[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 148 (Wednesday, November 30, 1994)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [Congressional Record: November 30, 1994] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] WHITEWATER QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED ______ HON. DAN BURTON of indiana in the house of representatives Tuesday, November 29, 1994 Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, during this past year I have given numerous speeches on the House floor this year regarding Whitewater and a number of related topics. We are ending this session of Congress with many troubling questions about Whitewater still left unanswered. I think that this is one of the biggest failures of the 103rd Congress. When the 104th Congress convenes in January, Whitewater hearings will certainly be high on the agenda. For the benefit of my colleagues who will be participating in these hearings, I thought it would be helpful to summarize the concerns that I have expressed throughout this year. I believe that a majority of the American people want to put Whitewater behind us, but only after all questions are answered and all persons involved are held accountable for their actions. death of white house deputy counsel vincent foster, jr. Vincent Foster left his White House office at 1:00 p.m. on July 20, 1993. He was found dead late that afternoon by the confidential witness (CW) at Fort Marcy Park in Fairfax County, Virginia. The Fiske report, released on June 30, 1994, concluded that Mr. Foster committed suicide, and did so at Fort Marcy Park. However, CW has contradicted many key statements in the report. This summer I obtained a sworn statement from CW regarding Vince Foster's death. CW said that when he discovered Mr. Foster's body, Mr. Foster's hands were at his side, palms up, with no gun in either hand. The Fiske report quoted CW as saying that there may have been a gun in Mr. Foster's hand which he did not see due to dense foliage at the site. They suggested to him that if the trigger guard had been around one finger, and the gun underneath his hand, that CW might not have noticed it. After being pressed, CW said that if that were the case, he might not have seen the gun, but the palms were definitely up. The FBI agents refused to show CW the photo of Foster's hand. When I showed CW the photo of Foster's hand. When I showed CW the ABC News photo of Mr. Foster's hand with the thumb trapped in the trigger guard, CW reacted very strongly, saying this is definitely not what he saw. If CW is correct, then someone move Mr. Foster's head between the time CW left the scene and the police and the paramedics arrived. The Fiske report said that Mr. Foster's head was upright, but it had been moved earlier as evidenced by bloodstains on Mr. Foster's right cheek and shoulder that are inconsistent with the upright position of the head. CW, who was first on the scene, made it very clear to me that Mr. Foster's head was in an upright position when he saw it, and that there was no blood stain on the cheek. Clearly, someone moved Mr. Foster's head after CW left. The Fiske report failed to identify who moved the head. CW also said that he saw a wine cooler bottle adjacent to Mr. Foster's body. He said that this bottle matched the half-empty wine cooler four-pack that was in the white Honda automobile in the parking lot of the park. The Fiske report is silent on the wine cooler bottle. I am further troubled by several other unanswered questions. The FBI never found the bullet that killed Vince Foster at the park, nor were any skull fragments ever found at the scene. The Fiske report said that no fingerprints were found on Foster's .38 caliber Colt revolver. No dirt or grass was found on Foster's shoes. Carpet and hair fibers found on Foster's clothing were not analyzed as to their origin. The security guards stationed outside of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador's residence directly across Chain Bridge Road from the park never heard a shot. The Fiske report contained a great deal of material (over 70 pages in all) on the credentials of the four pathologists who reviewed the physical evidence surrounding Vince Foster's death. Yet they never actually examined his body. Their findings were wholly reliant on the autopsy conducted by Dr. James Beyer, the Fairfax County Coroner. He said that Foster's death was ``consistent with a self-inflicted wound.'' Dr. Beyer has been challenged in the past for conducting flawed and erroneous autopsies. According to the Washington Times, Dr. Beyer overlooked critical evidence in the 1989 Timothy Easley stabbing and supported a police finding that the death was a suicide. The death was later ruled a homicide after an outside expert noted glaring errors in Dr. Beyer's report. These errors included missing a self-defense wound on the victim's hand and getting the color of his hair wrong. Mr. Easley's girlfriend later confessed to the murder. In December 1991 Dr. Beyer ruled that the death of Thomas Burkett, Jr. was a suicide. The body was later exhumed and a second autopsy detailed numerous serious omissions in Dr. Beyer's