The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“WHITE HOUSE TASK LIST” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H10207-H10215 on Sept. 11, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WHITE HOUSE TASK LIST
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Roth). Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to talk about a document that was recently provided, very belatedly, by the White House to the Congress, a document now referred to as the task list. It is dated December 13, 1994, but it was just provided to the Congress in recent days. The task list shows 39 scandals that the White House staff in the West Wing, taxpayer supported staff, decided that they needed to work on because there was now going to be a Republican Congress. This memo was prepared just after the November 1994 elections.
I would like to read just briefly the scandals that the White House decided that it needed to task its own staff to work on. Some of these scandals are, of course, well known to the American people, but other scandals have only recently become known, even though this memo was written on December 13, 1994.
No. 1, Foster document handling. We will return shortly to the specifics contained in this memo on each of these. There are several admissions of illegality in this very memo.
Travel Office. We know all about Travelgate, of course. That has become a major scandal just as they predicted in here.
White House-Treasury contacts. Of course, we know about the illegal contacts between senior political appointees at the Department of the Treasury and the White House, tipping off the President, giving a heads up to the President and Mrs. Clinton about the criminal referral of the Whitewater matter.
Obstruction of justice, I am reading this from the White House internal memo, obstruction of justice re DOJ handling of criminal referrals. Use of White House resources for response efforts. Of course, that is what this memo is all about, but that is one of the scandals that is listed here. This entire memo is devoted to how to spin the press about the various scandals.
Foster suicide. Espy. Of course we know that Mr. Smaltz was assigned as an independent counsel to investigate the Mike Espy ethics question. We know about the criminal problems with Tysons there. Henry Cisneros, Ron Brown, Hubbell. Of course, we all know about the next top ranking man at the White House right underneath the Attorney General, Webster Hubbell, who is now in jail.
Ickes, union representation. And of course with Coia and all that ABC News has done on this scandal just in recent days, we now know why in 1994 they were worried about that.
Stephanopoulos, Nation's Bank. Again, this is a White House memo that they prepared secretly inside the White House using taxpayer resources and in the White House counsel's office, which they should not have been doing. That is not appropriate use of taxpayer funds. They have listed all of these scandals that they wanted to innoculate against and spin the press about.
The Stephanopoulos-Nation's Bank story was of course what the press widely described as a sweetheart, below market mortgage for George Stephanopoulos, the kind of deal that ordinary Americans could not get.
{time} 1715
State Department passport files; another Clinton administration scandal that we are so familiar with.
Archives abuse of personal system. This is one scandal that they have not fully disclosed to us and that we will find out more about.
The Legal Defense Fund, and of course we know all about the ethical problems that the President encountered there, soliciting funds for the Legal Defense Fund when such solicitation is, in fact, in violation of the law.
The Health Care Task Force, and of course we know that that resulted in litigation against Hillary Rodham Clinton's task force. We know that a Federal judge ruled against the task force, and found that it was put together in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and that documents were withheld from the public and from Congress when they should not have been.
Now there are 39 of these scandals that White House staff--there is a name of a White House staffer right after each one of these, after each one of these scandals, and they were all assigned and presumably are all still working at taxpayer expense on preventing the Congress from getting to know all of the facts in these things.
White House operations, drugs, passes, helicopters, and does that not ring a bell for so many of us? Each of those scandals, drugs in the White House, the passes being given to people without personnel clearances, the misuse of helicopters which resulted in the termination of White House staff; this is next on the White House, the Clinton, list of scandals that they were working on secretly in the White House.
Residence renovations. This is one that they believed was a potential scandal, but the American people do not yet know about it. We have just received this document.
Presidential immunity. Well, of course, we know that that is all having to do with the Paula Jones litigation, Paula Jones having sued the Governor of Arkansas for acts in his capacity, not as Governor but as a private individual apparently abusing the office, at least according to the allegations in the complaint, and the President has used not outside lawyers but taxpayer supported lawyers to make sure that his private civil litigation could be put off until afterward. This is, by the way, something that the courts have now reversed on and they have decided that President Clinton cannot put this off, but he has successfully put it off beyond the election.
White House Arkansans, Thomasson, Nash, Rasco; need we say more?
PIC surplus.
Improper electioneering at the SBA.
Now these are all admissions by the Clinton White House to themselves within the White House internally of what they were doing wrong.
GSA.
Value Partners. Now Value Partners was, of course, the partnership that Hillary Rodham Clinton invested in. Rather than putting their funds in a blind trust, they did not do so like President Bush did, like President Reagan did, like President Carter did; rather, ran their own investments, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner in Value Partners, a hedge fund which sold short pharmaceutical stocks at a time that the pharmaceutical stock market was falling through the floor because of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Task Force, and that was, of course, scandal number 7 or so up here on the list.
Presidential campaign, FEC audit.
Commodities.
Now of course we know what the commodities is all about. That is the miraculous fortune that Hillary Rodham Clinton made on the investment of a mere thousand dollars in the cattle futures market.
Gubernatorial campaigns; Lindsey, Wright, recordkeeping. There is more in this memo about that later on, but of course we know that in connection with the Whitewater criminal prosecution that Mr. Lindsey was named as an unindicted coconspirator.
Gubernatorial campaigns dash MGSL, and that means Morgan Guaranty Savings and Loan. The S&L at the heart of the Whitewater scandal was apparently involved in gubernatorial campaigns, gubernatorial campaigns back in Arkansas that the White House counsel were working on in this administration in the White House, 1994, December, with taxpayer funds.
And then the next scandal is Whitewater slash Morgan Guaranty Savings and Loan.
Other: MGSL slash McDougal, right below that.
Rose law firm, the next scandal. HRC, and that is Hillary Rodham Clinton, worked for Morgan Guarantee S&L.
David Hale slash Susan McDougal slash SBA, and there are different White House staffers assigned to it.
Tucker, and of course Tucker is now in jail, the Governor, or headed for jail.
Next: Lasater, bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton.
Now this is not a Member of Congress reading things to impugn the White House. This is a White House memo that says ``privileged'' on it because it is being handled by lawyers in the White House counsel's office at taxpayer expense for Bill Clinton, that was requested by the Congress and was not turned over to us until just now.
Lasater, bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton was the next scandal that they have tasked White House staff to work on.
