July 18, 1995 - Part 2
July 18, 1995 - Part 2
(11:10:46) The events that we are going to examine under a microscope were triggered by a personal tragedy, the suicide of a man who was a close friend, a colleague and a mentor to many of the people who will testify before this Committee. Any errors in judgment committed by White House aides after Vince Foster's suicide were the errors of people operating under extreme stress. It doesn't change the fact that there may have been mistakes or errors, but we need to keep in mind they were operating under extreme stress. Every time we dredge all of this UP, we hurt the family of Vince Foster: the wife, the children, the brothers, the sisters, the mothers, the fathers. Added to the stressfulness and pain of the situation is the fact that neither White House Counsel nor the remainder of the White House staff had any procedures in place for dealing with the suicide of a Member of the Counsel's Office. Nor were the Park Police better prepared. While the Park Police-, have loudly criticized the White House-and we will hear more of it, I'm sure, and it is their right to do that and their duty to do that if they think the White House was wrong- each Park Police officer has testified that he or she has never sealed an office that was not a crime scene. Vince Foster's office was not a crime scene. So let's put it together. Extreme stress, one. Painful suicide, two. No procedures, three. Errors in judgment will surely follow. We are human, and we will see these errors in judgment in all their glory come before this Committee. Mr. Chairman, if this is just about embarrassing the President and the First Lady, as Monday's New York Times indicates-and it says here, "GOP hopes to embarrass Clinton, not itself, with two hearings"-if this is what this is about this is a sad situation for everyone involved, including each and every United States Senator. There are far cheaper ways to embarrass each other. Let me explain. We are talking about a $200,000 loan here, however you slice it, and we are spending millions and millions of dollars to track it. If we believe the American people who today 63 percent, say the purpose of these hearings is to hurt Mr. Clinton, and if we believe The New York Times stories, then it is, in fact, a sad time. I want to make one further point, and then I will stop. We have these fancy machines in front of us, and they'll be showing us different documents- I feel that one of the purposes I hope to serve on this Committee is to carefully look at that as other Members will do, and I want to comment on something Senator Mack pointed out. He had on the screen handwritten notes of Mr. Foster. What we see in that is his reasoning and why he recommends to the Clintons that they should treat their Whitewater income or losses in a certain fashion. By the way, he makes a very conservative call on that, and I guess I always believed that accountants and lawyers who were charged with advising their clients on how to deal with these personal matters have a responsibility to advise them in the best possible ion. In this case, being mindful of the politics sur- 27 rounding Whitewater, clearly Mr. Foster advises the Clintons to show the gain rather than show a loss and yes, risk an audit, Now, Senator Mack, perhaps you've never had an accountant tell you be conservative, why risk an audit? Maybe you never have, but I would suggest to you that if we asked all the Americans to step forward who have had that type of advice, it would fill coliseums.