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“UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE ILLICIT TRADE IN SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS IN ALL ITS ASPECTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S7327-S7329 on July 9, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE ILLICIT TRADE IN SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT
WEAPONS IN ALL ITS ASPECTS
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, today in New York the United Nations convened the conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, the first effort by the U.N. to address the pressing issue of small arms trafficking.
The mass proliferation of small arms--shoulder-mounted missiles, assault weapons, grenade launchers, high-powered sniper rifles and other tools of death--is fueling civil wars, terrorism and the international drug trade throughout the world.
The grimmest figures come from developing countries where light, cheap and easy to use small arms and light weapons, such as AK-47s and similar military assault rifles, have become the weapons of choice of narco-traffickers, terrorists and insurgents.
The problem is staggering: An estimated 500 million illicit small arms and light weapons are in circulation around the globe, and in the past decade four million people have been killed by them in civil war and bloody fighting.
Nine out of 10 of these deaths are attributed to small arms and light weapons. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, more than 50 percent of those killed are believed to be civilians.
Starting today, the United Nations will host a conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects. At this conference, the U.N., for the first time, will seek to devise international standards and procedures for curtailing small arms trafficking. It is an issue of extreme importance to the United States. Not only because of the violence and devastation itself, but because of the threat these weapons pose to our political, economic and security interests.
The volume of weaponry has fueled cycles of violence and been a major factor in the devastation witnessed in recent conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and South Asia, among other places. These conflicts undermine regional stability and endanger the spread of democracy and free-
markets around the world. Here are a few examples.
In Mexico a lethal flow of guns south from the United States has fed that nation's drug war. Hundreds of thousands of weapons over the last decade have flooded into Mexico from the United States. Authorities recently traced a sale of 80 Chinese assault weapons from a San Diego gunshop to a Tijuana weapons dealer for $27,000. Many of these ended up in the hands of the Arellano Felix drug cartel and are believed responsible for at least 21 deaths, including two infants, six children and a pregnant 17- year-old girl shot and killed during a mass murder at Rancho el Rodeo in September 1998.
In Albania more than 650,000 weapons and 20,000 tons of explosives disappeared from government depots in the three years leading up to the outbreak of violence in the Balkans, according to the U.N. The continued presence of the weapons poses a very real threat to NATO and U.S. peacekeepers in the region.
And in Colombia, the continued instability is in part due to the torrential flow of rifles and pistols to rebel groups and drug gangs who have used the imported weapons to murder judges, journalists, police officers, as well as innocent passers-by.
The increased access by terrorists, guerrilla groups, criminals, and others to small arms and light weapons puts in jeopardy U.S. law enforcement efforts, business people based or traveling overseas, and even U.S. tourists.
In approaching the United Nations Conference, it is critical that the U.S. government negotiate and support making the trafficking of small arms traceable and eliminate the secrecy that permits thousands of weapons to fuel crime and war without anyone's knowledge of their source.
It is my hope the United Nations will move to create international procedures to control the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. The United States has some of the strongest arms export controls in the world, and it is in the U.S. interest to see that those standards are equaled by the world community.
In addition, the United States has a moral responsibility to push for the development of measures that stop weapons from winding up in the hands of abusive government forces, terrorists and drug-traffickers.
Specifically, the U.S. Government should champion a conference program of action that mandates countries' early negotiations on legally binding procedures: a Framework Convention on International Arms Transfers that sets out export criteria based on countries' current obligations under international law; and an International Agreement on Marking and Tracing that develops systems for adequate and reliable marking of arms at manufacture and import and record-keeping on arms production, possession and transfer.
The Program of Action must also include the establishment of regional and international transparency mechanisms and concrete steps to achieve improved implementation and enforcement of arms embargoes.
United States leadership should ensure that the conference is the first step, not the last, in the international community's efforts to control the spread of small arms and light weapons.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, several people who opposed the nomination of Theodore B. Olson to be Solicitor General made charges that contained serious factual errors. These are not, I believe, debatable questions of interpretation when the facts are carefully examined. We have had our bipartisan investigation and hearing, and we have confirmed Mr. Olson, and we should move on; but we owe it to Mr. Olson, to future nominees, and to the Senate as an institution to make sure that the record is correct.
Before turning to some specific errors, I want to emphasize that Mr. Olson responded to all of the committee's questions. Mr. Olson is one of the Nation's most talented lawyers and most dedicated public servants. He completed our questionnaire; he answered the questions asked at the hearing; he responded to more than one hundred written follow-up questions; and he repeatedly offered to meet with any Senator who had any further questions. He was clear, he was candid, he was responsive. Indeed, every thing that critics suggest Mr. Olson tried to hide, Mr. Olson in fact volunteered to the Committee, either in his response to the committee's questionnaire or in his responses to our questions.
