White House. And I guess in turn, I’d ask

you, Mr. Robinson, you, Mr. Conrad, and you, Mr. Gershel, are you

aware of a subpoena to the White House for documents in their

possession relating to Maria Hsia that we haven’t received?

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, I would say two things. No. 1, I’m not sure

what you would or would not have received. I’m sure that you’re

also aware that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment on

any grand jury subpoenas one way or the other. I think 6(e) is pretty clear, and I certainly wouldn’t venture into violating that rule

or commenting on a pending matter. It wouldn’t be appropriate.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, let me ask you this. Is there any subpoena that you’re aware of that the task force has sent to the

White House relative to Maria Hsia that you could talk about?

Mr. ROBINSON. No. I’m not, I think it wouldn’t be appropriate for

us to comment on subpoenas to anyone. And I think the rules

would be violated if we were to do that.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Maria Hsia has been prosecuted by the Justice

Department, though, hasn’t she?

Mr. ROBINSON. Absolutely. And convicted. And is awaiting sentencing at the moment. And as I indicated in my statement, as a

result of Mr. Conrad’s testimony about a month ago, we have a motion to dismiss the indictment, based upon things that were said,

even though I think Mr. Conrad was quite right in not answering

questions about the details of the investigation.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let me ask you this. Based upon your experience, and Mr. Conrad and Mr. Gershel, you jump in, too, do you

think that it is plausible that you could have conducted a prosecution of Maria Hsia without knowing or subpoenaing documents

from the White House relative to what contact they had had with

her?

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, I wouldn’t comment on the subpoenas, except to say that we obviously conducted a successful prosecution,

since we obtained a conviction.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, here’s what troubles me. And if we could

put on the screen exhibits 2 and 3. These are documents that you

used, or the Department used, during the prosecution of Maria

Hsia. As I look at the stamps, it doesn’t show that you got those

documents from the White House, even though they appear to be

66

memos written to people within, in one instance, the Office of the

Vice President. Matter of fact, they both appear to be.

But you got those from the Senate committee, Senator Thompson’s committee. And I’m just wondering why it is that, why it is

that you used documents that you received from a Senate committee and not documents that were received from the White House?

And I continue to be troubled as to how you could conduct a prosecution, I understand you did and I understand you got a conviction. But in the realm of, is this an effective investigation in terms

of following down all leads, I guess I’m at a loss as to why you used

Senate documents and not documents that you used from the

White House, unless you never sent the White House a subpoena.

Mr. ROBINSON. I think I’ve already indicated it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment on grand jury subpoenas, and we just

couldn’t do it. I accept your statement, but I’m not at liberty to respond. I’d leave it to whether Bob or Alan want to jump in.

Mr. LATOURETTE. All right, well, let me move on to a couple of

other people then. Again, in documents that we received from the

White House in response to a subpoena, we also have asked about

fellows named Ernie Green and Mark Middleton. And at least I can

tell you that this committee subpoenaed the White House for documents relative to Ernie Green in 1997, over 3 years ago. And if I

remember right, in March 1999, the committee made a referral to

the Department of Justice on Ernie Green on a purported charge

of perjury.

Now, the records that we got from the White House do show that

the Justice Department issued a subpoena to the White House for

Mr. Green in March 2000, a year after the referral was made. Is

it an appropriate question to ask you why the task force waited for

a full year before acting on information that was sort of gift

wrapped and handed over from the committee?

Mr. ROBINSON. It might be appropriate for you to ask the question, but it would be inappropriate for me to answer it.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I see my time’s expired, and I’ll come back to

this another time.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Barr, you are finishing this last round. You have 5 minutes.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. Conrad, I know you’re familiar with the transcript that we’ve

all been talking about here today, of your April 18, 2000 interview

with the Vice President. That’s certainly an accurate statement,

isn’t it, that you’re familiar with it?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. I and a number of others have gone through it also,

and while there is discussion of White House coffees, it’s really not

pursued in any length. There’s just some passing reference to it, a

discussion of how many Mr. Gore may or may not have gone to.

But there was no discussion at all of the particular coffee in December 1995, the December 15, 1995, the tape of which we saw

earlier.

That is correct, isn’t it? I’m not asking you to comment on any

pending investigation. I’m just saying, in this document, which is

already public, there’s no discussion of that particular coffee, is

there?

67

Mr. CONRAD. Congressman Barr, you are asking me questions,

you are asking me questions about a pending matter. And that document does speak for itself. The questions are either in there or

not in there.

Mr. BARR. Let me be more specific. Is there a discussion in this

document of how many coffees Albert Gore attended? The answer

is yes to that. I mean, is that correct? You conducted the interview?

Mr. CONRAD. I did. And that is correct, yes.

Mr. BARR. OK. Is there any discussion in here of a particular coffee on December 15, 1995? And I’m just talking about this document, which is already public.

Mr. CONRAD. Right. I think that document speaks for itself. And

I’m not trying to engage in verbal games in any way with you. But

you are, you’re asking me——

Mr. BARR. I think that you all are. I really do.

Mr. CONRAD. You’re asking me about a pending matter.

Mr. BARR. All I’m trying to—what we’re left with here, and this

is why it makes it so difficult and so easy for Mr. Waxman to claim

that we’re badgering witnesses, because you won’t answer questions. That’s why. I’m not asking you to analyze something that

may be evidence in the case. I’m not asking you to comment on

other evidence. I’m asking you about a public document.

The fact of the matter is, since you won’t answer any questions

about it, and I think you are hiding behind a technicality, I think

you all are using it as a shield to avoid having it made apparent

that you all haven’t gone into something that on its face is, very

clear evidence that the Vice President, in December 1995, just a

few days after showing these ad tapes, paid for by heavy hitters,

contributors, goes to a White House coffee, sees that Mr.

Wiriadinata is there, who identifies himself to the President, who

is just a few paces ahead of the Vice President, as somebody who

James Riady sent, and then we hear the Vice President’s voice say

to that person, we ought to have Mr. Riady see some of those ad

tapes.

Now, you all can sit there like see no evil, hear no evil, speak

no evil, with your hands over your ears and your hands over your

eyes, and your mouths glued shut. But the fact of the matter is,

that is evidence. That is evidence that the Vice President knew

that those ads were being paid for by foreign money. That is evidence that the President knew there was a connection between

those ads and Mr. Riady.

And yet to get you all to admit that might be relevant, you won’t

even admit that. I mean, this is what we don’t understand.

Mr. CONRAD. I’m sorry you feel like I’m hiding behind a technicality. But from my perspective, sitting here, that technicality is

my bar license. And I think there are ethical responsibilities, as a

prosector, that I know you are aware of and abided by when you

were a prosecutor. And I honestly believe that those restrictions

prevent me from answering your question.

Mr. BARR. Well, and then, but it just goes on and on. And I asked

earlier about this CNN story, that had a Justice Department

source quoting, saying the tape is unclear. Well, what tape was this

Justice Department source listening to? Now we go back to the

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tape here, and I asked Mr. Robinson if he understood what was on

the tape. Gee, I don’t know, I can’t say.

You are hiding behind it. I mean, to sit here, it just stretches

credibility to say, you’re sitting here and we play a tape, and you

won’t even tell us whether you hear what’s on the tape because it

might be evidence. Yes, it might be evidence. We want it to be evidence in this case. It isn’t so far because you all haven’t done anything with it.

You had a perfect opportunity, interviewing the Vice President,

to ask him about a piece of very relevant evidence, and you all

chose not to. We’d like to know why, but you all won’t tell us.

That’s why it’s very frustrating. We cannot properly conduct the

oversight responsibility that you all pay lip service to, because we

can’t even find out answers to basic common sense questions about

whether or not you hear what’s on a tape.

Mr. CONRAD. I know it’s frustrating for you. It’s frustrating for

me as well. Because when you ask me to comment, you’re asking

for my mental processes, my analysis of things that involve ongoing, pending matters. And you’re asking me to comment in a way

that I think is outside—— Mr. BARR. But you won’t even acknowledge whether something

is on the record or off the record, when the document is right here

and it’s clear that it’s not. I just think that you’re taking it to extremes that rule was unintended to be taken to.

