Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- May 6, 1998
Burton pushed toward new vote on immunity
By Mary Ann Akers
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
GOP leaders late yesterday pressured Rep. Dan Burton to continue his battle with the White House to win immunity for four crucial witnesses in his campaign-finance probe, hours after he announced plans to give up his fight.
Publicly, leaders accused the White House of hiding the truth and attacking the messenger -- in this case, Mr. Burton.
"There's been a routine process by this White House to cover up the truth by attacking people looking into illegality," said House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
But privately, Republican leaders criticized Mr. Burton for his handling of the probe, an investigation that has been plagued by embarrassing missteps along the way -- from mistaken identities of key witnesses to the latest problem of releasing edited transcripts of the jailhouse conversations of Webster L. Hubbell, a former top Justice Department official and friend of the Clintons.
Early yesterday, Mr. Burton said he would give up on a plan to vote today on immunity for the four witnesses, instead asking another committee to take over. But GOP leaders persuaded him to try again next week.
Even though they know the plan will fail, aides said the second vote would give Republicans an opportunity to try to embarrass congressional Democrats and attack the president.
On the other side, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on Mr. Burton's panel, renewed his attacks on the chairman of the House Goverment Reform and Oversight Committee.
"Things shouldn't be taken out of context. They shouldn't be censored and cut, doctored really," Mr. Waxman told reporters. He said he is planning to introduce a resolution today calling on Mr. Burton to recuse himself from the campaign-finance investigation.
Committee Democrats have vowed they will not go along with grants of immunity to the four witnesses as long as Mr. Burton is chairman.
Mr. Burton, still reeling from criticism over calling Mr. Clinton a "scumbag" in a newspaper interview, is on increasingly shaky ground since the release of the Hubbell tapes, with some Republicans anonymously criticizing him.
In a letter to other House Republicans, obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. Burton apologized for the Hubbell tape release. "Although the vast majority of the material was completely accurate, some mistakes and omissions were made. ... I take responsibility for those mistakes."
Leadership sources said Mr. Gingrich had urged Mr. Burton to allow a "third party," perhaps a retired judge or a lawyer, to review the tapes and address any privacy issues before releasing them.
But Mr. Burton and his team of investigators, the sources said, went ahead with the release anyway. What ensued was a public-relations nightmare.
Transcripts of some of the tapes had obvious editing lapses in them, which Democrats charged was a concerted effort to leave out material favorable to Mr. Hubbell and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
One GOP leadership official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, called it "an embarrassment" and said some corners of the leadership were considering seeking resignations from the investigators working for Mr. Burton who handled the editing and release of the Hubbell tapes. They declined to name names.
Unable to beat Democratic opposition and win immunity for the four witnesses in his committee, Mr. Burton had said he would be willing to give up a key portion of his probe to another committee, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Bill Thomas, California Republican.
"I think that's the only alternative we'll have," he said.
GOP leaders for weeks have been discussing the possibility of turning over some of the fund-raising investigation to Mr. Thomas, whose committee is much smaller than Mr. Burton's and could more easily get the two-thirds majority support needed to grant immunity to witnesses.
But shortly after Mr. Burton made the comments yesterday to reporters, Republican leaders ordered him to hold another immunity vote next week, probably on Wednesday, aides said.
"He misspoke," Mr. Gingrich said of Mr. Burton.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, meanwhile, defended Mr. Burton yesterday during his weekly press conference. "Dan Burton has been a good messenger, an effective messenger, and the degree to which [Democrats] are attacking him is evidence of the amount that they fear him."
And Mr. Gingrich kept up his onslaught on the president.
"Every person who has sought the truth about the Clinton White House has sooner or later received the same treatment," he said.
"The American people have a right to know if a crime has been committed," Mr. Gingrich said. As president of the United States, Mr. Clinton is "the chief law enforcement officer of the American people" and his "first job should be to enforce the law," Mr. Gingrich said.
A White House spokesman, Jim Kennedy, dismissed the speaker's comments yesterday as "just partisan rhetoric" and said the White House is "not going to get involved in that kind of a political debate."
- This article is based in part on wire service reports.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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