July 25, 1995 - Part 4
July 25, 1995 - Part 4
(14:45:38) Ms. MATHEWS. No, sir, no one made any suggestions. Senator SIMON. Mr. Watkins. Mr. WATKINS. Yes, sir. Senator SIMON. When you got a hold of Patsy Thomasson on the phone, did you ask her to remove any documents from Vince Foster's office? Mr. WATKINS. I did not, Senator. I informed her, advised her of Vince's death and I asked her to go to his office and look for a note, a suicide note. Senator SIMON. Now, the next morning there was a briefing in your office where Bernie Nussbaum and others were there together with the Park Police. After that briefing finished, and I assume the Park Police have left, and you're there with other White House officials, did anyone suggest to Bernie Nussbaum or anyone that some documents should be removed from his office? Mr. WATKINS. No, sir. Senator SIMON. By implication some people are suggesting that in some way you were trying to obstruct justice as you moved along. How would you respond to that kind of a charge? Mr. WATKINS. Absolutely not, Senator. My only reason for calling--for asking Patsy to look for a note was to try to give an explanation as to why Vince might have done this, this thing. Senator SIMON. At that point you and others were not thinking about a Senate hearing 2 years from now or even press reaction, it was you were just stunned by the death of your friend. Mr. WATKINS. Everyone was stunned all evening. The most asked question at the home, my most asked question just with my wife riding back from a movie- -we were at a movie when I was notified--was why, why. Anything to try to get an answer to that question is what I was trying to do. Senator SIMON. All right. I thank you. I yield. Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, in the remaining time of Senator Simon, I'd like to put a couple questions, first to Ms. Mathews. Senator Simon asked you whether anyone suggested to you that you throw away any of this material that night and you said no one had suggested that. In fact, to the contrary, people told you it was a good idea for you to rescue this material, did they not? Ms. MATHEWS. That's correct, I was encouraged to go get the trash. Senator SARBANES. As I recall, you asked someone about it and raised the point and they said that's a good idea, you should go do that, or maybe after you did it, they said it was a good job? Ms. MATHEWS. Yes, sir, before I did it, I raised the point should I go and get the trash to senior staff members who were around at the time and they agreed that that was a good idea and I should pursue that. Senator SARBANES. Now, I'd like to put up that pager message that Mr. Chertoff used earlier. Mr. Watkins, are you focusing on that there? Mr. WATKINS. Yes. Senator SARBANES. The first question I have is a technical question that I'd be happy to ask of staff, but the word "number" seems 298 to be a continuation of the beeper message so that it was as though the beeper message said "Please page David Watkins with your location." Now, "number" then appears on the next line and in the beeper message they may have ran out of space on the top line to include it. If that's part of the message, then the message would read "Please page David Watkins with your location number." I take it location and number-but number, I take it, referring to the phone number. Can staff -inform me whether number is part of the beeper message?