Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- May 5, 1998
GOP leaders develop qualms as Burton releases more tapes
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A defiant Rep. Dan Burton late yesterday made public more than 10 hours of taped prison telephone conversations involving convicted Whitewater felon Webster L. Hubbell that are short on major revelations but are already sparking even more political outrage.
"I had no choice but to go ahead and release the tapes in question," Mr. Burton angrily told CNN in an interview, citing what he called "baseless claims" by White House officials and others that 27 pages of conversations released last week had been altered to embarrass President and Mrs. Clinton.
But House Democrats, led by California Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking minority member of Mr. Burton's bitterly divided committee, kept up a drumbeat of criticism over the selective release of the tapes amid signs senior GOP leaders are growing restive over the controversy.
Republicans worry privately that the tapes episode was just the latest example of the combative Mr. Burton giving Democrats an opportunity to shift the focus to his handling of the investigation and away from fund-raising and other scandals related on the White House and the Democratic Party.
"The leadership's dissatisfaction with Burton has been brewing long before this," said a House GOP official.
In new conversations released yesterday, Mr. Hubbell discusses his "loyalty" to the Clintons in his legal battles surrounding billing records at the Little Rock law firm where both he and first lady Hillary Clinton worked, and speaks of his dashed hopes that the investigation by Whitewater independent prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr would die down.
In another passage, Mr. Hubbell reveals that former Commerce Department official John Huang, a central figure in the Democratic Party fund-raising scandals, set up the first meeting that led to some $100,000 in work for Mr. Hubbell at the Indonesia-based Lippo Group, where Mr. Huang worked at the time.
Many of the most explosive quotes, including a passage where Mr. Hubbell talks of having to "roll over one more time" for the Clintons, had been released by Mr. Burton last week.
For his part, Mr. Burton yesterday dismissed a Democratic effort to remove him as head of the House probe into campaign fund-raising abuses yesterday.
"I'm still the chairman. I'm going to be the chairman. And I'm not going to change and I'm not going to back off," Mr. Burton said. "When you hear the other side squealing like pigs, you know you are getting close to the truth."
In a letter, Mr. Burton warned Mr. Waxman that he would release other tapes that "cast Mr. Hubbell and others in a negative light" if the California Democrat persisted in "making these rash allegations."
GOP sources said Mr. Gingrich was close to turning over some of the investigative responsibility to the House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. William M. Thomas, California Republican, but a spokesman on the panel said no decision has been made.
Mr. Thomas has made it clear to Mr. Gingrich he does not want to be "an appendage" of the Burton committee. That message was strongly conveyed to the speaker last week when he met with the GOP members of Mr. Thomas' panel to plot strategy.
Publicly, at least, Mr. Gingrich was standing by the Indiana Republican, blaming Democrats for obstructing the committee's work by blocking GOP efforts to immunize key witnesses in the probe.
"If Henry Waxman forces me to do so, I will find a way to get the witnesses to a committee that will let them testify," Mr. Gingrich said in an interview with the Cox News Service in Dallas yesterday.
"The American people are not going to be denied the trust by a bunch of cover-up Democrats in Washington," Mr. Gingrich added.
The release yesterday of the unedited tapes, a process many Capitol Hill staffers referred to as "amateur hour," sparked a frenzy at the House Rayburn Office Building, as a Burton aide tossed cassettes to reporters from a cardboard box. Reporters and photographers had crowded into the room to collect tapes that had been promised on Sunday.
The latest partisan uproar exploded over the weekend after Mr. Burton released excerpts from Mr. Hubbell's jailhouse conversations that cast doubt on Hillary Rodham Clinton's billings at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm and whether a lawsuit by Mr. Hubbell -- embroiled in his own billing problems at the time -- would hurt the first lady. He told his wife in one conversation, "I will not raise those allegations that might open it up to Hillary ... I need to roll over one more time."
But Mr. Waxman and Mr. Hubbell's attorney immediately charged the excerpts were in many cases misleading and that passages apparently exonerating Mrs. Clinton were not released. Mr. Burton then announced he was making public the full tapes to "protect the integrity of our investigation."
Mr. Hubbell was indicted last week along with his wife and two advisers on income tax evasion charges. He spent 18 months in prison on his December 1994 guilty plea in a deal with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr to stealing $480,000 from his Rose firm partners. His cooperation never met the expectations of prosecutors, who have investigated his receipt of $700,000 in fees from Clinton friends and supporters before his guilty plea as possible "hush money."
Mr. Burton will try again this week to get his committee to grant immunity to the four witnesses -- a move that requires a two-thirds majority vote and, therefore, at least some Democratic support. Democrats blocked the immunity vote last week, angry about the release of the edited tapes.
Although some Republicans have expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Burton, other GOP leaders insist they are happy with the job Mr. Burton is doing and simply need Mr. Thomas to help out with the immunity issue.
"This scenario is a focused attempt to get these witnesses immunized. That's all," said one House Republican leadership aide, adding, "It's a means to an end, a means to getting at the truth."
In the tapes released yesterday, which the jailed former Justice Department official knew were being recorded:
- Mr. Hubbell said he had been "lied to" by his Rose firm partners, and tells Miss Scott, the White House aide and a close friend of both Mr. Clinton and the Hubbells, that his wife needs to "realize" that there are "areas that I have to stay away from to protect others -- and I will. I always have." Miss Scott replies, "I know. I know that," adding that Mr. Hubbell had never been disloyal. "Never. Oh God, no," she said.
- Miss Scott said there would be no support at the White House for a lawsuit by Mr. Hubbell against the Rose firm, adding that, "No one wants that." She said, referring to a pending telephone call to Mrs. Hubbell, "Webb, there's no one pulling away from you. I mean, I will call her. She needs to understand that. It's just that no one's going to stand up for you either."
- Mr. Hubbell talks with his wife about what he might do after he gets out of prison. He said, "We have to be very careful about this. You know what the editorials are saying right now. ... Everything is designed to try to keep me and Susan quiet. ... Most of the articles are presupposing that I and my silence are being bought. We know that's not true."
- Staff writers Bill Sammon, Warren P. Strobel, Sean Scully, Mary Ann Akers, Donald Lambro and Robert Stacy McCain contributed to this report.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
To subscribe to the Washington Times National Weekly Edition, click this icon or call 800-363-9118.
