Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
A bitter dispute has erupted in the House
Government Reform and Oversight
Committee over Chairman Dan Burton's
(R-Ind.) description of President Clinton as a
"scumbag" and his decision to make public
audiotapes of former associate attorney
general Webster L. Hubbell's prison telephone
conversations.
In a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno released
yesterday, Rep. Henry
A. Waxman (Calif.), the committee's ranking Democrat,
said Burton's
plan to release the tapes of Hubbell's phone calls
constitutes both an
abuse of congressional power and a "reprehensible"
invasion of Hubbell's
privacy. Waxman asked Reno to object to release of the
tapes, which the
Justice Department provided to the House panel.
Waxman also circulated a letter to other House members
in which he
quoted comments Burton made last week to the editorial
board of the
Indianapolis Star. According to the newspaper's
account, Burton said: "If
I could prove 10 percent of what I believe happened,
he'd [Clinton] be
gone. This guy's a scumbag. That's why I'm after him."
"Please ask yourself whether this is the attitude and
approach toward
congressional investigations that the American people
have a right to
expect," Waxman wrote to his colleagues.
Will Dwyer, chief spokesman for the committee, said
Burton would not
discuss the dispute with Waxman or his description of
Clinton as a
"scumbag." Defending that remark, Dwyer said: "The
chairman has been
quite reserved in his comments about the conduct of
those involved in the
campaign finance scandal. But in view of the
obstruction, hindrance and
interference this committee has met � 89 people
fleeing the country or
taking the Fifth Amendment, stonewalling of official
subpoenas by the
White House, frivolous claims of executive privilege �
it's hardly unusual
that his frustration might be vented in 'straight
talk.'"
Dwyer said the Hubbell recordings have not yet been
released publicly but
will be "in the course of committee business." He said
Burton believed that
"the American people should know if senior White House
officials
conspired to buy Webb Hubbell's silence."
Hubbell, a former law partner of first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton, is a
key figure in independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's
Whitewater
investigation. In 1994, he pleaded guilty to mail
fraud and tax evasion in
his billing practices as a private lawyer and served a
15-month sentence in
federal custody.
Starr is investigating more than $500,000 in payments
to Hubbell made by
Clinton friends and Democratic Party donors during
much of 1994, when
he left his Justice Department post. Prosecutors are
examining whether
Hubbell did any work for the money, including a
consulting engagement
with the city of Los Angeles, and whether he paid
income taxes on his
consulting fees. At least part of their inquiry has
been focused on whether
the funds were intended to buy Hubbell's silence about
Hillary Clinton's
legal work in Arkansas and other matters relating to
the Whitewater
investigation.
Last July, responding to a subpoena, the Justice
Department gave
Burton's committee 295 tapes of Hubbell's prison
telephone
conversations. In a letter accompanying the tapes,
Assistant Attorney
General Andrew Fois told Burton, "We understand that
the committee
appreciates the sensitivity of these audiotapes and
will safeguard them
accordingly."
The telephone conversations of federal prisoners are
routinely
tape-recorded for security purposes, but federal law
prohibits public
release of the tapes' content. The law, however, does
not apply to
congressional committees.
A Democratic committee aide who has listened to many
of the tapes said
they include intimate conversations between Hubbell
and his wife and
friends. "The overwhelming majority is completely
unrelated to the
investigation" of campaign finance abuses that the
panel is conducting, he
said.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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