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“NOW MORE THAN EVER, IT'S TIME FOR AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1988-E1989 on Oct. 9, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOW MORE THAN EVER, IT'S TIME FOR AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL
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HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, October 9, 1997
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct your attention to the following ``Tale of the Tapes'' editorial from the Albany Times Union, a newspaper circulated in my district. The editorial criticizes the Clinton administration for its feeble attempt to explain away its delay in forwarding videotapes of the White House coffees. The administration's most recent and abominable excuse for its inadvertent overlooking of the video tapes is that they entered the wrong word search on the computer.
The administration's the buck-stops-there philosophy seems to now have gone beyond the customary excuses and is reliant on more creative ones. The mishaps, stalling, and inadvertent overlooking is at an all time high in the White House. And in the midst of all this, Attorney General Janet Reno remains hesitant to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the campaign finance violations and abuses originating in the White House and risks being seen as a cohort in all of this. It has become apparent that Ms. Reno cannot carry-the-ball and shed some light on these campaign finance illegalities, I thinks it's time that she hand the ball over to an independent counsel who can.
Tales of the Tapes
The White House strains credulity in its latest attempt to explain why videos of coffees were late to surface
The Clinton administration is repeating a tawdry chapter of history in its feeable attempt to explain away its delay in forwarding videotapes of President Clinton attending White House coffees where campaign contributors were guests. The White House has, however, added a new cyberspace twist to it all.
The tapes had been sought by the Senate committee looking into 1996 campaign fund-raising practices by both Democrats and Republicans. Though filmed in 1995 and 1996, the videos weren't anywhere to be found until last weekend, when a 90-minute sampler was forwarded to Senate investigators and the Justice Department.
In the words of Lanny J. Davis, a special White House counsel, the tapes had been ``inadvertently'' overlooked.
Never mind that this administration has used
``inadvertent'' to explain away so many lapses that the word now ranks in the political lexicon right along with such staples as ``stonewall'' and ``plausible deniability.'' This time, however, the twist is that the computer made them do it.
How so? The White House says it ordered a search for the tapes, just as the Senate committee requested. Somehow, though, the diligent, trusted White House aides came up empty handed. Turns out they were entering the wrong word search in the computer.
Instead of searching under the word coffee, they were busy searching under the words fund raising.
Thus a new blame-it-on-technology excuse enters the political lexicon, right along with the tried and true evasion of blaming the secretary for an 18-minute erasure on a Nixon audiotape.
It's difficult to decide who looks more foolish in the wake of these revelations--Mr. Davis and has boss, or Attorney General Janet Reno, who wasn't told of the tapes until after she announced that her Justice Department had found no evidence that President Clinton had violated any laws by attending the coffees.
Now there is talk of even more tapes of political fund-raisers that have yet to be released by the White House. Little wonder that Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is co-sponsor of major campaign finance reform legislation, is shaking his head and saying, ``I've never seen anything like it.''
All the more reason for Ms. Reno to face up to her obligation to appoint a special prosecutor.
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