Use of loans to achieve legislative initiatives. This is a new one that we were not aware of, but apparently they were working to cover that up.
Mena Airport. Well, we all know about the drugs and deaths surrounding Mena airport while Bill Clinton was Governor.
Troopers, another scandal, the so-called Troopergate scandal, and then there is a whole category here of scandal, women. That was during the Clinton campaign when President Clinton was running in 1992, his own campaign, not Republicans but his own campaign, referred to as bimbo eruptions.
Now this memo goes on in the case of each scandal to describe tasks to be performed and strategy for dealing with that particular scandal.
Let me give you one example.
Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman would yield before the gentleman moves on, could I just clarify in my own mind what the gentleman is telling us about the memo itself? Do I understand the gentleman to say that this is not a memo prepared by any congressional committee or any organization here on Capitol Hill, or for that matter, any outside organization? Do I understand the gentleman correctly? This is a memo that was prepared inside the White House?
Mr. COX of California. That is correct. This document called the White House task list is dated December 13, 1994. It was compiled by an associate counsel to the President, Jane Sherburne. Her initials are on it, and it lists all of the scandals that she anticipated would plague the Clinton administration and that Congress was now likely to look into because in 1994 we had just been elected, a Republican Congress, not yet sworn into office, and this memo explains how they were going to make sure that Congress did not----
Mr. WALKER. That is what I wanted to clarify.
Now the date the gentleman has given us is December 13, 1994, which is a matter of a few weeks after Republicans have taken over the Congress. Now they had had no problem up until then because literally all of the calls for investigation of White House potential problems had been buried on Capitol Hill.
But now, if I understand the gentleman correctly, this memo is prepared because they now anticipated that they would have some problems with the new Congress that would obviously not be friendly on some of these issues and would actually likely investigate some of the scandals.
Is that the gentleman's impression?
Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and it is rather clear that Jane Sherburne, the associate White House counsel who personally drew up this list of all of these scandals, was prescient. While they were claiming no wrongdoing, behind the scenes they were putting together memorandums like this, and the result in the ensuring years has been that 5 of Bill Clinton's closest associates, including his Attorney General and including the Governor of Arkansas, have since been convicted of crimes.
Mr. WALKER. So what they were doing here was they decided that, ``OK, we've got a problem. We've got a Congress that is likely to begin looking into things that have gone wrong in this administration.''
And so is the gentleman telling us that what they did was they prepared a list of everything that they thought Congress might look into where they had themselves a big problem?
Mr. COX of California. That is exactly right, and furthermore, what I have just covered is the list of the names of these scandals, but the memo, which is quite lengthy, goes on then to describe the strategy for dealing with each of these scandals so that anyone trying to investigate would not be able to get to the bottom of it, and I will give you one example.
One page 4 of this memo there is a heading, ``Security,'' by which they mean White House security slash Livingstone issues.
Now keep in mind that this was dated December 13, 1994. You may recall approximately when Craig Livingstone came upon the national scene, became a household name because of that Clinton scandal. It was not in 1994, but in 1996, 2 years later. But listen to what this memo says back in 1994.
``Review Livingstone file.''
Now, presumably they did.
``Interview Livingstone.''
They wanted, apparently, to deal with Livingstone problems back in 1994, all of which were covered up so that the Congress and the American people did not find out about them and did not find out at all about Filegate, literally hundreds of files on Republicans who had worked in the White House in previous administrations, FBI files which had been collected by this White House under Craig Livingston.
Mr. WALKER. Okay, but if I can just follow up on the gentleman for another moment.
So what we have here is a memo that was prepared internally within the White House suggesting that they knew that they had a series of scandals that Congress was likely to investigate and that they had reason to be worring about.
Is that what we believe we have in front of us?
Mr. COX of California. That is precisely this memo. I will give you another example if you wish.
Mr. WALKER. Now, if this was an internal document within the White House, how do we now have it?
Mr. COX of California. Well, of course we had to subpoena it, we had to threaten to subpoena it, because we asked for all of the Travelgate memos to be turned over. Travelgate, which was another Clinton White House scandal, involved the firing and smearing, through the use of the EBI, of what we now know were honest and innocent White House civilian career employees.
Mr. WALKER. So the only way that this memo came to light was the fact that Congress was subpoenaing documents. Now, was this particular memo withheld from Congress for a while?
Mr. COX of California. For a very long while, The request for 3,000 pages was originally described not all that long ago by the White House as a request for toilet paper, that this was a trivial request, that they should not be asked for such documents. When finally we got the first 1,000 pages of the 3,000 that we requested, we got the famous list of all of the FBI files, the background files, the very, very confidential law enforcement background files, on people who had worked in the White House. These had been collected illegally by the White House for patently political purposes.
Mr. WALKER. And so for a while the White House was claiming that this information was in fact information that no one had the right to know, not even the Congress, when originally the memo was prepared because they believed that Congress would want to know about these matters.
{time} 1730
Mr. COX of California. Precisely. In fact, while we learn about this same process in what turns out to be pulling teeth from the White House, trying to get them to cooperate, because they are claiming executive privilege about all of these things so they do not have to do anything cooperative with the Congress, they first gave us 1,000 of the 3,000 pages. And in that first batch of documents which we got under a threat of subpoena, we found out about Filegate and all of the FBI files that had been collected on senior officials, including James Baker and others well known.
But we did not get this memo. It was only 2 weeks ago, on August 15, that we got this memo. This is brand new, and almost no one, even many of our colleagues here in Congress, has yet had the opportunity to read this, but it is clearly shocking.
Mr. WALKER. So while White House spokesmen like the press secretary, Mr. McCurry, and even officials within the White House, have gone to the American public and suggested to them that there is absolutely no substance to any of the scandals that have been discussed on Capitol Hill and that Congress should be embarrassed to look into these matters, they internally had prepared a document which suggested that all of those scandals were real, and in fact, that they were very worried about them?
Mr. COX of California. Correct. Not only were they very worried about them, but what is outlined in this memo is a specific step-by-step plan to keep the Congress and the American people from finding out the truth.
Mr. WALKER. So this is not just a listing of the scandals they are worried about, this is a listing on how they are going to cover it up?
Mr. COX of California. Let me read it. Here the issue is ``chain of custody re transfer of Clinton personal files.'' Of course, we are talking about the Whitewater files here, because these have not been turned over. They have not been made public. The President has not come clean and cooperated on this.