One inaccurate claim was that Mr. Olson engaged in word games in his answers about the American Spectator's ``Arkansas Project.'' In fact, at the committee hearing, it was clear that the committee and Mr. Olson had a shared understanding of that phrase, and Mr. Olson's answers expressly responded within that framework. The questions specifically characterized the ``Arkansas Project'' as involving only the project pursuant to which ``Richard Mellon Scaife funneled money through the American Spectator'' to investigate the Clintons. Those were the words used in the question, and Mr. Olson adopted those words in his answers. There is no indication that any Senator, or Mr. Olson, intended the term ``Arkansas Project'' to refer to anything other than the Scaife-
funded journalistic efforts to investigate the Clintons' history in Arkansas.
Thus, there were no word games by Mr. Olson. It is Mr. Olson's critics who played word games, by retroactively changing the meaning of the ``Arkansas Project'' to embrace essentially every Clinton-related article published or even considered by the American Spectator magazine in the 1990s. That was not the way the committee or Mr. Olson used that term at the hearing, and it is wrong and unfair to suggest otherwise.
At the very least, if any Senator was somehow personally uncertain what Mr. Olson intended when he was answering questions concerning the
``Arkansas Project,'' that Senator could have followed up at the hearing. No Senator did.
Second, some have argued that Mr. Olson improperly attempted to minimize his role in the so-called ``Arkansas Project'' during his confirmation hearing. The charges include allegations that only belatedly did Mr. Olson ``admit'' that he and his firm provided legal services to the American Spectator, that he had discussions in social settings with those working on Arkansas Project matters, and that he himself authored articles for the magazine paid for out of the special Richard Mellon Scaife fund.
Each of these allegations, however, is contradicted by the factual record. Mr. Olson consistently stated that he and others at his law firm performed legal services for the American Spectator beginning in 1994, that they billed the magazine for those services at their normal market rates, and that the magazine paid them only for the legal services actually performed. Indeed, that Mr. Olson's firm provided legal services to the American Spectator has been widely known and a matter of public record for several years. It is not something that he
``admitted'' under close questioning. Those legal services--involving such things as book contracts and employee disputes--were not ``in connection with'' the ``Arkansas Project,'' and any suggestion to the contrary, based on the record as I know it, is wrong as a matter of fact.
As for Mr. Olson's presence in social settings with individuals associated with the ``Arkansas Project,'' the questions were asked and Mr. Olson never made any attempt to conceal or minimize his attendance at those social events. He stated that he was unaware of any discussions at those events concerning the Scaife-funded efforts to investigate Clinton scandals, and no one has contradicted that testimony. Indeed, every knowledgeable individual--including one of Mr. Olson's chief critics--has confirmed that testimony. I also understand that journalists employed by other magazines and newspapers--
competitors of the American Spectator--and a wide range of other persons also attended those social events. Thus, they also had discussions ``in social settings'' with those working on Arkansas Project matters, but no responsible person would assert that their attendance at those events made them participants in the American Spectator's ``Arkansas Project.''
Mr. Olson also testified during his hearing about his authorship and co-authorship of several articles critical of the Clintons and other public officials. Indeed, he voluntarily provided copies of those American Spectator articles to the Judiciary Committee in his response to the committee's standard questionnaire, well in advance of his confirmation hearing. It is simply not correct, as a matter of fact, to suggest that he only ``admitted'' his authorship of the articles after the committee hearing.
As to the American Spectator's internal bookkeeping for its payments to Mr. Olson or his law firm, it seems plain that Mr. Olson had no way of knowing how the Spectator categorized those payments for its own purposes, any more than taxpayers will know from the face of the check to what internal account the Government will charge the rebate checks flowing from President Bush's tax cut. Mr. Olson said that he never even saw the checks which were sent to his law firm's headquarters in Los Angeles in payment of routine client billings. All of this is in the record.
There was no ``expansion'' or change in Mr. Olson's testimony on the foregoing points over the last several weeks. It is similarly inaccurate to say, as some critics do, that Mr. Olson ``modified'' his answers, ``changed'' his recollections, or ``conceded'' additional knowledge. To a remarkable degree, Mr. Olson has clearly and consistently answered the questions we asked him. His testimony, moreover, has been fully confirmed by the individuals most closely associated with the ``Arkansas Project,'' including the editor-in-
chief, editor, and publisher of the American Spectator magazine during the relevant time period, as well as the three individuals who primarily performed the investigative journalism funded by the
``Arkansas Project.'' Each of these individuals stepped forward voluntarily to confirm the accuracy of Mr. Olson's testimony. Indeed, there is no one with percipient knowledge of these events who has contradicted Mr. Olson.
Third, some mistakenly attempt to create a conflict in Mr. Olson's testimony by confusing the amounts he was paid for writing articles for the American Spectator with the very different amounts that Mr. Olson's law firm received for providing legal services to the American Spectator over a span of many years. Mr. Olson told the Senate that he was paid from $500 to
$1,000 for his articles that appeared in the American Spectator magazine, whereas his firm received $94,405 for legal services.
