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“GRAND JURY PROCEEDINGS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6688 on July 31, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
GRAND JURY PROCEEDINGS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, earlier this week the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan], a good friend and distinguished Member of the Congress, on the floor of this body, charged that the ongoing Federal grand jury investigation of the gentleman from Indiana
[Mr. Burton], chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, was a political prosecution and was brought because the chairman was trying to do his job. My colleague from Tennessee further accused the Attorney General of politicizing our system of justice.
I would like to examine those remarks for a few minutes to determine whether there is any foundation in these remarks. As the senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I have tried to follow the activities of the Department of Justice as carefully as I can, and I am trying to find where the Justice Department is politicized or whether it prefers, as has been alleged, to investigate and prosecute Republicans or in particular the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from Indiana Mr. Burton.
The first thing I would bring to the attention of Members of the House of Representatives is that this Justice Department has prosecuted numerous Democratic Members, including Messrs. Rostenkowski, Reynolds, Bustamante, and Fauntroy.
And so, I am not sure whether it is fair or not to characterize the Department of Justice's conduct as politicized in the sense that the administration has acted in disregard of its legal obligation when the record to date is that the Attorney General has repeatedly exercised her discretion with very due diligence and has appointed repeatedly independent counsels to investigate prima facie allegations against this administration, its Cabinet officials, and others.
Now what kind of job the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight is doing is not in my province this evening. But we are well aware of the objections that the campaign finances and investigation, that the chairman of that committee is conducting has had some problems. I refer particularly to the fact that the general counsel of the committee, who submitted his resignation earlier this month, has indicated that his resignation was based on the fact that he was unable to implement the standards of professional conduct he was accustomed to at the U.S. attorney's office.
In any case, it is not important how well or poorly the chairman may be doing his job. Right now I am concerned about the allegations being raised in his defense, which challenge the integrity of the Department of Justice in this instance. And I would suggest that it is a leap of faith to believe that the coincidence of the chairman's investigation followed by a subpoena of his records mean that the subpoena is a consequence of his investigation.
I do not know the scope of the grand jury that it is alleged concerns itself with his conduct, nor may I be privileged to know the scope. And I would refer the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from Tennessee to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, rule 6(e), which quite carefully says no attorney for the Government can disclose what the grand jury is doing. It is at page 36 of the 1997 edition of the Federal criminal code and rules.
For the same reason, I do not know what evidence, if any, prompted any subpoena the grand jury may issue of the grand jury matters are secret in order to protect the person under investigation. For that reason, the Department of Justice may not comment on the scope of its investigation, nor may it publicly justify the legitimacy of the subpoena or its scope.
But the chairman has a remedy, or his counsel. They may challenge the scope and appropriateness of the subpoena.
I would close by pointing out that the gentleman can file a motion to quash or modify the subpoena and indeed he can challenge the entire grand jury proceeding in the Federal district court in which these grand jury proceedings is brought.
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