THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408060020
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
``I don't recall saying that.'' ``I have no knowledge of that, Senator.'' Sound familiar? The responses of the Clinton team to senators' questions last week did tend to eerily recall the lawyerly non-answers of the Watergate witnesses of 20 summers ago. Whitewater might not be as big as Watergate, but last week's hearings showed plenty of lying, evading and covering up went on in the Clinton White House.
The Senate did much to redeem Congress' reputation after the fiasco of the House Banking Committee hearings of two weeks ago, in which Rep. Henry ``Hammerin' Hank'' Gonzalez, D-Tex., pounded his gavel at the slightest sign of tough questioning of administration witnesses. It is a measure of how little credibility Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman's story conveyed that not a single Democratic senator sought to defend him on the merits.
And just what was that story? Altman, a longtime friend-of-Bill, had always maintained that he had only a single ``substantive'' meeting with White House staff members over the investigation of Whitewater and Madison Guarantee Savings and Loan by the Resolution Trust Corp., which Altman was temporarily heading. In fact, there were as many as 40.
The White House sought refuge in the fact that independent counsel Robert Fiske and the Office of Government Ethics found nothing criminal in Altman's refusal to tell Congress the whole truth. Of course, a different independent counsel decided Oliver North should go on trial for refusing to tell Congress the whole truth, but that's another story.
Prosecutions, however, should not be the point of looking into the Whitewater affair. The threshold should not be evidence of criminality, but proof of corner-cutting, cronyism, cover-ups and bending the machinery of government for the benefit of those at the highest levels.
Altman did not have to actually do anything to protect the president and first lady. He had only to prevent anything from happening. The statute of limitations on civil liability in Madison's failure would have expired Feb. 28, 1994. All he had to do was keep the lid on until that date passed. Congress, however, extended the deadline under public pressure.
Altman clearly did not feel comfortable with this situation and sought to recuse himself from the Madison investigation. Whatever top aides say now, the White House then browbeat him mercilessly to stay on the case. Probably to his eternal regret, Altman agreed.
From the first rumblings of Whitewater during the 1992 campaign, President Clinton and his aides have sought to shrug off the whole affair, calling it ``old news'' or simply a partisan attack not to be taken seriously.
But when Treasury aide Joshua Steiner asserts that he lied to his own diary, and Hillary Clinton's chief of staff Margaret Williams asserts that she never said what Steiner's diary said she said, something less than honorable is clearly transpiring. A protrait emerged this past week of a White House far more obsessed with Whitewater than even its opponents suspected.
Now is not the time for Congress to stop Whitewater hearings. The Clintons came to Washington insisting they are different (i.e., morally superior) from the ``greed'' and ``sleaze'' of the 1980s. The American people deserve to be able to make up their own minds if the first couple was telling the truth. by CNB