August 5, 1994 - Part 4
August 5, 1994 - Part 4
(14:05:39) Let me turn to Roger Altman. Public office is a high privilege and responsibility, Those who hold the principle offices of state have obligations to be forthright and candid. They must have the courage to act with independent judgment. Roger Altman has fallen far short of this standard. The evidence is overwhelming yet, even at this late date, Mr. Altman continues to temporize, excuse, dodge, and shift blame in a desperate effort to cling to his public office. Mr. Altman's apology rings hollow. He should behave honorably and leave. Of course, we are the legislative branch, we cannot simply remove Mr. Altman. We can say that, from this day forward, we will be unable and unwilling to accept or rely upon any statement, action, or judgment of Roger Altman. Let me conclude by saying, Mr. Chairman, that we did not come to this conclusion lightly. There's a very, very strong feeling that goes beyond the Members of this Committee that Mr. Altman, at this point, will have no credibility and we would find it difficult to rely upon any of his statements, actions, or judgments. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Domenici or Senator Mack, are either of you seeking recognition? I'm going to then--Senator Sarbanes. Senator SARBANES. No, Mr. Chairman. I made my statement earlier. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I'm going to just try to make a few wrap-up comments here. It's been a long week, certainly for everyone associated with this effort here on the Committee. If there is anybody left out in television-land who's been following this, it's been a long week for them as well. I just passed a Senator-not on our Committee-in the elevator who said he went to bed with us last night because he was home watching us on television and when he got up this morning we were still there. Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, I said to Senator Bennett after we broke for lunch, "Tomorrow I guess I'll go through withdrawal, not being here with everybody." He looked and smiled and then said, "I think I can handle it." The CHAIRMAN. I think it's important, too, for people who have followed this from the beginning, to try to understand why it is that, when we go into session on a given day, we stay so long, go until 11 p.m. or 2 a.m. as we did last night. There are important facts as to why that was necessary. I just want to lay them out so people can understand the need to do that. When the Senate passed its Resolution 229 authorizing us to do is investigative effort, in that resolution, which was passed only 6 weeks ago, they told us that we had to start our first bearing on July 29, and that that was our fixed starting date. So, in the space 5 weeks we bad to start from ground zero. We had to go great Independent Counsels and ask them if they would me and do this work. They had to leave their families, come down here, and, literally, go to work and work 7 days a week for 5 solid lid weeks to got ready to start those hearings on time. 796 We did start them on time and, of course, that was the pressure on the front end in getting started. The pressure on the back end is that we start next week with the Health Care Reform legislation on the Senate Floor. That is going to be a full-time task of great importance to the country. We all have our own views thoughts on that, but when that starts we can't be here working on this. We've got to be on the Senate Floor working on Health Care issues debating it, casting votes, and so forth. During this week, while we we've been having these hearings , as people who have been watching could see, we've been interrupted by votes as we were, again, just now. There's a whole pattern of ongoing business in the Senate that requires us to come and go, to deal with it in different ways, not just to vote. Many of us have had legislative items on the floor to have to handle at the same time we've had to keep these hearings in process.