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.
“WASTED MONEY ON IRRELEVANT INVESTIGATIONS” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1410-H1411 on March 24, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WASTED MONEY ON IRRELEVANT INVESTIGATIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Committee on House Oversight is expected to give $1.3 million to the House Committee on the Judiciary for an enlarged congressional staff to investigate President Clinton. The American people are tired of this waste, and so am I, and this is from a leadership that promised to trim congressional staffs.
{time} 1800
Now, what is amazing to me is the exchange between the chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Henry Hyde), myself, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) only 1\1/2\ hours ago in the Committee on the Judiciary, when I explained that I thought we needed no more wasted dollars and harassment of the President.
The chairman of this committee, in session, sought to reassure me that the monies would be used for harmless oversight of the Department of Justice and for the noncontroversial reauthorization of the Department. It is on the record in the committee. This is in direct contradiction to the written statement yesterday of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) in a letter that has come to my attention that he has sent to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), chairman of the Committee of House Oversight, to justify this new windfall by saying that new investigators were needed to recycle and duplicate nearly every independent counsel investigation into the Clinton administration, from fundraising to allegations at the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior. These matters have already been overinvestigated, but they directly contradict the purpose for which these funds are being authorized by the committee.
I have never received a letter about this in my career. This is a unilateral Republican action to which I take total exception. There has been stealth in correspondence, there have been internal contradictions. But I must now come to the House and report that the Republican leadership is planning to surreptitiously commence to staff for an impeachment investigation without any notice to the Congress, to the Democrats on the Committee on the Judiciary, or to the American people, without a vote from the House of Representatives.
I urge the gentleman from Georgia (Speaker Gingrich), with all respect, to rethink this dangerous, radical political strategy. It is outrageous that we are being told publicly one thing by the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) when his letter to his own leadership is saying something else entirely different: More money to investigate the President.
Why can the majority not just admit it, rather than hiding under these cloaks and misstatements. Members of the House will get no opportunity to vote on this massive increase of funds. When I explained that the Speaker agreed with this request in a cover letter, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) asked that he not be saddled with the Speaker's words.
So today, Mr. Speaker, I will release to the press the words of the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) justifying this new congressional surplus of money and staff and resources, and let the American people judge for themselves.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking subcommittee chairman.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member, and I think he is performing a very important service.
I know as the second ranking minority member that neither he, I, nor any other Members have been consulted. We have read a lot in the paper about what the Committee on the Judiciary was going to do, what it would not be allowed to do, how it was going to be bypassed.
To have this funding request come forward, it is over a $1 million, some of which would be presumably assigned the minority, with no consultation is a problem. And the problem is compounded because the chairman of the committee did say there would be consultation, but the consultation he discussed was on a subject that appears to be different.
____________________
