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“FINAL REPORT BY THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE WHITEWATER” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S6543-S6544 on June 19, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FINAL REPORT BY THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE WHITEWATER
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, yesterday, after 13 months, 51 hearings, 159 witnesses, thousands of pages of documents, and nearly 2 million taxpayer dollars, the Special Committee To Investigate Whitewater concluded its work.
Our committee found no instance in which the President or the First Lady have acted unethically, illegally or abused their power.
Mr. President, the special committee released two varying reports yesterday: A Republican majority report and a Democratic minority report. Our committee started its work in true bipartisan fashion. Unfortunately, as the investigation repeatedly failed to produce any substantive or legitimate wrongdoing by the President, the majority veered the committee down a path of partisan politics and speculation. As a result, our bipartisan teamwork broke down. It disintegrated to a point that two separate reports are needed in order to report our findings as clearly as possible.
The biggest failing of this committee, however, was our failure to keep faith with the American people. For months, I reminded our committee of the importance of being credible and of the need to maintain the confidence of the American people. Constituents in my home State often expressed their displeasure with our committee's partisan politics. And they told me they no longer trusted our committee to find the truth in a fair and impartial manner.
Mr. President, we were charged with the mission of finding all of the facts relating to the President's relationship with Whitewater and related matters. That's what the American people wanted us to do. That is what they expected us to do. Unfortunately, the majority decided to make allegations first, and find the facts second. If the facts failed to support the allegations, the majority simply discarded the facts.
I believe, and most of my colleagues will agree, that there were few instances where the White House could have produced documents faster or answered questions more quickly. In its attempt to be careful and cautious, the White House ultimately ran into perception problems. The White House looked as if it was covering up the truth. Once all the information was gathered, we learned the White House had not acted improperly--rather in many cases it was as open and forthcoming as possible. In no way did the White House act to obstruct justice or attempt to impede this committee's investigation.
The majority granted the special committee $400,000 to extend our hearings well beyond our original February deadline. Nearly 4 months later, our committee conducted only 10 more hearings. This track record makes it very clear to me that we could have concluded our work by the original deadline, and that the majority simply intended to continue these hearings further into the Presidential election season.
Now, after finding no wrongdoing by the President in relation to the subject at hand--Whitewater and Madison Guaranty--the Majority has leaked reports that it intends to pursue perjury charges on three of the President's aides and advisers. This is a clear attempt to move attention away from the fruitless investigation by creating a new allegation. Like many of the smoking guns that amounted to no more than squirt guns, it again appears to be another effort to make news where there is no news, and to make political noise in an election year.
Our committee spent nearly $2 million to examine the facts. The Resolution Trust Corporation [RTC] spent nearly $4 million conducting an independent investigation clearing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. And the independent counsel has spent more than $26 million on its ongoing investigation. Including the House committee hearings, nearly
$40 million of public money has been spent to bring all relevant information into the open.
The final reports put to rest the suicide of Vince Foster, concluded the Clinton White House did not interfere with RTC and Department of Justice investigations, and discovered then-Governor Clinton did not misuse his power to influence State regulators.
It is time for us to move beyond this political issue. It is time for Congress to address the issues that really concern the American people. When I go home people ask me what Congress has done to preserve their quality of life, what Congress has done to improve our education system, and what Congress has done to improve our health care delivery system. I can count on one hand the number of times somebody asked me about Whitewater over the past 2 years.
As a member of the Special Whitewater Committee, I took my job seriously. I understood the importance of our committee, and I stand by the minority report. Our report studies the facts very carefully, and after compiling all of the facts we made our conclusions accordingly. I urge all interested parties to read this report, and I am hopeful it completes the mission we were instructed to pursue.
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