report. These omissions included a fractured lower jaw and, according to the New York Post, a bloody and disfigured ear, indicating a struggle. So many questions remain unanswered that it is very clear that the investigation into Mr. Foster's death needs to be reopened. THE SEARCHES OF VINCENT FOSTER'S OFFICE White House Chief of Staff Thomas ``Mack'' McLarty ordered Vince Foster's office sealed after learning of his death. However, the office remained unlocked overnight and was not sealed until 11:00 a.m. the next day, when a guard was posted at the door. Despite the order to seal the office, within the first few hours after Vince Foster's body was found, White House officials removed records of business deals between the President, Mrs. Clinton, and the Whitewater Development Corporation, without telling the Federal authorities who were investigating his death. The officials removing files from the office were White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, Special Assistant to the President Patsy Thomasson, and Mrs. Clinton's Chief of Staff, Margaret Williams. On July 22, 1993, Mr. Nussbaum and White House officials searched Mr. Foster's office a second time. Citing executive privilege, they kept the Park Police and FBI agents from entering the office. The Park Police later discovered that Whitewater records had been removed from the office. On July 27, 1993, White House officials revealed that on July 26, they found a note, supposedly written by Vince Foster, in the bottom of the briefcase which was in the office. The note was torn into 27 pieces, and there were no fingerprints on the note. The Fiske report said that reason for the lack of fingerprints on Foster's gun was because of the heat and humidity that day. This begs the question as to the reason for the lack of fingerprints on the note. In addition, two previous searches of the briefcase failed to turn up any note. CLINTON TIES TO CONVICTED COCAINE DISTRIBUTOR Both Patsy Thomasson, who is responsible for the administration of the White House, and President Clinton have been linked to Dan Lasater, who was convicted in 1986 of cocaine distribution. Lasater's Little Rock, AR brokerage (Lasater and Company) was awarded lucrative contracts to underwrite bond sales for the State. These contracts may or may not have been related to the fact that Lasater was a friend of the Clintons and a large political donor. He lent money to Roger Clinton, Bill Clinton's half-brother, to help him pay off his drug debt, and also gave him a job, according to Newsweek. In the early 1980s Ms. Thomasson joined Lasater's company and quickly rose to become a key assistant. When Dan Lasater served his sentence for cocaine distribution, she ran the company and received Mr. Lasater's power of attorney. Prior to Dan Lasater's conviction, Mr. Dennis Patrick from eastern Kentucky was persuaded by a long-time friend to open an account at Lasater and Company. Over $107 million was traded in his name without his knowledge. When Mr. Patrick raised questions about the huge amount of money flowing through his account, there were three attempts made on his life. We need to find out if Ms. Thomasson knew that these illegal trades were taking place. The Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) steered a great deal of state bond underwriting business to Lasater and Company. Then- Governor Bill Clinton created ADFA to provide economic development loans to small businesses in Arkansas. In December 1988 ADFA deposited $50 million in a bank in the Cayman Islands. I do not see how depositing this money in the Cayman Islands would have benefited small businesses in Arkansas, since Arkansas banks offered competitive interest rates. Given Dan Lasater's drug involvement, I believe that some very serious questions need to be raised about why the State of Arkansas was sending its money to an offshore bank in a country identified by the State Department as a drug money laundering haven. According to the Albuquerque Journal, a joint Federal/State investigation of Dan Lasater's drug activities was called off for political reasons. Eventually Lasater was convicted of possession and distribution of cocaine. He served 10 months of a 30 month prison sentence, but did not spend one day in prison. He was later pardoned by then-Governor Clinton. Congress and the American people need to know whether or not Ms. Thomasson was aware of Lasater's drug use and whether or not then-Governor Clinton was aware of this when the State bond contracts were awarded to Lasater and Company, and the American people deserve to know why Bill Clinton would pardon a convicted drug distributor who made substantial contributions to his campaign. There was also another case similar to that of Mr. Dennis Patrick. Lasater and Company traded Treasury futures for First American Savings and Loan of Oak Brook, Ill. First American lost $361,000 of depositors' money through these trades, which First American's head claimed were traded without their permission. First American was seized by Federal regulators in 1986. The regulators pursued a pending lawsuit that First American had filed against Lasater. The