Here is an item on the to do list: ``Determine strategy re release of Whitewater file.'' They wanted to determine their strategy for releasing this. This was not a decision to share with the public, they want to find out how they can selectively make this available. I do not know what else a strategy re release of files is. If you were going to share the information and cooperate and show there was nothing to be concerned about, you would simply make the information public. But here they say they want to determine a strategy re release of Whitewater file.
``Under search of Foster office'', another heading, they have this item to do: legal research on the basis for resisting identification and production of all documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's safe. So they wanted to go and do legal research so they could come up with a legal pretext for resisting identifying and producing all documents in Vince Foster's office and Bernie's safe. That is the kind of memo.
Mr. WALKER. So what we have here is a memo designed to look into all of the ways in which they could resist any kind of investigation on Capitol Hill; and is it possible that some of this was also designed to resist any investigation by a special counsel?
Mr. COX of California. I do not think there is much question about that. Under the heading ``Obstruction of justice,'' and I have to repeat, because otherwise this sounds----
Mr. WALKER. They believed they had a problem with obstruction of justice?
Mr. COX of California. It is the very heading in their own memo,
``Obstruction of justice.'' This is prepared by the White House counsel's office, analyzing the legal problems of the Clinton administration.
Mr. WALKER. So in 1994 the legal counsel's office believes that the White House could have a problem with obstruction of justice?
Mr. COX of California. It does not say ``could,'' it says
``Obstruction of justice,'' and underneath that it says ``Delay in addressing criminal referrals, Department of Justice role.'' Under that it says, ``Determine usual process.'' Think of what it is that we are talking about here. The delay in addressing the criminal referrals, that was, of course, the delay in referring for criminal prosecution the whole Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan default and collapse at taxpayer expense.
The job for the White House counsel, and remember, this is now Whitewater, this is the real Whitewater business, with Madison Guarantee and the Whitewater loan transactions and so on. We have the White House counsel, the lawyers for the President of the United Stats in his official capacity, working at taxpayer expense to do this task: Determine usual process, so we can find out how they should have done it, because obviously they know they did not do it the usual way, so they had to look up, after the fact, what would have been the usual way to handle the Whitewater transaction.
Mr. WALKER. Is the White House counsel's office even supposed to be engaged in this kind of thing?
Mr. COX of California. This is one of the reasons why I am here on the floor this evening, because as senior associate counsel to the President myself in the White House counsel's office, I could not be more familiar with the distinguished history of the White House counsel's office and its authentic purpose.
The reason that the White House counsel has a five-decade history of serving Presidents from both parties is that its mission is to protect the President and the Presidency from illegal acts or from any kind of trouble arising during his course or her course, should we have a woman President one of these days, of administration during the course of office.
It is for the President's official activities, not for his tax returns, his personal tax returns, and certainly not for his private investments, and certainly not for the criminal investigation or prosecution of his friends and cronies from Arkansas or even elsewhere in the administration. But that is exactly what this White House counsel's office has been doing.
I will tell you, when I worked in the White House counsel's office in a previous administration, we did not look at the President's tax returns. That was done at the President's personal expense by the President's own private law firm. But in this White House counsel's office, Vince Foster at the time of his death was actually working on the Whitewater partnership tax return. That is what he was doing in the West Wing of the White House at Government expense.
It is a perversion and abuse of that function, and it is obviously all the more poignant when one reads this very long memo called the task list of some 39 separate scandals identified by the Clinton administration, all being handled in that White House counsel's office.
Mr. WALKER. If I understand what the gentleman has told us, you have the White House counsel's office preparing a memo on how to evade examination by the Congress of matters that they believed were of serious concern, and also how to evade potential legal prosecution for some of the things that may in fact be illegal?
Mr. COX of California. That is correct; and also how to conjure, after the fact, legal justifications and pretext for sins of omission and commission already occurred.
Mr. WALKER. Is there any precedent for the White House legal counsel's office, for the White House counsel's office, to be the perpetrator of a memo designed to bring about a cover-up?
Mr. COX of California. To the contrary. In past administrations, the role of the White House counsel's office has been to facilitate the flow of information, to make sure that when a question arises in connection with a potential scandal or an accusation of law-breaking, that all of the relevant information is shared not only with law enforcement authorities or an independent counsel, but also with the Congress.
I can tell the Members that in the Bush administration, in the Reagan administration where I served, and I am sure that this is true also of the Carter administration, the Ford administration, that if there was a question of the President breaking the law, if there was a suspicion that the White House staff might themselves to be complicit in law-
breaking, then no claim of executive privilege would be used to shield that person from proper inquiry by the law enforcement authorities or by Congress in fulfillment of its oversight responsibilities.
To the contrary, this administration has asserted executive privilege, up until August 15; over this very document. Executive privilege is not meant to be a shield for White House staff who are accused of criminal misdeeds. Neither is it supposed to be a shield for the President's own personal investment problems. Rather, it is meant to protect the Nation and the national security.
Mr. WALKER. Am I not correct that a number of people who are tasked on this memo, it is called a task list, as I understand it, a number of the people who are listed as having the task of doing these jobs that are designed, as the gentleman points out, for cover-up, are in fact employees of the White House counsel's office?
Mr. COX of California. In fact, they are all of them employees of the White House, all of them staff of the President.
Mr. WALKER. Let me check with the gentleman. For instance, I see down here the name Kendall. Now, Kendall----
Mr. COX of California. David Kendall is an outside lawyer.
Mr. WALKER. But a number of the people who are given these tasks involved with trying to withhold information from Congress and also to cover up these scandals are in fact people who are employed at the taxpayers' expense in the White House counsel's office, is that correct?
Mr. COX of California. That is correct, in the White House counsel's office and in the White House staff, a total of 15 staff members, we have toted this up, earning an annual salary of $1.3 million. These people who are supposed to be doing the people's business, executing on legislation, policy, and the national responsibilities of the President of the United States, are instead on scandal detail, and what a long scandal list it is, 39 separate scandals identified in this memo, and strategy outlined not just for dealing with the Congress, not just for withholding documents, not just for coming up with legal pretexts for doing so, but also for dealing with the press. Because in almost each case, there is another item to do on the list: Prepare press strategy.