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

This is now my time. But before we start the clock, I’d ask unanimous consent that a set of exhibits to be used in today’s hearings

be included in the record. And without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Mr. Chairman, could I ask unanimous consent to include the transcript to which we’ve been referring, that is, the testimony of Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., Tuesday, April 18, 2000,

conducted by Mr. Conrad and others, be included in the record?

Mr. SHAYS. If it’s not included, it should be. And without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. If it’s not included, also without objection, the letter

to Mr. Burton from Attorney General of May 3rd, denying us that

transcript. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I now have my 5 minutes. I’d like to ask you, Mr.

Raben, if the Vice President was given a copy of his transcript and

all the exhibits to the interview, and he was allowed to provide

that interview in evidence to the media, why did the Justice Department fail to provide Congress with the same information when

we subpoenaed it?

Mr. RABEN. I think you’ve reversed the sequence, the denial to

Congress preceded the Vice President’s counsel releasing the transcript.

Mr. SHAYS. Have we received any transcript from you?

Mr. RABEN. No, you haven’t received it from us, since—— Mr. SHAYS. So you all basically still have not provided us the

transcript? Is that not correct?

Mr. RABEN. Right. The one you’ve just now entered in the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Seems like the Justice Department has two different

standards. You can’t give the interview to Congress, because that

would harm your investigation. However, you cut a deal with the

Vice President that allowed him not only to give the media his

transcript, but also the exhibits that you showed the Vice President.

Mr. Raben, why did the Justice Department fail to take steps to

prevent the Vice President from distributing his transcript, particularly when it was so sensitive that you couldn’t comply with a congressional subpoena?

Mr. RABEN. You have so many premises in that question I’m not

exactly sure where to begin. But I’ll try to remember everything

you’ve said.

You called it a double standard, I believe. It’s not a double standard, it’s two different requestors and two different sets of legal obligations. The witness, once provided a transcript as part of a voluntary interview, as I’ve been taught about by the Criminal Division, is free to do what he or she wants with his or her own words.

And we apparently do not have a legal ability to object to the release, whether or not we personally object.

With respect to Congress and it seeking information from us, I

think the policy, as I manifest it in this job is to resist as much

as possible the ability of Congress to have access to open file material. We do everything that we can to try to accommodate what you

and we consider to be legitimate oversight needs without providing

open access material, open file material.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gershel, in the letter that we received from the

Attorney General, she said, disclosure of the records of such recent

interviews is a particular concern, because revealing information,

especially the questions posed in the interviews, could disclose significant aspects of our ongoing campaign finance investigation,

which include multiple matters. No prosecutor would want other

witnesses to have the benefit of these witness interviews.

The investigation would be seriously prejudiced by the revelation

of the direction of the investigations or information about the evidence that the prosecutors have obtained. She goes on to say, as

discussed above, significant harm to ongoing investigations would

result from the disclosure of the records of the recent interviews.

She then says, moreover, disclosure at this juncture of the aspects

of the open investigation that is revealed by an investigator’s quesVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00311 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tion at these interviews would unquestionably risk compromise to

the pending investigations and possible future prosecutions.

So I’d like to ask you, is the Attorney General speaking the

truth? Is that true?

Mr. GERSHEL. Certainly she’s speaking the truth. But as Mr.

Raben indicated, the circumstances that occurred here are different. We could not have prevented the Vice President from releasing that transcript. We could not have prevented it by law, by

rules of ethics, by our duties as a prosecutor, by the first amendment. He was free to walk out of that room after that interview,

sir, and tell the whole world what he had said.

Mr. SHAYS. You have told us what you felt would happen by the

release of that document. Did you share that information with the

Vice President, that he would compromise the investigation? All

those things that the Attorney General said, did you share that

with the Vice President?

Mr. GERSHEL. Mr. Shays, it would be inappropriate for me to

comment on any discussions I might have had with the Vice President.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conrad, did you share with the Vice President

that any disclosure of this information would harm this investigation?

Mr. CONRAD. I would be in the same situation as Mr. Gershel.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Robinson.

Mr. ROBINSON. I didn’t speak to the Vice President about this

matter or Mr. Neal or anyone else. I think when Mr. Conrad made

these arrangements, he was new enough to Washington he didn’t

expect leaks. But that’s unfortunately what happened.

Mr. SHAYS. See, this is where I begin to feel that this, that your

responses border on absurdity. It’s one thing to say you can’t talk

about an investigation. It’s another thing to say that you can’t disclose to us whether or not you asked the Vice President not to disclose this information.

And for the life of me, I can’t understand how you can equate

that, not disclosing what you said to the Vice President about disclosing sensitive information that would harm investigation. And I

just want to be certain that all of you are still contending that

would be inappropriate for you to disclose to the committee.

The question is very simple. Did you make it clear to the President that disclosure of these tapes would harm the investigation,

the Vice President? Mr. Robinson.

Mr. ROBINSON. I didn’t have any discussions.

Mr. SHAYS. You had no discussions with the Vice President about

this?

Mr. ROBINSON. No, I did not.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Raben.

Mr. RABEN. I didn’t have any conversations, either. I would not

accept the label absurd to say that it’s inappropriate, or if they say

it’s inappropriate to talk about their conversations with somebody,

I wouldn’t accept the label absurd.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I think it was when it’s just about whether or

not we wanted to protect an investigation. It’s one thing when

you’re talking about the investigation. It’s another thing about

wanting to protect it.

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Mr. RABEN. Yes, you know, I’d like to say, I’m not a prosecutor.

I come, I sat where Mr. Wilson and Mr. Schiliro are for 7 years,

and I’ve been at the Department for a year. And it’s amazing to

me what these career prosecutors do, the amount of time they

work, the dedication they bring to their job and the kind of criticism they take. It’s very, very impressive.

Mr. SHAYS. It is impressive, but it doesn’t answer the question.

We take criticism, too. But it’s totally irrelevant what you said.

Mr. RABEN. I don’t think it’s totally irrelevant.

Mr. SHAYS. The issue—— Mr. RABEN. I don’t think it’s absurd when they explain—— Mr. SHAYS. The issue is the following. How is it inappropriate for

you to tell us whether or not you were protecting an investigation

by telling the individual, in this case the Vice President, that he

had sensitive information that he should not disclose? I’m just

reading what the Attorney General told us. She told us it would

be inappropriate for this information to be shared. And I want to

know if you made it clear to the Attorney General, because he happened to disclose it.

And Mr. Conrad, I’m asking the question. Are you still going to

make the claim that answering that question is inappropriate?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. Shays, I think if—you probably conclude that

I made a mistake in setting up the interview the way I did, and

that is deposition style, where I get a copy of the transcript and

the Vice President gets a copy of the transcript.

Mr. SHAYS. No, I don’t make that assumption yet. What I do

make an assumption is that I have a right as a Member of Congress to know whether you tried to protect sensitive information

that you told us shouldn’t be made public.

Mr. CONRAD. I think once I made that decision to do it that way,

I did not have a legal objection to assert—— Mr. SHAYS. But what about a moral, moral responsibility to protect your investigation? So are you saying that the President didn’t

know he would harm the investigation by disclosing it?

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t know what he’d do. I’m saying to you that

I think at the point in time that he does release it, that’s his decision, not mine.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, I think in a sense, you did answer it, and maybe

you could tell me, you basically did not tell him that if he disclosed

this information it would be harmful?

Mr. CONRAD. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Gershel.

Mr. GERSHEL. No, sir, I had no conversations with him.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, thank you.

Mr. Horn, you have the time.

Mr. HORN. Would you like 2 or 3 minutes to finish up?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, please.

I would now like to ask you, each of you gentlemen, Mr. Robinson, did the disclosure of the tapes, of the transcript by the Vice

President harm the investigation?

