January 18, 1996
Web posted at: 6:40 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The personal assistant to President Clinton is taking at least part of the blame for the long delay in turning over Rose Law Firm billing records to the Senate Whitewater Committee.
Testifying Thursday morning, Carolyn Huber told the committee that in August 1995, she found the billing records on a table in the "book room" of the residence portion of the White House. Huber said the 116 pages of documents were folded, and while she thought they looked like billing records, she did not realize their significance at the time. (187K AIFF sound or 187K WAV sound)
Huber's testimony, however, did not explain how the files got on the table or where they had been in the two years since investigators issued a subpoena for such documents.
"They appeared there," she said. The book room is next to Mrs. Clinton's White House office.
Huber said she assumed the records had been left for her to file, so she "plunked them down" in one of several boxes she was using to collect newspaper clippings, knickknacks and other items from the book room. (187K AIFF sound or 187K WAV sound) The boxes were taken to Huber's office and stored under a work table until January 4 of this year, when her office was remodeled, and she opened the boxes to better store their contents.
"I started putting stuff on shelves, and I found the billing memo, and I was surprised," a nervous Huber told the committee. "I sat down for a few minutes and thought, and I called Mr. Kendall." She was referring to David Kendall, the Clintons' personal attorney. (170K AIFF sound or 170K WAV sound)
Huber said the billing records were photocopies, not the originals, which allegedly have disappeared from the law firm. But she said they had Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster's handwriting on them. Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato said the presence of Foster's handwriting raised the possibility that the billing records were in Foster's office at the time of his suicide and were removed by White House aides before investigators had a chance to examine the contents of the office.
Huber, who worked for Mrs. Clinton's Arkansas law firm before coming to Washington, told the committee she has no idea how the billing records ended up in the book room, or who had put them there.
Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-North Carolina, demanded that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton be required to testify before the committee, and that she and President Clinton be deposed by the committee, "on reasonable assumption of obstruction of justice."
"She (Huber) did not find these documents on the turnstile at the Metro," Faircloth said. "She found them on a table in the most secure room at the White House. ... We need to find out who put those records there."
He added, "Only two people could have put them there. "We need the president and first lady to tell us they did, or did not, put them there. What we have here is very likely a serious case of obstruction of justice. If not, we need to find out."
D'Amato was more cautious, saying the committee would "certainly welcome any clarification the White House wants to make," but he put a damper on the notion of Mrs. Clinton being called to testify. "The first lady has indicated she wants to cooperate, and we welcome that. She has said she would testify, but it seems to me that doesn't serve the interests of the White House, the American people or this committee." He said he might instead submit written questions to Mrs. Clinton.
Richard Ben-Veniste, the counsel for the committee's Democrats, agreed that more questions need to be asked, but cautioned against "throwing around" terms like obstruction of justice. He said the committee's subpoenas requested all documents relating to the "operations, regulation and solvency" of Madison Guaranty, the thrift at the heart of the Whitewater controversy. It was run by the Clintons' business partner in the Whitewater land venture.
The Rose Law Firm's billing records wouldn't seem to apply, Ben-Veniste said, but the Clintons' attorneys turned the records over to the committee anyway. And those records "are confirmatory and corroboratory" of Mrs. Clinton's claims that she did little work for Madison Guaranty while a Rose Law Firm partner.
The Republican counsel, Michael Chertoff, took issue with Ben-Veniste's view, saying "there is no doubt these records were subpoenaed."
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