We will be wanting to know who knew about it, who should have known about it, and whether or not there was an attempt to cover it up. . . . Now, these hearings come at a time . We have less than half of our people voting now. I believe that part of this is due to what has happened to our political process, as evidenced by the matters that this committee will be considering. The American people see their leaders go to greater and greater extreme to raise unprecedented amounts of money to fund their political campaigns.
Power is at stake, and the ends justify the means.
And I believe that this thirst for increasing amounts of political money, and what people are willing to do to get it, lie at the heart of this investigation. . . . In the eyes of most people, the timbers of our political structure have developed a rot that must be dealt with, or it can spread to dangerous proportions, adding to distrust and cynicism and doubts of those who won't participate, who drop out or they join protest groups with varying motivations. The abuses have been bipartisan, and our investigations must be bipartisan if the results of these long and expensive efforts are to have sufficient credibility to be used as a base for meaningful campaign finance reform. But that will be accomplished only if the investigation is done right. I am in favor of rooting out and exposing all the information on fund-raising abuses without fear or favors, whether they're on a Democratic or a Republican side, wherever that trail leads us.