Mr. ROBINSON. I can’t comment on whether it did or didn’t. We

always prefer that information that we have not be disclosed. But

as I said, we can’t prohibit that and couldn’t in this instance and

didn’t.

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Mr. SHAYS. As discussed above, significant harm to ongoing investigations would result from the disclosure of the records of the

recent interviews. That’s what the Attorney General said. Was she

telling us the truth?

Mr. ROBINSON. That’s generally true of all such matters.

Mr. SHAYS. So this was a boiler plate? This was not, so we

shouldn’t really believe it?

Mr. ROBINSON. No, I think it’s true.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, that’s all I wanted to know.

Mr. Raben, did the Attorney General speak truthfully, that the

disclosure of this information harms the information?

Mr. RABEN. Yes, Raben, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conrad.

Mr. CONRAD. There’s two parts to that question. One is a policy

where if witnesses thought we were releasing their statements

after they gave us statements, there would be a chilling effect in

ongoing investigations. So any time there’s that perception that

we’re releasing statements of witnesses, it has an adverse effect, or

the potential for that in investigations.

Mr. SHAYS. The Attorney General left no ambiguity about the release of this document. She was very clear, I read it to you. Mr.

Gershel, is the Attorney General correct, and was the investigation

harmed by releasing these transcripts?

Mr. GERSHEL. I can’t comment if the investigation was harmed.

But her comments are correct.

Mr. HORN. Let me just finish up on the hierarchy over there. As

I read the regulations and all, the Public Integrity Section has the

responsibility for reviewing special counsel matters. Now, Mr.

Conrad, did your particular recommendation go through the Public

Integrity Section? Seems to be that’s the hierarchy.

Mr. CONRAD. Any recommendation of the nature you’re suggesting would go from me to the Attorney General through Mr. Robinson.

Mr. HORN. I see. And would not go through Mr. Radek as Chief

of the Public Integrity Section?

Mr. CONRAD. That’s right.

Mr. HORN. OK. So let me just note that the Attorney General,

on July 13th, said she was still reviewing the recommendation, presumably yours, but that she would like to resolve the issue, ‘‘as

soon as possible.’’ Now, do any of you know where that recommendation stands today? How soon is as soon as possible? Mr.

Conrad.

Mr. CONRAD. I’d like to defer to Mr. Robinson on that.

Mr. ROBINSON. I think as soon as possible is her words. I think

that’s what she’d like to do. But I can’t give you an estimate of

when that would occur.

Mr. HORN. Well, when this all came out with her comments

there, numerous press reports indicated that Justice officials were

‘‘shocked’’ or ‘‘surprised’’ by Mr. Conrad’s recommendation that a

special counsel be appointed. One anonymous Justice Department

official went so far as to predict that the Attorney General would

decline to appoint a special counsel.

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Are any of you concerned that statements like that and leaks of

information are precisely why a special counsel is needed? What do

you think of that?

Mr. ROBINSON. I’m concerned whenever there are leaks of confidential, internal, deliberative information. I continue to be upset

by it, surprised by it. But less surprised with every day I’ve spent

here in Washington.

Mr. HORN. Well, I don’t blame you. I’m a country boy, too. But

the fact is that the games played here with leaks, and usually by

the administration, are, oh, that’s old news, what are you talking

about? We’ve got three members of the press here, maybe four. But

that’s old news, you know, why don’t they just blithely go on doing

what they’re doing, which is sometimes corruption. And the question we’re asking starts back to George Washington and the St.

Clair expedition, Congress has the right to the paper and the files

when there’s a big mess going on.

George Washington set that precedent. Nobody has objected to

that except this administration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You can have the remaining couple

of minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage, you have the floor.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yesterday our staff here on the committee had the chance to review declination memos at the Justice Department. Now, these

memos, as you know, are explanations of why the Justice Department has refused to pursue prosecutions in certain aspects of the

campaign finance investigations.

Mr. RABEN. May I interrupt you for 1 second? I’m sorry, I know

that’s unusual, but it is directly responsive to Mr. Horn’s point that

we don’t provide information. I think we’ve provided an enormous

amount—— Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I’m sorry, Mr. Raben, but you had a

chance to answer Mr. Horn, and this is my time now.

Mr. RABEN. I apologize for interrupting.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. One of the declination memos concerned

White House coffees. Now, I want to read you a section of that

memo. That memo says, ‘‘It was determined that while the White

House coffees were used as donor servicing events, there was no

evidence to support that the individual coffees had been given a

specific price tag. It is therefore recommended this portion of the

investigation be closed.’’ Now, I don’t know what evidence the Justice Department considered. But these documents and testimony received by the committee indicate that there was indeed a price tag on attendance at the

coffees. Charlie Trie testified before that, ‘‘I checked with my contact at the DNC and find out about the Presidential coffee. I’m not

sure whom I spoke with, but I think it was probably either David

Mercer or Richard Sullivan. I find out that for a $50,000 contribution to the DNC, it were possible to attend a coffee meeting with

the White House, meeting in the White House with President Clinton.’’

Now, in fact, Mr. Trie purposely did not attend the coffee in June

1995, precisely because he didn’t want to pay the $50,000 to attend. Now, one attendee at the coffee, a man by the name of Carl

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Jackson, stated that John Huang solicited coffee attendees for political contributions. Now, the DNC accounting documents for fundraisers lists target fundraising amounts for coffees, and whether

the coffees actually met these goals. And that you will find in your

exhibits, exhibit No. 4.

Also in his book, To Tell The Truth, former White House lawyer

Lanny Davis stated, ‘‘It would have been better to have described

these events from the start as fund raisers and not to have attempted to deny the obvious.’’ Now, Mr. Robinson, since you’re

heading up this team, I’m going to direct this question to you.

The examples I just cited are just a few of many examples that

we’ve received here in the committee. In light of these examples,

how could the Justice Department conclude that there was no evidence that the coffees had price tags?

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, you’re asking me to comment on something

that happened before I arrived at the Justice Department. I wasn’t

involved in the preparation of that or the decisionmaking with regard to that. And so I don’t, off the top of my head, have an answer

to your question. I mean, I would think that I would want to read

the document carefully and look at the other materials. But you’re

talking about a decision on an independent counsel matter that occurred before June 1998 when I was teaching evidence and being

a law school dean.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Well, Mr. Robinson, it would appear

that the information I’ve given you would be somewhat compelling.

I would think it would be very compelling to Justice. And in light

of a mistake like this, is the Justice Department going to reopen

the investigation of the White House coffees?

Mr. ROBINSON. It would be entirely inappropriate for me to answer that question. I would be commenting on whether or not we’re

going to be investigating something which the code of professional

responsibility tells prosecutors they’re not supposed to do. And

Congress has told me I’m not supposed to it under the McDade Act

as well.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Robinson, what I’m going to do is

I’m going to submit this question to you in writing that I just proposed. And we will submit the evidence to you, all the exhibits and

everything.

Mr. ROBINSON. Be happy to receive it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. And I believe that it’s very compelling

and I would like your response in writing.

Mr. ROBINSON. Be happy to receive the information.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I have another question. After Johnny

Chung began cooperating with Department of Justice and this committee, he said that he had been paying an official at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Charles Parish, to help get visas for Chinese to

visit the United States. Chung also stated that he had given Parish

a number of gratuities as part of his efforts to get visas for individuals who otherwise would not have been able to get them.

Now, Mr. Chung’s allegations began an investigation of Mr. Parish, who had been forced out of his job in Beijing after similar accusations were made against him by his subordinates. Now, the Justice Department declined to prosecute Mr. Parish, despite the testiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:04 Sep 06, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00316 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74429.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mony of a number of individuals that Parish had broken the law.

Now, in its declination memo, that’s available to you——

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentlelady suspend? Her time is up, but

Mr. LaTourette is next, and may be he could just yield to you. We

can go one quick round before we give the counsel the opportunity.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I’d be happy to yield to you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I thank the gentleman.