The attempt to create a conflict on this issue requires mixing apples with oranges. There were two different types of payments, for different types of services. In his April 19 answers, Mr. Olson explained that in addition to the $500 to $1,000 fees he received for the articles, his law firm ``has received payments for legal services rendered to the
[American Spectator] Foundation from time to time, by me and by others at the firm, at our normal market rates.'' Given that those legal fees were for legal services provided to the magazine over a period of more than 5 years, involving the work of several attorneys, the $94,405 figure is in no way surprising. More significantly, Mr. Olson at all times distinguished between the firm's legal fees, and the separate, comparatively modest amounts he received personally for writing articles for the magazine. It is, again, a factual mistake to suggest that he ever sought to confuse those two amounts.
Fourth, some have criticized Mr. Olson for allegedly refusing to respond to an allegation about American Spectator dinner parties. I question whether the Senate should even get into this issue of who attended what dinner parties, given the absence of any serious issue here, and the freedom of speech and press values inherent in a magazine's activities. But this particular allegation was dubious and made by a source who publicly contradicted himself on this very allegation. The allegation appeared only in the pages of the Washington Post. No Senator asked Mr. Olson about that particular allegation, and we have never imposed on nominees of either party an obligation to track down and respond to every far-fetched or baseless charge that might find its way into print. Moreover, one member of the committee did make an inquiry about Mr. Olson's social contacts with employees of the American Spectator and Mr. Olson fully answered that question in writing. So it is factually incorrect to state that he refused to respond to that question.
Fifth, Mr. Olson's statement that his legal services for the American Spectator magazine were not for the purpose of conducting investigations of the Clintons is allegedly contradicted by the fact that Mr. Olson's firm was compensated for legal research to prepare a chart outlining the Clintons' criminal exposure, as research for a February 1994 article Mr. Olson co-authored entitled, `Criminal Laws Implicated by the Clinton Scandals: A Partial List.' This charge again is contradicted by record facts. The 1994 engagement letter for Mr. Olson's professional services expressly provided that Mr. Olson and his firm were not engaged ``to do any independent factual research.'' In fact, there is nothing in the public record to suggest that Mr. Olson's work in connection with that article, or for the magazine at any time, involved factual investigation of the Clintons. Comparing the publicly-
available applicable Federal criminal code provisions, to publicly-
available newspaper stories concerning allegations regarding the Clintons, cannot be described as an ``investigation'' of the Clintons.
While there were other factual inaccuracies in the attacks on Mr. Olson, this list demonstrates that the concerns raised regarding Mr. Olson's candor before the Judiciary Committee were unjustified.
It is particularly noteworthy that Robert Bennett, one of the most notable lawyers in this country and counsel to then-President Clinton, rejected the claim that Mr. Olson was less than candid in his responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee. More than almost any other person, he knows that facts of the Clinton matters. During an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on May 22, Mr. Bennett stated: ``I have recently read [Mr. Olson's] responses to the Senate, and I have looked at a lot of the material, and if I were voting, I would say that Ted Olson was more than candid with the Senate.'' Mr. Bennett is independent; he had no partisan axe to grind in favor of Mr. Olson in connection with this nomination; he, in fact, was a lead counsel for President Clinton for several years; he was not maneuvering for advantage in future nomination battles; he is a lawyer experienced in weighing evidence and cross-examining witnesses; he looked at the evidence; and his conclusion that these allegations are ill-founded is worthy of our respect.
I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Bennett. I too have reviewed Mr. Olson's statements before the committee regarding his role in the
``Arkansas Project,'' and I find Mr. Olson's statements to be clear and accurate.
The Washington Post editorial board also shares this view. On May 18, after all of the questions regarding the ``Arkansas Project'' had been raised, the Washington Post endorsed Mr. Olson's nomination to be Solicitor General, noting ``Mr. Olson is one of Washington's most talented and successful appellate lawyers, a man who served with distinction in the Justice Department during the 1980s and whose work is widely admired across party lines.'' According to the Washington Post, ``Mr. Olson's prior service at the Justice Department indicates that he understands the difference between the roles of private citizen and public servant.'' As for Mr. Olson's testimony regarding his role in the ``Arkansas Project,'' the Washington Post concluded that
``there's no evidence that his testimony was inaccurate in any significant way,'' and that ``the Democrats would be wrong to block Mr. Olson.'' [Emphasis added.]
The Senate thus far has not done a good job of reviewing President Bush's nominees, and in many cases has made upstanding individuals the victims of partisan attacks. The deeply partisan vote over the Solicitor Generalship was a low point. I strongly believe that every nominee deserves fairness in this process and a full chance to get his or her position into the record and considered. It is not right to leave the record incomplete. I hope that, by setting the record straight, the Senate can move on and treat future nominees more fairly.
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