Rose Law Firm handled this suit on behalf of the Federal Government, and superlawyer Hillary Clinton and Vincent Foster worked on this case. The suit, which was originally for 3.3 million, was settled for $200,000. It was a serious conflict of interest for Hillary Clinton to be handling this lawsuit. Dan Lasater, who was the primary target of the lawsuit, was a personal friend and supporter of her husband. One certainly has to wonder how hard Hillary worked to obtain as much money as possible from Mr. Lasater. questionable loans to Clinton while he was governor According to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press (AP), then-Governor Clinton borrowed between $220,000 and $400,000 in the mid-1980s to promote his legislative agenda as Governor of Arkansas. White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said that the money was used for travel and legislation-related events. The White House has said that most of the money to repay these loans came from individual donors who were not connected with corporate interests. However, AP has reported that Tyson Foods, Inc. and TCBY Enterprises, Inc. were among the donors. We need to know specifically what the loans were used for, who the donors were, and whether or not any of the donors received special favors from the Legislature or from then-Governor Clinton. I wrote to the President on July 14, 1994, asking for answers to these and other questions that have been raised in response to the press reports. To date I have received no response. criminal probes in whitewater pigeonholed President Clinton appointed Paula Casey as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas (Little Rock). She had worked on the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992, and her husband was appointed to a state job in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor. A criminal referral from Jean Lewis, a Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) investigator who investigated the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, was on Paula Casey's desk waiting for action when she became U.S. Attorney. This referral, which was made in September of 1992, stated that over $100,000 in Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan funds were illegally funneled into the Whitewater Development Corporation to pay the company's bills. President Clinton and his wife were two of the four principal investors in Whitewater. Ms. Lewis identified at least a dozen companies that siphoned Madison funds to Whitewater. The Clintons were identified as ``potential beneficiaries'' of this scheme. In September of 1993, Jean Lewis at the RTC filed a second criminal referral charging that Madison had illegally diverted $60,500 to Clinton's 1984 gubernatorial campaign. Her referral charged that the campaign was an alleged participant in the illegal conspiracy. The referral also contained additional information on the relationship between Madison and Whitewater Development Corporation. In October of 1993, Paula Casey formally declined to investigate the first criminal referral. After the second criminal referral had been reported in the press, reported in the press, Paula Casey recused herself from the case. Because of Paula Casey's close relationship with President Clinton, she should have immediately recused herself from both referrals. The fact that she didn't raises questions about why she let the first referral languish for so long. On November 10, 1993, Jean Lewis was removed from the Madison/ Whitewater case because of an alleged personality conflict with an attorney on the case. On February 2, 1994, after both of her criminal referrals were made public. Ms. Lewis was visited by April Breslaw, an RTC attorney from Washington, D.C. Ms. Lewis tape recorded this meeting. During the meeting, Ms. Breslaw pressured her to change her conclusions about Madison and Whitewater. Furthermore, Ms. Breslaw said that people at the top (of RTC) would be happier if they had answers to the Whitewater questions that would get them off the hook. Ms. Lewis said that two of the head people Ms. Breslaw was talking about were RTC Deputy Chief Executive Officer Jack Ryan, and RTC General Counsel Ellen Kulka. Both Mr. Ryan and Ms. Kulka worked directly under then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, the RTC's acting Director and a close friend of the President. Ms. Lewis is now seeking redress under the Federal Government's whistleblower law. At the time the first criminal referral from Jean Lewis at the RTC was gathering dust on Paula Casey's desk, Paula Casey was negotiating with David Hale. Mr. Hale was the head of Capital Management Services, Inc., a small business investment company. According to the Wall Street Journal, among the bad loans he was under investigation for were $300,000 to a company controlled by Susan McDougal, a Whitewater partner with her husband and the Clintons. Some $110,000 of this loan may have ended up in the Whitewater account. Mr. Hale told reporters that he was pressured by then-Governor Clinton to make the loan to Mrs. McDougal. Mr. Hale was a former municipal court judge appointed by Bill