Now, in its declination memo, which is available in your department, as it was to us, finally, the Department stated that there

was no specific or corroborative evidence developed to support the

allegation that Parish was illegally selling visas. Now, this committee asked Mr. Parish to testify and he took the fifth amendment.

So did Mr. Chung’s testimony not constitute specific evidence

against Mr. Parish? Chung testified that he saw Parish sell the

visas. Isn’t that pretty compelling, Mr. Robinson?

Mr. ROBINSON. I couldn’t comment on that. I’d be happy to receive the information.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. We will provide that to you, with, and

again, this question in writing with all the evidence.

Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Did the Department interview Jay Ding

before it closed the Parish investigation?

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t know the answer to that question one way

or the other at this point. If you want to submit that, we’ll take

a look at it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Raben, do you know?

Mr. RABEN. No, ma’am, I don’t.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Conrad, do you know?

Mr. CONRAD. That was way before my time. I don’t know.

Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. I don’t want to take up all the gentleman’s time, so I will yield back. Thank you.

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank you very much.

Mr. Conrad, I was talking to Mr. Robinson before about Ernie

Green and others. Actually, I was talking and he was telling me

he couldn’t tell me anything. But maybe I’ll have better luck with

you.

Do you know why it took the Justice Department 3 years to request documents from the White House relative to Ernie Green,

and a full year after there was a referral made by this committee

relative to charges of perjury against Mr. Green?

Mr. CONRAD. I don’t know, and if I did——

Mr. LATOURETTE. You wouldn’t tell me. It would be one of those,

you could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me.

Let me talk about Mark Middleton for just a second. Mark Middleton served in the White House chief of staff’s office. He has

taken the Fifth and refused to cooperate with the committee. The

Justice Department, it’s my understanding, requested his calendars

in August 1998, which was 2 years after the investigation started,

just requested additional, subpoenaed his calendars and telephone

messages in March 2000.

In the hearings that this committee has conducted, Mark Middleton was clearly the key contact person at the White House for both

Mr. Huang and also Charlie Trie. Mr. Conrad, do you know why

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it took 2 years to get around to asking the White House for Mark

Middleton’s records?

Mr. CONRAD. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on

that as well.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let me ask you this, and I think I already

know the answer, but you know what? I’m going to ask it anyway.

Are Mark Middleton and Ernie Green under active investigation by

the Department of Justice?

Mr. CONRAD. I couldn’t comment on that.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, the reason I ask you that question, we

were specifically asked by the Department of Justice to avoid talking about Ernie Green during the Charlie Trie hearing, if I remember correctly. Because we were advised that there was an ongoing

criminal investigation that the Justice Department was very excited about.

But I have to tell you that the level of excitement is puzzling to

me, and I assume to my colleagues, when we find out that what

you’re so excited about you’re not even requesting records about

from the White House. And again, I don’t like this backseat driving

business. It makes me very uncomfortable, because I’m sure as career prosecutors, you all do an excellent job.

But I hope you take a look at it from our side of the fence. We’re

being told two things. We’re being told we don’t need an independent counsel, everything’s under control. We can take care of it. But

then when we get records from the White House as to how it’s

being taken care of, we find out on a direct referral by the committee, where we believe that perjury was committed by a fellow

named Ernie Green, we find out from records that we get from the

White House that you all haven’t even contacted the White House

for a year and a half for those records.

And so it leaves the impression in our minds, and I understand

we’ve got partisan folks on both sides here, but it leaves the impression in our minds that you’re not quite as excited about it as

we’re being told. Mr. Robinson, do you want to say something?

Mr. ROBINSON. I would like to make one comment that I hope

will continue to be the case in our interaction on parallel matters

with the Congress. To the extent that we have conversations with

counsel for committees about the appropriate scope of inquiry into

witnesses, we don’t make those, we don’t have those conversations

with the expectation that they will be publicly disseminated. And

the code of professional responsibility prohibits us from doing that.

And so I would assume the Justice Department ought to be able

to talk to Congress about the scope of parallel matters without our

operating on the assumption that everything we tell in all of our

discussions are going to be published to the world. Because if that

were the case, we would be inhibited in what we could confer with

Congress on. And I’m sure that’s not the intention.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes, and I appreciate that chastisement, but I

will tell you that the committee also has an oversight responsibility. And what you’re asking us to do is say, trust us. But then

when we get documents from the White House, we find out that

stuff we gave you a year and a half ago, you haven’t acted on, regardless. We don’t have to talk about specific people.

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But how can we conduct our oversight responsibility, other than

just to say, you can come down to Capitol Hill any time you want,

say, we’re working on it, and you bet we’re working on it. But then

when we get the records from the White House, we find out that

subpoenas for documents that we think need to be looked at in

order to conduct an effective investigation haven’t gone out for 3

years?

Mr. SHAYS. It’s my time and I’m happy to yield on my time, so

he has 5 minutes. What we’re going to do, just so you gentlemen

can anticipate, because it’s been a long afternoon, well, you know

what, we could break for 5 minutes. Usually we have a vote and

we give people opportunities here. Here’s what I think we’ll do.

We’ll just go through, Congressmen, we’re just going to go one more

quick round and then we’re going to have counsel. Maybe before

the counsels begin, we can give you a little break. Is that OK?

Mr. ROBINSON. That would be great, thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. LaTourette.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Shays, and I’ll just take a couple minutes of your time, if I can.

Since I already know the answer to my next series of questions

is going to be that you can’t tell me, I just want to tell you one

other thing that’s bothering me is, as someone that’s charged with

having some oversight with all of my colleagues on this committee,

and that is again, in the records that we received back from the

White House, we discovered that the only mention of people who

are well known to the members of this committee, Kent La, Ted

Sioeng, Mr. Glicken and Wong Jun, who’s an arms dealer who attended a White House coffee, in all of the subpoenas and document

requests that we got back from the White House, the only mention

that the Justice Department was asking the White House what

they knew about these folks at all, what records they had and what

can you tell us about it was one subpoena sent to Ann Lewis. And

did you know who Ann Lewis was or is, if she still is, or what she

used to do?

Mr. ROBINSON. I know she was at the White House, that’s about

all I know.

Mr. LATOURETTE. She’s the communications director at the

White House, and I believe was the spokesperson for the Presidential campaign. So the only request that has been made by the

Justice Department to the White House for information about

Wong Jun, who is an arms dealer who attended the White House

coffee. Howard Glicken, you know who Mr. Glicken is, he has two

cars, license plates, Gore1 and Gore2, convicted of campaign violations, I believe, by the Justice Department. Ted Sioeng has been

identified in testimony before this committee as an agent of the

Communist Chinese Government, and Kent La is an associate of

his.

The only request that anybody at the Justice Department made,

according to documents held by the Clinton White House, was one

request to Ann Lewis, the flak, the person in charge of spinning

the White House’s story, press person. And that’s the only one we

could find.

Now, again, I understand that what you just said, and I take it

seriously, and I certainly didn’t mean to overstep. But if you’re us,

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don’t you think that that’s strange? If that’s true, don’t you think

that that’s weird?

Mr. ROBINSON. I—I leave it to your characterization. I wouldn’t

characterize it, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment

on grand jury subpoenas, that’s for sure. And it’s not the only way

we can get information generally. But I think we can’t go further

than that.

And hopefully maybe the dialog can be better between our staffs

on parallel matters. I think that’s appropriate.

Mr. LATOURETTE. OK, well, thank you. And thank you for giving

me some added time, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Is the gentleman concluded?

Mr. LATOURETTE. I am, thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I’ll use the remaining 2 minutes very quickly, and

then the chairman will gain the floor here.

Mr. Gershel, I just want to quickly talk about priority and why

you, the Attorney General, then the Criminal Justice Division, Mr.

Robinson, your deputy, Mr. Gershel and Mr. Conrad, you’re in

charge of the Campaign Financing Task Force. Mr. Gershel, evidently you decided to undertake the case against Mr. Bakaly, who

evidently was the former independent counsel spokesperson.