We have, for example, a heading ``White House/Treasury Contacts.'' You remember Mr. Altman had had to resign because of illegal contacts between the highest levels of the Treasury Department and the White House, tipping them off as to pending investigations, when that was a complete violation of normal procedure. ``Prepare press strategy'' is what they have on their list here.
So when you see a representative of the White House in the press room or a representative of the Treasury in the press room coming clean with the press, what they are really doing is executing on a strategy that was concocted all the way back in December 1994 to prevent the American people and the Congress from learning the truth.
Mr. WALKER. I think this is one of the more incredible documents that we have had released. Of course, it was released under duress. The committee literally was told for months that these kinds of documents did not exist in the White House, and that the committee had no right to be asking for them, and then only under extreme circumstances did this particular memo come to light.
Now we find out within this memo that, in fact, there was a plan being executed to try to see to it that such memos did get to Capitol Hill, and that responsible investigators were not able to understand anything about what was really happening inside the White House.
I find all of this extremely disturbing. It is one thing to claim executive privilege as a way of protecting vial national secrets that affect the operation of the Government. It is another thing to claim executive privilege and try to use it to cover up the misdeeds of people within the White House and within the administration, misdeeds that are so obvious that the White House counsel's office was able to prepare a list of all the ones that they thought that they were potentially guilty of.
It is a horrible manifestation of the use of executive privilege and is something which I would think in most cases should disturb anyone who looks at the willingness of public officials to come clean about potential problems within their jurisdiction.
Mr. COX of California. There is no question that this memo gives the lie to two claims made by the White House. The first is that they would be relying on outside counsel, which, of course, they should, because these are all scandals, private criminal problems of the people involved. Clearly they were still using the White House counsel's office, even after they hired their outside counsel. They were using some 15 members of the White House staff at an expense, an annual salary, of $1.3 million.
Second, when they said they were coming clean, when they said they were cooperating and trying to put all the information out for the public to see, what they were really doing was just the opposite, using legal devices to cover it up and stonewall. Unfortunately, now executive privilege in this administration is coming to be a synonym for coverup.
Consider just a few items on page 10 of the task force memo. We have under the heading ``Whitewater investment'', ``Press strategy.'' It is all sort of the Dick Morris spin of how are we going to pretend to be talking truthfully to the American people on these issues when, in fact, it is all a strategem?
Take a look here under the heading ``MGSL,'' Madison Guaranty Savings
& Loan, where they say ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC,'' Hillary Rodham Clinton; A, conflicts; B, enabled Madison Guaranty to stay open longer than it should have. What an admission in a document we did not get until 2 weeks ago.
Mr. WALKER. I would agree with the gentleman, that is a fairly big item. In other words, they knew that some of the work done by the Rose Law Firm enabled the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to stay open longer than it should have, and those were the kinds of institutions, as I recall, that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars when these savings and loans stayed open longer than they should have and continued to eat up the resources.
{time} 1745
Mr. COX of California. This is, of course, what this memo says, but we know what the public face has been, the public face of the White House, that Mrs. Clinton did no such work and in fact had nothing to do with Whitewater or Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan or the Rose Law Firm involvement in this, and in fact the collapse of Madison Guaranty had nothing to do with her.
But in this memo, which is not prepared for you or for me or for law enforcement but for each of the people in the White House, the heading is, ``Rose Law Firm work, HRC, conflicts enabled MGSL to stay open longer than it should have.''
This is the scandal that they are dealing with internally and this is their approach to each one of the 39 scandals listed in this memo: Develop a press or spin strategy.
The White House counsel's office rather obviously is being misused on the taxpayer's tab. The American people should not be asked to shell out for what amounts to coverup and back-and-fill strategy in the White House, the protection of Presidential cronies and the protection of people who ultimately, since 1994, have found themselves in jail and behind bars, being convicted of felonies.
Mr. WALKER. I found it kind of interesting, something on page 11, where it talks about Negative Associations, it calls it. Among the people listed are Jim Guy Tucker, David Hale, Jim McDougal, and Dan Lasater. Three of those names, we have become quite familiar with, as the trials have gone forward in the whole Whitewater mess, but obviously the White House had some very big concerns about the fact that the President has, or the White House has some of those negative associations. But then behind Dan Lasater's name, there is a parentheses saying ``bond deals, cocaine, and Roger Clinton.'' I mean, we obviously have a range of people here that the White House counsel's office was very worried about, thus these negative associations.
Mr. COX of California. This, remember, is a task list. So presumably after receiving these instructions from Jane Sherburne on December 13, 1994, the people who were listed here followed through on those tasks. That means that the White House internally, at taxpayer expense, went out to put together information on Dan Lasater's bond deals, information on Dan Lasater's involvement with cocaine, and that is according to this memo, and Roger Clinton and his involvement with the foregoing, with Dan Lasater, bond deals and cocaine, all or some of the above. But those documents that were most assuredly prepared, if people followed through on this task list, have not been provided to this Congress nor apparently to law enforcement authorities. Each one of these 39 scandals with its subsidiary task listed on this memo is something that the White House, at public expense, using the White House lawyers and the counsel's office, has decided to build a wall around, to stonewall, so that the American people, law enforcement, and the Congress cannot find out about it. That of course is exactly why this memo was prepared just after the election of the Republican Congress, and that is why the press has so reported.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman would yield for a question, I have not read these documents. But of course both of us worked in the Reagan White House, so we are somewhat familiar with the internal workings of the White House and also the relationship between the White House and the Congress.
Would the gentleman answer for me, does this memo in any way indicate that the higher levels of management in the White House, the White House staff, had prior knowledge of the FBI Filegate scandal?
Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, there is a heading in this memo concerning security/Livingstone issues. It appears at page 4 of the memo. Two of the tasks under that heading are: Review Livingstone file, and interview Livingstone. Obviously the White House counsel's office had a problem with Livingstone and security in the White House at that time.
Apparently his FBI and personnel files, and the result of any search of his background and the result of any search of the issues that have all exploded onto the national scene since then obviously must have been that they knew in 1994 what was going on. Yet, as we know, those FBI files on your colleagues and mine who worked in the Reagan and Bush White Houses, all of those files were kept there and not returned to the FBI. They had been improperly obtained by some political thugs to begin with, and they were kept apparently with the knowledge of at least the White House counsel's office.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, so this document seems to indicate that the senior staff of the White House knew there was something wrong and was looking into this situation that would have led them to investigate what was happening with what a year later became, actually more than a year later, became the FBI file scandal. Is that correct?
Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, that is correct.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let us remember what happened when the information about the Filegate scandal came out originally. Correct me if my memory is faulty here. Did the President not act like he did not know anything about this? In fact, did the President not say: Well, we are only talking about 39 files, and it has something to do with a military fellow that was over here on some sort of a transfer over here to the White House? So, in other words, this was all an act on the part of the senior staff of the White House, perhaps the President.
Mr. WALKER. If I recall correctly, they called it a kind of a bureaucratic snafu.
Mr. COX of California. I believe my colleague would be correct if he had said that that was a precise quotation from the President. He described this as a bureaucratic snafu. This was a couple of years after the White House counsel's office began investigating the whole thing according to this very memo and identified it as a scandal in the making. Only, they identified it just to themselves, not to anyone else. Yet when it first burst upon the national scene, it was for the President to say, this is merely a bureaucratic snafu. Now we know that the administration was at least criminally incompetent if not malevolent in abusing the privacy of scores of honest public servants.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. The first figure we were given by the White House was, I think, 39 or something like that, FBI files were involved, they in fact knew that the number that they were giving out at that time was incorrect. This indicates that they had done a study, at least they had red-flagged this a long time before, and that was probably an intentional, I would say, error, or intentional misinformation, when eventually the figure came out of 900 FBI files. So this is indicating that they were looking into that matter. When the number 39 went up to 900 FBI files, this is all part and parcel of something the White House had thought out a long time before.
Mr. COX of California. What we know specifically from this memo is that the White House had reason to be concerned about Craig Livingstone himself in December 1994 because not only were they worried about security issues for which he was responsible but the task, the specific task on this list is to interview Livingstone and look at Livingstone's file. You would not look at Livingston's file unless you thought he was a problem.
Any kind of competent search about Livingstone, since we have all read about him in the newspaper and his unsavory background, would obviously have yielded the result that such a person ought not to have been placed and maintained in a position requiring professionalism and trust. We know nonetheless the result. This political hack was maintained in this position, this very sensitive position in the White House with access to FBI files on so many Americans for 2 years.
Mr. WALKER. In fact was given raises as I recall.
Mr. COX. of California. And described by George Stephanopoulos as a very able, competent person, who they loved having in the job.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And this man had been involved with opposition research during political campaigns prior to this time?
Mr. COX of California. Well, of course. And he was a bouncer.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, having our background in the White House, let us examine this angle of the story. What has happened in other White Houses that we could actually compare it to? Did Chuck Colson not have something to do with an FBI file?
Mr. COX of California. He possessed one FBI file, it was learned, and therefore he was convicted and sent to prison, for one file.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So Chuck Colson, in the Nixon era, when we had a Republican in the White House, was found guilty of mishandling one FBI file and went to prison. And today we know that there were probably up to 900 FBI files in the possession of a person who had been involved with opposition research for the Democratic Party, yet this question does not seem to be asked of the President by the press anymore.
Mr. COX of California. The comparison is not apt if we just leave it at that. The truth is that the White House counsel's office in its current incarnation is literally a response to Watergate. They decided that no longer would the lawyers for the President be kept in a small office in the Old Executive Office Building across the street. There were only two of them in the Nixon administration.
We all remember John Dean's testimony about his inability to come across with the President and convince him of the gravity of these things. The White House counsel's office was then moved right into the West Wing of the White House. It became a significant law firm, with very, very professional people who have acquitted themselves with great distinction through the Carter administration, through the Ford administration, through the Reagan administration and the Bush administration, to keep the administration out of trouble, to prevent things like this from happening. But what goes on in this White House counsel's office? They are the engines of these misdeeds. It is the White House counsel's office that was coming up with these FBI files, multiplying one hundredfold the crime for which Mr. Colson was convicted during Watergate.
Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I seem to recall some years ago a press secretary in a Republican administration who got fired for having made up a quote along the way. Now you look down through this memo, and this memo has a press strategy for purposely misleading the public. The level of question that arises from this kind of task list is pretty substantial.
Mr. COX of California. It does trouble me that with respect to each one of these 39 scandals, one of the items to do, on the to-do list for the White House counsel's office, the legal counsel of the President of the United States, is to develop a press strategy. If we are coming clean, if we are trying to share with the American people all the relevant facts so that their minds can be put at ease that no illegality is occurring at the highest levels of our Government, one would wish that, rather than a press strategy, we simply had a procedure by which the documents were shared and made public.
Mr. Speaker, they ought to be shared with law enforcement, shared with the American people and with the Congress. Instead, each time we have a scandal listed here, whether it is Ickes' union representation, Stephanopoulos, Nations Bank, improper electioneering at the SBA, Presidential campaign and FEC audit, commodities. There are 39 of these.
Mr. WALKER. The use of time and White House resources for response efforts. In other words, what they are admitting to there is they have got this problem. They are using the taxpayer dollar. They are using the White House itself and taxpayer dollars for essentially political responses.
Mr. COX of California. That is precisely it. The press strategy seems to be the preoccupation of the White House counsel's office, whereas they are supposed to be paid by the taxpayers and they are for the benefit of the President to keep everything on the level, to keep the President and the highest levels of our executive branch out of trouble.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we can assume through this memo, can we not, that basically the White House and the upper echelons of the White House were red-flagging every possible problem so that they could build contingency plans in case these things came to the public's attention. So when things like the FBI scandal or perhaps even the billing records scandal, the billing records that miraculously appeared in the living quarters of the first family in the White House, that were lost for so long, that perhaps that was not just an accident. Perhaps actually a strategy was developed on how to handle this crisis. Maybe there is another file someplace else that basically details how to handle all of these problems that are red-flagged.
Mr. COX of California. The gentleman is being very circumspect and charitable, having now received this memo, to say ``perhaps.'' It is obvious that the purpose of this task list is to marshal all of the efforts of the White House staff, led by White House lawyers, to prevent Congress from investigating each and every one of these 39 scandals.
One of the headings in this memo is Research Re Limitation on Legislative Power to Investigate. What the White House counsel's office is doing here is coming up with legal arguments that will prevent the Congress from getting to the bottom of what they have already identified as scandals.