Clinton. Mr. Hale's attorney, Randy Coleman, entered into negotiations with Paula Casey to obtain a plea bargain. Mr. Coleman asked Paula Casey to recuse herself from this case because of the obvious conflict of interest that would be present on her part. Since Mr. Hale was willing to provide additional information on the case to assist in undercover operations, I am concerned about the possibility that Paula Casey may have refused to consider his request because of the obvious political implications of the information he would provide. Paula Casey eventually recused herself from the case in November of 1993, but by that time Mr. Hale had been publicly indicted and thus would not have been useful to any undercover operations. We need to find out if President Clinton or other members of his administration sought to influence the actions of Pauls Casey and the RTC with respect to Jean Lewis' criminal referrals and David Hale's plea bargain request. The above mentioned situations I think already represent a clear conflict of interest on the part of Paula Casey, but I am concerned that it may go deeper than that. DOCUMENT SHREDDING AT THE ROSE LAW FIRM Jeremy Hedges, a part-time courier at the Rose Law Firm, told a grand jury that he was told to shred documents from the files of Vincent Foster after Robert Fiske had announced that he would look into Mr. Foster's death (Fiske was appointed as Independent Counsel on January 20, 1994). It is still illegal to destroy such evidence even before a subpoena is issued. Hedges said that none of the documents that he saw and shredded related to Whitewater. However, another Rose employee told the Washington Times that documents showing the Clintons' involvement in Whitewater had also been ordered destroyed. The shredding reportedly occurred on February 3, 1994. During the 1992 presidential campaign, three current or former Rose employees said that couriers from the Rose Law Firm were summoned to the Arkansas governor's mansion by Hillary Clinton, who personally handed over records to be shredded at the firm's downtown office. The shredding began after the New York Times reported on March 8, 1992, the involvement of Governor Clinton and his wife in Whitewater Development Corporation. The shredding continued through the November 3 general election. During the presidential campaign, the Clintons said that the Whitewater records had disappeared. We need to find out which documents were shredded, why they were shredded, and who ordered this to be done. governor jim guy tucker Jim Guy Tucker succeeded Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas and was elected Governor for a full 4-year term this year. Previously he served as the Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas. Like President Clinton, he has been involved in several questionable business deals with James McDougal that contributed to the demise of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan. According to press reports, the RTC has subpoenaed documents from Governor Tucker's businesses going back over a decade, the RTC is pursuing fraud claims against him, and has named him in a criminal referral to the Justice Department. The press has also reported that Governor Tucker is a possible target for indictment in the Independent Counsel's of Madison's failure. Mr. Tucker borrowed over $1.25 million from Madison, amazingly without even filling out loan applications or making down payments. He told the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette, ``I called Jim McDougal if I wanted to borrow money.'' When Federal regulators seized Madison, Mr. Tucker's $1 million loan for a sewer system was one of the largest delinquent loans on Madison's books. We need to find out to what extent Mr. Tucker's bad loans contributed to the failure of Madison. Mr. Tucker also borrowed over $750,000 from David Hale's Capital Management Services, Inc. However, Capital Management Services was licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration only to lend to socially or economically disadvantaged small business owners. The key question is why Mr. Tucker, who became a millionaire through the cable television business, was borrowing money from a company that was only allowed to lend to disadvantaged persons. David Hale has also accused Mr. Tucker of pressuring him to make bad loans. conclusion I am hopeful that the issues I have raised will be thoroughly investigated by the Independent Counsel, Mr. Starr, and by the House and Senate. Contrary to what supporters of the President have said, those of us who advocate a compete and thorough investigation of Whitewater are not on a political fishing expedition. We simply want to know the facts. If the President and members of his administration had answered all of the questions that have been raised so far, perhaps Whitewater would be far behind us now. Let us hope that this will all be dealt with by the Independent Counsel and Congress this coming year so that the American people can regain confidence in their Government and so that we in Congress may devote our attention to other crucial issues facing our country. ____________________