And I’m just curious why you decided to prosecute this case. Why

did you want to participate in this case? You’ve been an active participant in this case.

Mr. GERSHEL. Congressman, that matter is certainly a pending

matter. I’m not going to comment as to why the case was brought.

Mr. SHAYS. I didn’t ask that. I asked why you. Why are you involved in that case?

Mr. ROBINSON. I can answer that question perhaps even better

than Mr. Gershel. But I don’t want to——

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let’s give him a try.

Mr. GERSHEL. With all due respect, I think Mr. Robinson can

give a better answer.

Mr. SHAYS. I’ll take a less better answer, and then I’ll ask him.

Mr. GERSHEL. I was requested to participate in the case.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Why did you request him, Mr. Robinson?

Mr. ROBINSON. This matter was being handled by Mr. Gershel’s

predecessor, who became my chief of staff. And so that was, when

Mr. Gershel took——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you, why would you ask your deputy to

take a case about a spokesman for the independent counsel on

whether or not he told the truth on a statement? Why did you feel

it was so important that it be such a high ranking official?

Mr. ROBINSON. It was a matter that was handled by Mr.

Gershel’s predecessor, appropriately so. And——

Mr. SHAYS. Appropriately so. Is it the Deputy Criminal Division

head that needs to handle this case?

Mr. ROBINSON. He was certainly more than qualified, as was his

predecessor, to try the case.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m not saying he’s more than qualified. Is he the

only person qualified to handle this case?

Mr. ROBINSON. No, he’s not the only person qualified. But he certainly was qualified, and——

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Mr. SHAYS. Doesn’t it send a very keen message about priority

and appearance? I mean, he’s in charge of investigating the President and the Vice President, but he’s going after the independent

counsel. Isn’t there a real clear message in your priorities when

you do that?

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, I—Mr. Gershel’s responsible for supervising

a wide array of things. I happened to decide—— Mr. SHAYS. So he’s a very busy guy?

Mr. ROBINSON. Very busy. I’m busy, too.

Mr. SHAYS. But you decided that he needed to be the one to handle this case. I just find it curious.

Mr. ROBINSON. I decided to argue a case before the Supreme

Court as well, and I’m a busy guy. But I think it’s appropriate.

Mr. SHAYS. It just so happens, though, it’s kind of like a law

firm, if a law firm was handling it, it’s interesting the different priorities they set, and whether it’s connected with the same kind of

case. It’s really related.

Mr. BURTON [presiding]. Would the gentleman yield real briefly?

Mr. SHAYS. Happy to yield.

Mr. BURTON. I’m just curious about that, too. Because as I understand it, the campaign finance investigation is supposed to be the

largest investigation that you’ve ever undertaken. And if that’s the

case, why would the fellow who’s pretty much in charge of it be assigned a case of that significance when you have a huge undertaking with the campaign finance investigation? Seems to me that

there would have been a lot of other people you could have picked.

So why would you pick him?

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Conrad’s in charge of the campaign finance

investigation. And Mr. Gershel’s responsibility is supervisory over

lots of things, and isn’t day to day handling the campaign finance

investigation.

Mr. BURTON. So he’s a supervisor of a lot of things?

Mr. ROBINSON. Fraud section, child—— Mr. BURTON. But you said supervisory.

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. And yet you picked him to go ahead and prosecute

this one particular case?

Mr. ROBINSON. He took this matter over from his predecessor. All

of us who are trial lawyers try cases.

Mr. BURTON. Why would his predecessor be doing that?

Mr. ROBINSON. Pardon?

Mr. BURTON. Why was his predecessor assigned to that job?

Mr. ROBINSON. Because it was considered to be an appropriate

thing under the circumstances. When this matter arose, and as I

said, the details of the matter, I think, which is still under consideration by the court, we shouldn’t be discussing. I’m happy to discuss generally, these are qualified people to try cases, argue appeals. This wasn’t a long matter, a little longer than people thought

perhaps.

Mr. BURTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. My understanding is that we’re pretty

much set. Mr. Horn, do you have anything left, or Mr. LaTourette?

Then, Mr. Chairman, what we agreed, they’ve been on the table

for a while, and we thought we’d have a 5-minute recess and then

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we would allow counsel to ask their questions. Is that OK with

you?

Mr. BURTON. It would be fine with me.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, so we’ll just have a 5-minute recess, and thank

you for your patience, gentlemen.

[Recess.]

Mr. WILSON. Good afternoon. If all goes well, we will not take the

30 minutes and we will all get out of here as quickly as possible.

Mr. Conrad, I wanted to ask you just a threshold question that

goes to our concerns. In your opinion, has the task force process,

since the time that you have been in Washington, worked in the

best interests of justice?

Mr. CONRAD. I have enjoyed my time in Washington. I have

worked with very conscientious, hard-working people pursing what

I think are very serious matters and pursing them in a way that

I do think works.

Mr. WILSON. We are not focused so much on whether you enjoyed

your time, but we are really interested in whether in your perception you believe that the American people and folks who are following the campaign finance investigation will emerge with a sense of

confidence that questions have been asked in a timely fashion. And

I just want to set the stage. We have asked a lot of questions of

the panel about why it took nearly 4 years for the Vice President

to be asked about the Hsi Lai Temple, and we have asked questions about why it took nearly 4 years for the President to be asked

any questions about foreign money or James Riady. And so I would

like you to step away from the specifics of the case, and I know you

are not going to answer that question if I ask it again, but one of

the principal concerns here, do you think this process, as you have

seen it, has worked in the best interest of justice?

Mr. CONRAD. My own personal opinion is that a task force concept like this is a good one and it is set up to work, and I think

it——

Mr. WILSON. Well, again, I do not want to talk about the concept

so much, because we all understand the concept, it is a very good

concept and it is applied in many places around the country and

in many different instances, and each type of investigation is, in

many respects, governed by the facts of that type of investigation.

But in this investigation, which goes to investigation of the President, the Vice President, a political party, by the same political

party that happens to control the Justice Department with all that

entails, is it in your opinion, and I just want this for the record so

you can look at it years from now and we can look at it years from

now and you will be able to see what you said, we just want to

know whether in your opinion this process has worked to promote

people’s confidence in the justice system.

Mr. CONRAD. I think in the 7-months that I have been there that

it has worked well, yes.

Mr. WILSON. Fair enough.

I will truncate this as much as possible, but to recapitulate about

the December 15, 1995, White House coffee tape that has been

shown. We have played it, the purported words have been put on

a poster. One of the areas of principal concern, it was discussed

earlier, was yesterday’s CNN news article, and it was read earlier

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but it is worth reading again, from CNN, under the heading of Justice Says White House Coffee Tape Unclear, ‘‘But a Justice Department source said it was unclear what was on the tape because of

poor audio.’’ Now I wanted to just take a moment and read Mr. Robinson’s

opening statement, which you very thoughtfully provided to us a

few minutes before this hearing. On the second page, ‘‘I am also

bound by the similar provisions of the United States Attorney’s

Manual which provides, among other things, that ‘personnel of the

Department of Justice shall not respond to questions about the existence of an ongoing investigation or comment on its nature or

progress.’ ’’ Now this is a characterization admittedly, but that appears to be precisely what happened yesterday when somebody

spoke to the media and characterized the tape as being unclear because of poor audio.

Now, we have a CNN news report, that does not mean it happened, but if that happened, would that promote the Campaign Financing Task Force’s investigation, Mr. Robinson?

Mr. ROBINSON. No.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Conrad, would that promote your investigation

if somebody said that?

Mr. CONRAD. No. I think that would be inappropriate.

Mr. WILSON. You believe it would be inappropriate?

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. WILSON. Now why would that be inappropriate?

Mr. CONRAD. It is a comment on pending matters. The same reason why we are not saying as much as you would like us to say

today.

Mr. WILSON. OK. And that we respect and we understand it. We

have worked with the Department of Justice for the last couple of

years and generally kept issues off the table when you have asked

us to.