{time} 1800
``Research re: limitations on legislative power to investigate.'' Under that heading, we have DNC, DCCC, DSCC.
For those of us who are uninitiated, the DNC is the Democratic National Committee, the DCCC is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the DSCC is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Under that they have ``surrogates.'' So they are going to be using all of their political machinery. This is a taxpayer paid memo, and taxpayer paid lawyers inside the White House wrote this memo about DCCC, DNC and DSCC, to use them as surrogates to announce to the American people that there are legal reasons, that the White House counsel then went out and researched and came up with, that Congress cannot and should not be investigating these 39 scandals, which are neatly itemized in this secret memo.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Could this be characterized again, and you looked at these things legally, Mr. Cox, and you are a trained lawyer and I am not, I have a journalistic background, but would it be inaccurate to suggest that this was a game plan for a coverup?
Mr. COX of California. As I said earlier, it appears chiefly from this brand new memo, which we have had only for a few weeks, and also from all of the context of the administration's nonresponse to our request for those 3,000 documents, which they referred to as a request for toilet paper and which eventually yielded the information about Filegate and all the FBI files on earlier administrative personnel that they obtained for political purposes, that executive privilege, which has been their basis for refusing to turn over these documents, is increasingly becoming a synonym for coverup.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think it is important that those people who are reading this in the Congressional Record or hearing this over C-SPAN should understand that none of the information we are talking about in this memo, or, I might add, many of the other revelations we have discovered, whether it is the FBI files or the billing records we were trying to find for the Rose Law Firm in dealing with this S&L scandal which the First Lady was in some way attached to, these things would not have been ever disclosed to the public, nothing about this would ever be known by the public, except for the fact that the U.S. Congress changed hands.
This memo, it appears that this memo is a recognition that the administration recognized very early on that the game was up in terms of hiding everything from the public. That they could have kept all of this information, if the Democrats would have maintained control of the House and the Senate, and there was no way the public would ever have known about this.
Which also suggests one other thing, and this is a point I would like to make and the public should understand: The liberal Democrats, who controlled both Houses of Congress and control the executive branch today, have a total disdain for the press. They do not believe that the press can uncover anything. They in fact trusted that the press would not even try to uncover any of these things.
It was only when the House of Representatives changed hands and we had the power then to subpoena and ask people under oath questions about these types of misdeeds, that the administration became cautious enough and became frightened enough to try to look at what their potential vulnerabilities were. If we would not have had control of the House, they would not fear a thing from us.
Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman would yield, I think the gentleman from California makes an excellent point, because actually Chairman Clinger, at that time a ranking minority member of the committee, attempted to pursue the Travelgate scandal while a minority member of the committee, attempted to get the committee to look into the problem at that time. He was told by the Democrats that it would not be done. In fact, I think, I do not remember exactly, but I think they actually voted him down and suggested to him that he was not going to be able to pursue the matter. It was not until he became chairman of the committee that he was able to pursue the matter, because specifically that committee decided to permit the White House to cover this matter up and not take it up before the proper congressional committees.
Mr. COX of California. It is at least true that prior to the revelations, so many of which have occurred since the election of an opposition party to get to the bottom of this in the White House, that there was an attitude by the Democrats in power in Congress at the time that they simply did not want to know the answer to these questions, because, after all, we had not seen this document until just a few weeks ago. But now that we have it, I think any fair-minded person, any Democrat or any Republican, would have to say, this is a virtual roadmap to scandal.
If the majority party in Congress were to put together a list of scandals of the administration that ran to more than a dozen, it would be called a partisan exercise. Yet here we have, prepared by the White House staff itself, by President Clinton's own staff, a secret memo for their own privileged consumption, stamped ``privileged'' on the cover, a list of 39 scandals, with detail of each, and some rather damaging admissions about each.
Let me point our just one such that we have not referred to in this brief colloquy, and that is the scandal labeled Hubbell, and that is, of course, Webster Hubbell, the acting Attorney General. ``Webster Hubbell's cooperation is to be monitored.''
Now, why would we be concerned with this? This is right before
``determine press strategy.'' Why would we be concerned with monitoring Webster Hubbell's cooperation, if we were willing to let the special prosecutor do his job?
The answer is, of course, the administration was very concerned about just how far Webster Hubbell might go in cooperating with that special prosecutor. As we all know, Webster Hubbell was subsequently convicted and sent to jail.
Mr. WALKER. And right below that is ``Ickes's union representation.'' We know that one of the unions and one of the individuals that Mr. Ickes had a relationship with now now somebody who has been under congressional investigation, and where we have FBI data calling him a criminal associate of the mob, this person who Mr. Ickes was associated with. I see they were assembling a binder with summary and key documents with regard to that union representation.
Well, since the White House has had this direct relationship with this person, Mr. Coia, who has been called by the FBI a criminal associate of the mob, that could be a very damaging kind of question that is raised as a part of the scandal memo prepared at the White House.
In fact, ``ABC News'' has done quite an expose on this. It turns out the scandal itself was under active investigation by the White House Counsel's Office on December 13, 1994, and it is highlighted in this White House task list.
Mr. WALKER. But since that time, the President has continued to have direct association with the person involved, the gentleman described as a criminal associate of the mob.
Mr. COX of California. I think at this point it would be appropriate, because each of our colleagues should have the benefit of this memo in full, that I ask unanimous consent to include the memorandum in its entirety in the Record at this point.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, subject to the rules of the House.
There was no objection.