Mr. Gershel, I will ask you the same question. Would it have

been, in your opinion, appropriate for somebody at the Department

of Justice to make the statement that is put in the CNN news report?

Mr. GERSHEL. No.

Mr. WILSON. Is that a problem from all of your perspective about

this particular investigation? Is this particular comment something

that—first of all, let’s ask whether you know whether the Department of Justice is trying to followup on this particular matter, this

particular characterization.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. ROBINSON. I think we violate the language you are quoting

to be talking about an ongoing or whether there is an investigation

or not. But I can say generally, and I have been troubled about this

since I was a U.S. attorney in Detroit, leaks are not new to Government and people leak for a lot of different reasons, sometimes to

influence decisionmakers, sometimes to hurt people. I have always

been of the firm belief that this interferes with us getting our job

done. I am sure Congress finds the same thing when leaks happen

that interfere with your work.

And so I think it is inappropriate, I think it hurts our investigations, it hurts our credibility, and it often harms people who do not

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deserve to be harmed by having their reputations tarred and they

never get an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves because they

never get charged with anything. So I am a firm believer in these

rules and I rigorously follow them. And if we were to determine

that people were not following them, there would be consequences.

It would depend on what it is, but——

Mr. WILSON. No, and I appreciate that. Well, just because we are

working with a record here and want a record and juxtapose what

did happen with what people are testifying here, let me ask you,

Mr. Gershel, were you the source for this comment?

Mr. GERSHEL. I was not.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Conrad, were you the source for this comment?

Mr. CONRAD. No.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Raben, were you the source for this comment?

Mr. RABEN. No.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Robinson, were you the source for this comment?

Mr. ROBINSON. Absolutely not. If there was a comment made, I

made no comment.

Mr. WILSON. Has there been any speculation, and I know it is

only something that happened yesterday, but has there been any

speculation as to who the source of the comment was?

Mr. ROBINSON. If there was, it would not be appropriate to comment on the speculation.

Mr. WILSON. Well, is there an ongoing investigation?

Mr. ROBINSON. I could not answer that question.

Mr. WILSON. Because you do not know, or because you cannot

answer because there is an ongoing investigation?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would not be appropriate to answer

that question.

Mr. WILSON. Let me just ask you whether you understand, from

the perspective of this committee, that there is the perception of a

real problem when there is a piece of possible evidence out there

that is being characterized by somebody in the Department of Justice in a way that is, frankly, very political. One can see that

through this comment very easily. Is that a source of concern in

terms of the public’s confidence in the investigation? Can you see

that concern?

Mr. ROBINSON. Any leaks are a source of concern. I was troubled

about the leaks that occurred with regard to whether Mr. Conrad

made any recommendations. That should not happen either. We

should be able to do our deliberative processes without having this

information be leaked. I think as a general proposition that is not

the way to proceed. But it does happen, seems to happen here more

than I was used to back in Michigan. But, you know.

Mr. WILSON. But this, as you are well aware, this is not the first

time there has been a leak that has been beneficial to a suspect

or a target of the campaign financing investigation. A couple of

years ago there was a very beneficial leak from the Department of

Justice in the John Huang case that was beneficial to John Huang.

A question that was asked of Mr. Radek in a hearing not so long

ago was is that something he factored in when he was considering

whether somebody independent, somebody from outside, somebody

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from outside the political chain of command should handle this

case. And Mr. Radek told us that no, he had not considered that.

And I guess I would like to ask that question now, given that

some of the people here are involved in the decisionmaking process,

if there is a recommendation on the table for the appointment of

a special counsel to investigate either all of or matters in the campaign financing investigation, Mr. Robinson, would you take into

account the fact that there appears to be somebody here, at a bare

minimum, who is characterizing information in a rather adverse

way to the interests of justice?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think leaks are a problem no matter where they

come from, from an independent counsel’s office, from a Government, either the executive or the legislative branch. I think it is a

problem and I think there needs to be rigorous efforts to avoid

these things. And that is why we have regulations—— Mr. WILSON. But what I was asking was a very specific question

about this process. Obviously, given the number of hearings and

the interest of Members of Congress, there is a very clear concern

that there is a possible conflict of interest that may not advance

the cause of justice in the campaign financing investigation. And

if there are leaks coming out of the Department of Justice in this

specific investigation, what I am asking you is the same thing I

asked Mr. Radek, is that a consideration in whether you think that

somebody independent should—— Mr. ROBINSON. You would have to assume where the leaks were

coming from. For example, if there were an independent counsel,

ordinarily they are staffed by Justice Department people as well.

Ordinarily, investigative agencies support independent counsels.

We detail people from the Justice Department to independent counsels’ offices. Basically, the investigators traditionally within the

Justice Department include the investigative agencies. The FBI is

part of the Justice Department and there are other agencies within

the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies in

Treasury and other places. So it is an issue, but I would not suggest that the situation can be localized in a way that gives you

much help, it seems to me, on what I take it to be the premise of

your question, which is that it is happening at a particular place

in a major bureaucracy.

Mr. WILSON. Well, my question begins with the premise that

every case is different, admittedly, and no two cases can be treated

in precisely the same way. Consequently, a task force model might

be good in one case, a special counsel model might be good in another case, handling the case in the U.S. Attorney’s Office might

be good in another case. But what we are looking at here is a very

specific set of, a large universe of facts, but it is an investigation

that is being supervised by the Attorney General, you are the second person in the chain of command, Mr. Gershel is the third person in the chain of command, Mr. Conrad—— Mr. ROBINSON. Do not leave out the Deputy. I am actually the

third person in the chain of command.

Mr. WILSON. Well, just working from recent studies that have

been provided on that. But you are all in this direct chain of command and there are other ways of handling the case, and I asked

you the question. And it sounds like, to me, it is fair to characterize

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that leaks in this particular case are not a particular concern of

yours beyond the normal concern that you would feel about any

case. Is that a fair characterization?

Mr. ROBINSON. I am concerned generally about leaks, and I see

it not just in this area but in other areas that trouble me whenever

I walk to my front door of my apartment to pick up my papers in

the morning.

Mr. WILSON. You see, from our perspective, here we have a Department of Justice that is putting out a public face on a piece of

evidence that is almost a self-fulfilling type of prophecy that we

have got here. We have got somebody, not one of you, according to

your testimony, but somebody putting out an adverse reaction to

something that they probably have never seen. We have asked the

question, and I do not think you are going to answer, but I will ask

it again. Has the Department of Justice seen the original Beta tape

of the December 15, 1995, coffee event?

Mr. ROBINSON. It would not be appropriate I think for us to answer. I would only say that—— Mr. WILSON. We can find this out, obviously. We can check and

we can develop the answer.

Mr. ROBINSON. Sure.

Mr. WILSON. So is it not possible for you to tell us whether you

have seen the original tape?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would not be appropriate for us to comment. We would be commenting on a pending matter and commenting about evidence in a pending matter. We have seen it here,

I can tell you that.

Mr. WILSON. Well that is not the original tape. So that is a rather flip answer, but that is not the original tape, it is a copy. One

would think if you are doing an investigation and you want to see

or understand or hear what is going on, you would want the original. I can ask the question, is there any interest in having the

original tape?

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it would not be appropriate for us to comment. We listen to what you have to say and we take what we hear

from you seriously. I think that is about as much as we can say.

You have told us your view of this and we——

Mr. WILSON. I understand that. But if it is not appropriate to

comment, how are you ever going to request the original tape to do

the job that you need to do? Are you telling us now you are not

interested in it?

Mr. ROBINSON. What I am telling you is I am not going to make

a statement for public dissemination here at this hearing about a

pending matter. We are happy to have other discussions, as we do

all the time. I made the point earlier that I think we are all in the

same Government here and we ought to cooperate on

something——

Mr. WILSON. And we have done that and it has been a good relationship thus far. When we interviewed Johnny Chung certain

issues were taken off the table, you asked us not to divulge a certain matter about various investigations. But unless you set up a

different type of arrangement with us than you did with the Vice

President, unless you set up some type of non-disclosure agreement, if you come to us and say we will ask for the tape but you

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cannot tell anybody that we asked for the tape, then it is just a

matter of sort of use of common sense that if you come and you ask

for the original evidence that it will necessarily follow that people

will know whether you asked for the original evidence or not.

Mr. ROBINSON. Right. I think it does make a difference the extent to which we have an understanding about whether we can

have a conversation with the committee here that we have to worry

about McDade over because we have got this rule that says you

cannot make statements knowing that it is going to be publicly disseminated. Now we can receive anything, and we are happy to receive anything that the committee or others think appropriate for

the Department to receive and consider.

Mr. WILSON. But thus far, the only public iteration of interest

that we can use in any cognitive way is a pejorative representation

from the Department of Justice. It is like we do not care, it is a

poor quality tape. And of course that begs the question, if it is a

poor quality tape, maybe that is because it is not the original. So

I think we understand your position there and perhaps that is

something for a dialog at a later time.

Mr. ROBINSON. Fine. Happy to do that.

Mr. WILSON. We obviously welcome that and look forward to

that.

Let me just turn to another issue that has not really been addressed. In March of this year, nearly 4 months ago, the committee

asked the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel to look into

allegations that the White House had obstructed justice in terms

of not turning over e-mail information and also a possible intimidation of witness issue. I know there has been some discussion, unfortunately, I had to leave the room briefly for that. I think the question was asked has there been a conclusion. Have you come to a

conclusion as to whether a special counsel will be appointed to investigate the e-mail matter?

Mr. ROBINSON. Earlier, there was an indication that the Attorney

General has made no such announcement at this point. And I think

that if there were to be such a statement, it would be made by the

Attorney General. And so we are not quite in a position to answer

for her on that topic.

Mr. WILSON. We have come to a point now where it has been

nearly a third of a year. It might be helpful to come to some closure

on that issue.

Mr. ROBINSON. We will take that back.

Mr. WILSON. But it is a matter of some concern to us because one

of the things we have learned as we have conducted our investigation of the e-mail matter is that there is a large universe of individuals who have not been spoken to by the Department of Justice.

And as we pointed out in the March letter, there was some concern

that the Department of Justice is on both sides of the same case.

Even today, apparently, the Department of Justice is representing

the White House in the e-mail matter and at the same time the

Campaign Financing Task Force is theoretically conducting an investigation of possible issues of impropriety in the e-mail matter.

And we sent a letter a few weeks ago indicating that the Department of Justice had not talked to a number of significant witnesses. And I will not go through the list today, but even yesterday

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I called counsel for three people who have pieces of information

that are very important to the puzzle of understanding what is

going on and the Department of Justice has not contacted them

even to set up an interview.

So, Mr. Conrad, this is a characterization, it may be unfair, but

it is beginning to look like your e-mail investigation is a bit like

the campaign financing investigation. A long period of time is going

by without some basic fact-finding occurring. Like the near 4 year

delay asking the Vice President about the Hsi Lai Temple, we have

gone nearly a half a year on some e-mail matters.

Let me ask you one question that I think you can answer. Mr.

Conrad, how are you kept up to date on the e-mail reconstruction

project? Who talks to you?

Mr. CONRAD. I do not want to get into the deliberative process

within the task force investigation.

Mr. WILSON. No, no. I do not mean to even ask you to go there,

and please do not think that I am. What I am asking you is not

what is going on inside the task force, it is just as theoretically the

White House should be keeping us up to date on what is going on

with the reconstruction project. We learned in court just in the last

week that the White House apparently has just started copying

tapes and will not be finished copying tapes until next year.

So what I am not asking you for is deliberative process, what I

am asking you for is who keeps you up to speed with what is going

on in the reconstruction process at the White House.

Mr. CONRAD. In the ordinary course of supervising a myriad of

task force investigations, I make it a point as a supervisor to meet

with prosecutors and agents assigned to different responsibilities.

And White House e-mail would be no different than any other case.

Mr. WILSON. Again, I guess I am not making my question clear.

Is it the White House that keeps you up to date with what is going

on, or is it the White House’s lawyers, other Department of Justice

lawyers, who tell you what is going on, if anybody. Maybe nobody

does.

Mr. CONRAD. I have under my supervision criminal prosecutors

and agents that are conducting the criminal investigation and I supervise them. That is who would keep me up to date with any developments in any of the cases.

Mr. WILSON. But the people you supervise are not the people who

have any idea what is going on in the reconstruction process unless

they are told. What I am asking you for is who does the telling.

Does the White House—first of all, to characterize, the White

House has not kept us informed, but does the White House keep

your subordinates informed, or do they have direct contacts with

other Department of Justice attorneys who happen to be representing the White House in this matter?

Mr. CONRAD. I really would not be in a position to talk about

how I conduct a criminal investigation. That is a pending matter

under my supervision and it is being supervised in a way I think

is appropriate. But how we do that, what decisions we make, who

informs who is something that is part of the deliberative process

which I am not in a position to talk about.

325

Mr. WILSON. So you are not able to discuss at all what is going

on outside of the task force in terms of advising you of any of the

reconstruction issues?

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.

Mr. WILSON. Just a few more things. I want to just for the record

clarify a couple of matters. One, I understand the answer to the

question that was posed earlier about why it took nearly 4 years

to ask the Vice President about the Hsi Lai Temple matter, but I

will ask this question from a different angle. Mr. Robinson, have

you ever made any inquiries as to why it took nearly 4 years to

ask the Vice President about the Hsi Lai Temple matter?

Mr. ROBINSON. I guess not directly that way, except that I expect

the people who are in charge of these task forces, including some

very fine prosecutors, Chuck La Bella included, Dave Vicinonzo,

Bob Conrad, that they are going to do their job in a deliberate,

careful way and that they are going to proceed appropriately. And

I think I have empowered them to do that and not interfered with

it and I expect that they are doing it.

These things move along. Obviously, we had a trial that took a

fair amount of time, we have had a number of pleas, we have debriefed witnesses. This is a process that those of us who are involved in major investigations appreciate that sometimes things

take longer than one would like and that there are a variety of

ways to proceed. I have no reason to believe that these prosecutors

and the people running the task forces are not proceeding in what

they view to be the best interest of the investigation, which I think

is the case.

Mr. WILSON. We understand that and we appreciate that there

was a trial involved. But there appears to be somewhat of a novel

representation here that one needs to wait until after, if you are

referring to the Hsia trial, wait until after the Hsia trial to ask a

witness about information that might be pertinent to the trial

itself.

Mr. ROBINSON. I think it is legitimate for you all to make comments about that. But it would not be appropriate for us to comment about the investigation, the strategy that relates to it. But

sessions like this are helpful for us to understand how other people

feel about it and for us to take that into consideration. I think that

is appropriate.

Mr. WILSON. Let me perhaps turn to Mr. Conrad and ask the

same question. Admittedly, much of this happened long before you

came here. But in terms of your supervisory role, have you made

any effort to reconstruct whether there was a legitimate—I guess

what I am asking is was there a legitimate prosecutorial or strategy rationale for waiting nearly 4 years to ask the Vice President

about the Hsi Lai Temple matter?

Mr. CONRAD. The only thing I can say is my own personal experience. I have not reconstructed other people’s investigative strategies. I came on in January, I interviewed the Vice President in

April. To me, that was working pretty expeditiously. That is the

universe of my knowledge.

Mr. WILSON. Right. We understand that. But was it a matter of

any concern to you personally that the Vice President was not

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asked the very questions you asked him prior to the Hsia trial?

Were you curious about that matter?

Mr. CONRAD. My focus was on setting up an interview and asking the questions that needed to be asked, and that is what I did.

Mr. WILSON. I understand if you cannot answer my question, you

can say that. But I asked if you were curious as to why it took that

amount of time, and I will ask whether you are curious that the

questions were asked after the Hsia trial and not before the Hsia

trial. We have read the transcript and you did a fine job of asking

questions. But the perspective we have is why were those questions

asked after the trial as opposed to before the trial. And I am asking

whether you were curious about that.