Task List--December 13, 1994
1. Issues
a. Foster document handling (Nemetz)b. Travel Office (Cerf)c. White House/Treasury contacts (revisited; report) (JCS)d. Obstruction of justice (DOJ handling of criminal referrals; Jay Stephens; RTC whistleblower reprisals)e. Use of White House resources for response efforts (Nolan)f. Foster suicide (Nemetz)g. Espy (ethics; expanded Smaltz inquiry re Tyson's, Hatch
Act) (Mills/Nolan)h. Cisnerosi. Brownj. Hubbellk. Ickes/union representationl. Stephanopoulos/NationsBankm. State Department--passport filesn. Archives--abuse of personnel systemo. Legal Defense Fund (Mills)p. Health Care Task Force (Neuwirth)q. White House operations (drugs, passes, helicopters)
(Mills/Nolan)r. Residence renovations (Neuwirth)s. Presidential immunity (Sloan)t. White House Arkansans (Thomasson, Nash, Rasco)u. PIC surplusv. Improper electioneering (SBA)w. GSA (Roger Johnson)x. Value Partners (Neuwirth)y. Presidential campaign (FEC audit)z. Commodities (Kendall)aa. Gubernatorial campaigns (Lindsey, Wright)--record keeping
(Kendall)ab. Gubernatorial campaigns)--MGSL (Kendall)ac. Whitewater/MGSL (Kendall)ad. Other MGSL/McDougal (Kendall)ae. Rose Law Firm (HRC work for MGSL; Frost Case, FSLIC representation) (Kendall)af. David Hale/Susan McDougal/SBA (Kendall)ag. Tuckerah. Lasater (bond deals; cocaine; Roger Clinton)ai. Use of loans to achieve legislative initiativesaj. ADFA (political favors; Larry Nichols)ak. Mena Airportal. troopersam. women (Kendall/Bennett)
2. preliminaries
a. Identify key republican objectives and routes for achieving them--e.g.
i. sustain shadow on WJC character
ii. hype HRC threat to white men, traditional womenb. Identify guiding principles for responses--e.g.
i. nothing to hide
ii. stick to the facts
iii. get it right the first time
iv. keep it simple
v. resist harassment
vi. govern Americac. Executive privilege research
i. OLC state of the play
ii. comments by republicans re assertion
iii. protocol
iv. strategy/principles for assertingd. Research re entitlement of Congress to HRC/WJC transcripts of depositions given to Fiskee. Research re congressional subpoena power
i. reach (HRC/WJC)
ii. precedents
iii. committee rules
iv. proceduresf. Research re limitations on legislative power to investigate
i. legislative purpose
ii. overreaching precedentsg. Learn new Hill committee jurisdiction, membershiph. Courtesy visits to Hill--member and staff level (e.g.,
Frank, Sarbanes, leadership; Harris, Meek, etc.)i. Consultationsj. Offensive structure
i. FEC legal research
ii. W&C
iii. DNC/DCCC/DSCC
iv. surrogatesk. Representation of Administration officials by private counsel
i. compensationl. Research re proper role of OWHC with respect to pre-
inaugural issues with an aim toward articulating principles for determining who should be principal spokesperson on a particular issue and the extent to which each (private counsel/OHWC) should participate.
3. foster documents handling
a. Independent counsel inquiry
(1) identify options with respect to issuance of report--
(a) precedents
(2) inquire about status and timing
(3) HRC/WJC depositions
ii. status check with counsel for individualsb. Congressional hearings
i. identify likely committees (Senate Banking; House
Banking, Gov Ops, Judiciary)
(1) identify friends--key Members and staff
(2) identify leadership
(3) identify key republicans
ii. congressional visits
(1) Daschle
(2) Sarbanes & other Banking
(3) house
iii. prepare background materials
(1) assemble public record
(2) talking points and fact memoranda
iv. determine how to handle representation of individual
White House staff
(1) outside counsel
(2) attorney fees
(3) assertion of privilegesc. Press strategyd. Surrogate role
i. Hamilton
ii. identify otherse. Offensive researchf. Issue specific tasks
i. security/Livingstone issues
(1) debrief Joel
(2) review Livingstone file
(3) consult with Randy Turk
(4) interview Livingstone
(5) fact memo
ii. inconclusiveness re Williams removal of documents
(1) confer with Ed Dennis
(2) debrief Joel re security officer
(3) assemble public reports of document removal on 7/20 and statements attributed to White House officials
iii. chain of custody re transfer of Clinton personal files
(1) complete interviews
(a) Carolyn Huber
(b) Linda Tripp
(c) Deborah Gorhan
(d) Bob Barnett
(e) Syvia Mathews
(2) fact memo
(3) assemble public record
(4) determine strategy re release of White H2O Devel
Corp. file
iv. search of Foster office
(1) assemble public record
(a) including any relevant testimony at Senate hearing on
Foster suicide in July 1994
(2) fact memo
(a) obligation to seal the office immediately
(b) obligation to cooperate with law enforcement authorities vs. protection of privileged material
(c) basis for protecting disclosure to Congress of privileged material in VF office
(3) legal research
(i) basis for resisting identification/production of all documents in VF office and Bernie's safe
v. Delay in surfacing suicide note
(1) complete interviews
(a) Gergen
(b) Burton
(2) assemble material in public record
(3) fact memo
(4) legal research
(a) obligations to disclose a note to law enforcement authorities
(i) if not obviously a suicide note
(ii) timeliness requirements
4. foster suicide
a. Chris Ruddy/Center for Western Journalismb. Causes for suicidec. Monitor Senate report; coordinate with Hamiltond. Develop press response
5. obstruction of justice
a. Delay in addressing criminal referrals; DOJ role (D.C. and
Paula Casey)
i. determine usual process
ii. develop chronology/fact memo with key
(1) Charles Banks
(2) Paula Casey
(3) (track Lewis correspondence released by Leach)
iii. identify Committee interest (D'Amato; House)
iv. assemble public recordb. RTC/Kansas City investigation (suspension of Jean Lewis,
Richard Iorio etc.; April Breslaw; pre-1993 activity)
i. develop chronology of known facts and key documents
ii. interview Breslaw
iii. identify Committee interest (Leach; Senate)
iv. examine last day of House hearings for offensive helpc. Jay Stephens retention
i. track public record
ii. identify efforts to give IC civil jurisdiction
iii. identify Committee interest (D'Amato; House)
6. white house/treasury contacts
a. Senate Report
i. review/comment on Report
ii. keep in touch with Minority Report developments
iii. prepare press strategy
iv. identify surrogatesb. White House investigation of White House/Treasury contacts
(receipt of information about RTC investigation; work product; redactions)
i. prepare file memorandum describing use of unredacted transcripts
ii. determine continuing Bond interestc. Truthfulness of White House and other Administration witnesses (referral of testimony to Starr--Ickes,
Stephanopoulos)
i. consult with lawyers
ii. identify areas of vulnerability
iii. research on perjury
iv. press responsed. Heads-up policy
i. surrogates
ii. uniform application
iii. Treasury status
iv. press strategy for release of Committee report
v. work up background paper on precedentse. Recusal policies/OGE/Executive Orders
i. press strategy for release of Committee report
ii. background paper
iii. consult with OGE
iv. consider Executive Order or other response to Committeef. Contacts policy (Executive Order)
i. press strategy for release of Committee report
ii. background paper
iii. consult with OGE