Mr. CONRAD. I think the appropriate people to ask those questions, if you have specific people in mind who you think should

have asked the questions, they would be the people to ask why

they did not. My focus was on the needs of the investigation at the

time I took over and that is where my energies went, that is where

my thought processes went.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Robinson, I just wanted to tidy up one matter

relating to the Charles Parish issue. I think it was Mr. LaTourette

spoke extensively about some representations that were made

about Mr. Parish’s conduct and your response was we would have

to receive that evidence. Is that a correct representation of your

words?

Mr. ROBINSON. No. I think I said we would be happy to receive

anything that exists and to look at the matter. Off the top of my

head, I was not in a position, and I would be glad to evaluate

whether we can make any kind of a response. I did not review that

matter. I did not understand that was going to be a subject of our

discussion. But if somebody wants to direct something for us to

take a look at and see what, if anything, we can appropriately say

about it, we would be glad to undertake to do that.

Mr. WILSON. I think the response took some people by surprise

because the evidence was all put before the public at a public hearing and it seemed that you were indicating that you would have

to receive that into evidence to take it into account. It is something

that has been received and it was read sort of in juxtaposition to

a declination memo indicating that there was in evidence. So the

declination memo——

Mr. ROBINSON. I was suggesting I would have to look at it. Off

the top of my head, I was not able to answer. I can say as a general

proposition that a working arrangement has been that on all declinations with the task force there has been the joint concurrence

of the Attorney General of the United States and the Director of

the FBI, as a general proposition. On the details of this particular

matter, I would have to look at the matter, and I did not before

I came here. I do have 800 people and a $100 million budget to operate and there are lots of cases. So that particular matter—I

would be glad to try to look at it and anything we can say appropriately without violating these rules, we would be happy to try to

do it.

Mr. WILSON. And we understand that, obviously, it is an extraordinary responsibility and it is one that people owe you a great debt

of gratitude for undertaking. But it is interesting, you talk about

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the breadth of your job, and I was actually going to ask Mr.

Gershel a question that goes to the breadth of his job. These are

complicated, difficult, time consuming, and sometimes burdensome

jobs, and when you take on new responsibilities that (a) is evidence

of your priorities, and (b) it takes away from your ability to take

on other tasks. And I was going to ask Mr. Gershel how many

trials he has been involved in as a participating trial member since

he became a Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

Mr. GERSHEL. That was my first.

Mr. WILSON. The Bakaly trial was your first trial since—— Mr. GERSHEL. In the last 6 months since I have been here.

Mr. WILSON. Right, since becoming a Deputy Assistant Attorney

General.

Mr. GERSHEL. I should indicate, though, that even as the criminal chief and first assistant, where I also had broad management

responsibilities, it was always important for me to stay in the

courtroom and try cases. I felt it made me more valuable as a manager and more helpful to the people that I supervise.

Mr. WILSON. Do you have any other cases that you will be handling in the immediate future?

Mr. GERSHEL. I am not going to comment on that.

Mr. ROBINSON. I would like to say some of us who are trial lawyers—I sought out an opportunity to argue a case in the Supreme

Court, and maybe somebody would criticize me for doing that but

it was the highlight of my professional career. I worked hard nights

and weekends to do it. I would do it again, although we are working pretty hard at it. But those of us who are trial lawyers and get

into supervisory positions, the opportunity I think, as Alan said, to

stay in the courtroom and to completely appreciate this it helps

give a credibility. I taught as a dean, so, you know—— Mr. WILSON. Gentlemen, thank you—— Mr. CONRAD. Mr. Wilson, can I go back to one of your questions

because I want to complete an answer.

Mr. WILSON. Absolutely.

Mr. CONRAD. I want to make sure I am right on it. You asked

me about whether I was curious about the Vice President not being

interviewed. I came on in January. The Maria Hsia case was set

for trial in January. I had to come up to speed on a whole host of

pending investigations. And I sort of came on with the notion that

that trial had no input from me and was going to trial the same

month I was starting up. So as I started to look at different cases,

my curiosity with respect to the Vice President and the Hsi Lai

Temple was what he would have to say about it, and that was

structured into the examination.

Mr. WILSON. I did not mean to characterize that you were amiss

in any way for not following up. I just wanted to know whether you

had thought about why that event had not taken place.

Mr. CONRAD. And I wanted to put it in context what I thought

and why I thought that.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conrad, the record will be clear that you began

work this year in this position as head of the task force. Correct?

Mr. CONRAD. January 2000, yes, sir. Well, the day after Christmas, the first full week.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

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I thank the gentleman for his questions, his 30 minutes.

We now turn to the minority for their 30 minutes.

Mr. SCHILIRO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And in fairness to the

witnesses and the late hour and also to Chairman Shays, I think

I will only use 2 of my 30 minutes. I was not going to use any of

it, but when counsel was asking you questions about the leak that

was reported in CNN yesterday, you all said that you were bothered by the leak and you wished there were no leaks. I think that

is the view of everybody on the panel, that in a perfect world there

would be no leaks. But leaks sometimes have different magnitudes.

And I thought Mr. Robinson pointed out that the leak of Mr.

Conrad’s recommendation by any measure was a more significant

leak than probably the one yesterday in CNN. Mr. Conrad’s leak

I think on a Richter scale would probably be a nine. Yesterday, I

do not know how to evaluate it, but it would be somewhat less than

that.

And if you were going to put that leak in context, it may be that

the Justice Department was getting asked questions about it because this committee asserted we knew what was on that tape and

said it as a matter of fact, when in fact there may not be any

agreement on what is on the tape. The hearing reporter we have

here today is probably the most equipped person in the room to figure out what people say because that is what his job is, he has to

transcribe it. And the other night on Fox TV there was a show

called Hannity and Colmes and the chairman was on the show. I

have a transcript of it and they have caught in this transcript

every possible word that anybody said, with one exception. When

the tape was played that we played here before, the reporter wrote

down ‘‘Albert Gore, Vice President of the United States, ‘We ought

to, we ought to show that to [unintelligible] here, let [unintelligible]

tapes, some of the ad tapes [unintelligible].’ ’’ So the person whose

job it is to figure out what is on the tape—who is not a Republican,

who is not a Democrat, who does not have a bias, he is not related

to the administration—that person, whoever it is, had a very difficult time trying to figure out exactly what was on the tape.

So it may well be, and I am not making excuses for the Department, but when they were asked the question, it is not secret information they were giving out, but it is information that other people, including the professionals who have to interpret these things,

have already reached on their own.

Mr. ROBINSON. I would only suggest, though, that prosecutors

and investigators ought not to be commenting on matters that

might involve pending matters. I do not do it. I do not think it is

right. I think the code of professional responsibility does not allow

for that. People are entitled to their opinion, but this one, unlike

many situations, at least there is something everybody can take a

look at I guess and try to figure it out as best they can.

Mr. SCHILIRO. What is on it, what is actually being said on the

tape.

Mr. ROBINSON. What is being said.

Mr. SCHILIRO. But when we are in the realm of leaks, all this

started because the initial leak about Mr. Conrad’s recommendation.

329

Mr. ROBINSON. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to

comment about why other people leaked other people’s stuff. But

it hurts us. It gets in the way of our deliberative process and it can

hurt people who might or might not get charged. Prosecutors, investigators, those in law enforcement, we are supposed to be enforcing the law and enforcing the rules and we ought not to be

breaking them. That is my philosophy and that is one that I try

to live by.

Mr. SCHILIRO. I have used a minute and a half more than my 2

minutes. So I thank the chairman for his courtesy. I have no more

questions.

Mr. SHAYS. I appreciate you gentlemen being here and I appreciate your patience for allowing us to question you from 1 to 5:15.

And I appreciate the cooperation of both the majority and minority

and their counsels as well.

We will call this hearing adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Helen Chenoweth-Hage follows:]

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