iv. consider Executive order or other response to Committeeg. Rikki Tigert
i. determine her first likely congressional appearance in the new congress
ii. assemble public record
iii. interview Gergen, Tigert and Klein re communications on the subject of recusal
(1) determine response to allegations of ``pressure''
(2) determine response to allegation that Klein misled the committee
iv. determine press strategy/talking points
7. smaltz investigation
a. Espy--ethics (Mills)b. Beyond Espy ethics (Hatch Act, Tyson's)
i. determine charter, scope of inquiry
ii. determine press strategy
iii. identify congressional interest
iv. assemble public record
v. fact gathering
8. white house whitewater response effort
a. Legal research
i. the appropriate role of White House staff with respect to issues arising pre-inauguration (see above)b. Fact development (scope of effort, etc.)c. Determine press strategy/develop talking pointsd. Assemble public record
i. Lindsey involvement pre-1994
ii. Ickes' Ward Room undertaking (1/94)
iii. Polesta damage control effort
9. cisneros
a. Gather factsb. Establish contact with counselc. Determine press strategy/develop talking pointsd. Identify source of congressional intereste. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
10. brown
a. Establish contact with counselb. Determine press strategy/develop talking pointsc. Identify source of congressional interestd. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
11. hubbell
a. Monitor cooperationb. Determine press strategy/develop talking points
12. Ickes (union representation)
a. Monitorb. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
13. Stephanopoulos (nationsbank)
a. Monitorb. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
14. State department (passport files)
a. Identify issueb. Determine congressional interestc. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
15. archives (abuse of personnel system)
a. Identify issueb. Determine congressional interestc. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
16. sba (improper electioneering)
a. Identify issueb. Determine congressional interestc. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
17. GSA (Roger Johnson)
a. Identify issueb. Determine congressional interestc. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
18. FEC Audit
a. Determine congressional interestb. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
19. FIC surplus
a. Identify issueb. Determine congressional interestc. Assemble binder with summary and key documents
20. MGSL-related
a. Whitewater Investment
i. assemble public record
ii. review documents, including work of accountants and tax returns; Lyons reports
iii. develop fact memo and chronology
iv. press strategyb. MGSL
i. assemble public record
ii. review W&C documents
iii. develop fact memo and chronology
iv. fact memo
(1) why MGSL failed; relationship of campaign contributions to failure
(2) Rose Law Firm work (HRC 1985)
(a) conflicts
(b) enabled MGSL to stay open longer than it should have
v. surrogate strategyc. Rose Law Firm
i. fact memo
(1) status of conflicts inquiry
(2) Frost case
(3) Rose services to FSLIC related to Lasater brokerage firm (HRC 2 hours in 1987, signed pleadings for VF)
(4) billing practices
ii. assemble public record
iii. determine press strategyd. David Hale
21. Other Pre-Inaugural
a. Gubernatorial Campaigns
i. identify issues
(1) whether expenditures and loans were properly reported under state law
(a) Lindsey role
(b) Betsey Wright
(2) role of the Bank of Cherry Valley
(3) Starr looking at 1984, 1986, 1990
ii. interview Kendall; review Kendall documents
iii. interview Snyder/Lindsey
iv. fact memo
v. press strategyb. Negative Associations
i. Jim Guy Tucker
ii. David Hale (SBA)
iii. Jim McDougal
iv. Dan Lasater (bond deals, cocaine, Roger Clinton)c. Mena Airport
i. identify issue
ii. determine congressional interest
iii. assemble binder with summary and key documentsd. ADFA
i. identify issue (political favors)
ii. determine congressional interest
iii. assemble binder with summary and key documentse. Use by Governor Clinton of loans to further legislative initiatives
i. identify issue ii. determine congressional interests
iii. assemble binder with summary and key documentsf. Commodities
i. determine congressional interest
ii. assemble binder with summary and key documentsg. Paula Jones
i. assemble binder with summary and key documentsh. Troopers
i. identify issue (job for silence, other)
ii. determine congressional interest
iii. assemble binder with summary and key documents
Mr. COX of California. I thank the Speaker.
The memo is quite extraordinary. It is single-spaced, goes on for 12 pages, and, as I said, lists 39 scandals, most of which, now, 2 years later, are known to the American people, but a few of which are actually brand new. It actually details how each of these scandals was assigned to White House staff, 15 such staffers, and according to the press, these staffers earned a total salary of $1.3 million. This is taxpayer money, all of which is being misspent because that is not the appropriate function of the White House Counsel's office. That is not the appropriate function of the White House staff. Working on these matters inside the West Wing of the White House is itself a scandal of the first order.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I have not read this memo, obviously. I appreciate the gentleman making this available to me and available to the other Members. But just a quick glance shows you that one of the issues red-
flagged in this memo is how to deal with questions about the Vincent Foster suicide. One wonders why, if this was just a straight up and down suicide, which we have always, the news media and everyone else wants to just steamroller anyone who has any questions, serious questions about basically some of the facts behind the suicide and the time immediately thereafter. It just notes here that they are taking, red-flagging Vincent Foster, and red-flagging ``obligation to seal the office immediately.'' And, B, ``to cooperate with law enforcement authorities versus protection of privileged material.''
What we have here is basically an outline for something concerning the death of Vincent Foster and the prevention of certain information from getting to the public. It appears to me, and again I would have to study this further to relate this to other facts of the case and see how it really plays together, but it appears to me what they are doing here is trying to set down a legal strategy for justifying things they did to prevent information about Vincent Foster, coming from Vincent Foster's office or about the suicide, from coming to public attention.
Mr. COX of California. In fact, on page 3, under the heading ``Foster Document Handling,'' there is a subheading, identifying friends for the congressional hearings, key members and staff, and the list of names of our colleagues, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Sarbanes, develop a press strategy, and then there is a heading ``Offensive Research.''
This is not a memo prepared by a White House willing to cooperate. This is a memorandum prepared by a White House that has carefully outlined 39 separate scandals and the strategy for covering them up.
____________________
