U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, CHARLES F.C. RUFF, Esq., Counsel to the President, The White House, Washington, DC. GREGORY B. CRAIG, Esq., Assistant to the President and Special Counsel, The White House, Washington, DC. GENTLEMEN: I write in response to your letter of December 2, 1998. Your letter responded to Chairman Hyde's invitation to the President to assist the Committee in its impeachment inquiry pursuant to House Resolution 581. Chairman Hyde's letter indicated that the President could assist the Committee in establishing the facts in four ways: (1) provide the Committee with any information that tends to dispute any of the allegations against the President or the facts supporting those allegations; (2) answer the Requests for Admissions presented to the President on November 5; (3) inform the Committee of any witnesses that the President would ask the Committee to call; and (4) make a presentation to the Committee. Chairman Hyde and the President have repeatedly indicated that they would like to complete this inquiry expeditiously. The President's cooperation with these requests substantially affects the Committee's ability to do So. Let me review the President's cooperation with these requests briefly. As to the first request, the Committee has received no response. In Mr. Kendall's appearance before the Committee during the November 19 hearing, he used the opportunity to question the methods used in the Independent Cousel's investigation, but he did not ask questions about the underlying facts. Thus, this questioning did not lead the Committee to any evidence tending to dispute any of the underlying facts. As to the second request, on November 27, 1998, the President responded to the Committee's Requests for Admissions. As Chairman Hyde indicated in his statement of November 30, 1998, the President's responses were evasive. They did not shed any new light on the facts, and they did not lead the Committee to any exculpatory evidence. As to the third request, your letter indicated that your presentation "may include calling witnesses with respect to any or all of the matters being considered by the Committee." In our meeting on October 21, 1998, I informed you of the Committee's procedures which are identical to those used in the President Nixon impeachment inquiry. The procedures provide that the President's counsel may request the Committee to call witnesses. However, those procedures further provide that to do so you must "submit written requests and precise summaries of what he [i.e. the President's counsel] would propose to show, and in the case of a witness, precisely and in detail what it is expected the testimony of the witness would be, if called." Once these written summaries are provided to the Committee, the Committee will determine whether to call any of these witnesses. You have now known about these procedures for six weeks-indeed, Chairman Hyde explicitly reminded the Presi dent of them in his November 25 letter. Yet the only cooperation the Committee has received is the vague suggestion that your presentation may include calling witnesses. As the Committee's procedures make clear, the White House does not have the authority to call witnesses. If you intend to ask the Committee to call witnesses on December 8, you must comply with the Committee's procedures and submit your requests, summaries, and expected testimony by the close of business tomorrow, December 4. As to the Committee's fourth request, you responded to the invitation at the last possible moment with a list of new document demands. With respect to at least the first two sets of items requested in your letter, these issues have been on the table for some time, and I do not understand why you did not respond sooner that you needed these documents. Nonetheless, without agreeing to your characterizations of these documents, let me respond to your requests in turn. "[T]he decision(s) issued by Chief Judge Norma Holloway Johnson addressing the question of whether Ms. Lewinsky was denied access to her counsel, Mr. Frank Carter, on January 16th-The Committee is not in possession of these documents, and to the best of my knowledge, these documents remain under court seal. "[E]vidence relating to the credibility of key witnesses that is in the Committee's possession and not yet been made public"-This request is inherently vague and subject to differing interpretation. However, if you can make a more specific request, Chairman Hyde is open to allowing the President's representatives to review responsive materials in the Committee's secure information facility. "[M]aterials related to litigation over the enforceability of Ms. Lewinsky's initial immunity agreement"-The Committee is not in possession of these documents, and to the best of my knowledge, these documents remain under court seal. (An opinion that appears to relate to this matter is in the public domain. In Re: Sealed Case, 144 F.3d 74 (D.C. Cir. 1998).) "[E]vidence relating to the OIC's application to the Attorney General for an expansion of its jurisdiction to include the Lewinsky matter"-These materials are in the Committee's possession, and Chairman Hyde is willing to allow the President's representatives to review these materials in the Committee's secure information facility. "With respect to Kathleen Willey: the material recently provided to the Committee by the OIC" These materials are in the Committee's possession, and Chairman Hyde is willing to allow the President's representatives to review these materials in the Committee's secure information facility. "With respect to campaign finance: the Freeh memorandum, the LaBella memorandum in whatever form possessed or reviewed by the Committee, and whatever other documents on this topic that the Committee has obtained."-As you well know, the Freeh and LaBella memoranda are in the possession of the Department of Justice-not the Committee. The President is the chief law enforcement officer in the land, which includes directing the Department of Justice. For that reason, he may direct the Attorney General to allow him to review these documents whenever he wants. Aside from that, the Committee does not intend to address them within the limited time period that we have to complete our investigation in this Congress. Accordingly, you will not need any such documents for purposes of your possible presentation next week. With respect to the materials mentioned above that Chairman Hyde is willing to allow you to review, that review would be under conditions similar to Judge Johnson's order relating to the review of the LaBella and Freeh memoranda-i.e. one person could review the documents in the Committee's secure information facility without making notes or copies. With respect to your possible presentation next week, Chairman Hyde would appreciate your letting him know who will make the presentation and the amount of time that you request by the close of business tomorrow, December 4. Chairman Hyde would also like you to know that whoever makes the presentation will be subject to at least one full round of questioning by Members of the Committee under the five-minute rule and staff questioning. I am hopeful that this letter provides you with sufficient information regarding the Chairman's intentions. Please contact me regarding working out the further details of these matters. Sincerely, THOMAS E. MOONEY, Sr., General Counsel. CHARLES F.C. RUFF, Esq., HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Counsel to the President, The White House, Washington, DC. DEAR MR. RUFF: Yesterday, I wrote to inform you of the Committee's procedures relating to the possible presentation of the President's views to the Committee regarding the impeachment inquiry that the Committee is conducting pursuant to House Resolution 581. One of the procedures that I outlined was that the President's counsel should expect to be questioned by the Committee. Since that time, I have seen accounts in the press attributed to Whit House sources that assert that such questioning is unprecedented. That is incorrect, and I am hopeful that you will assist the Committee in stopping the spread of this misinformation. During Watergate, the President's counsel, James D. St. Clair, appeared before the Committee on June 27, 1974. The Committee questioned Mr. St. Clair at length which extended his presentation for an additional two days. Thus, the Committee's procedures in this regard closely track the Watergate model. Aside from the clear precedent, simple fairness dictates the same result. The committee allowed Mr. Kendall to question Judge Starr at length during which he raised many of the President's concerns about Judge Starr's conduct. In the interest of fairness, it is only right that those who have concerns about the President's conduct be allowed to raise those concerns with whomever will represent him. Again, I hope that you will assist in stopping the spread of this misinformation. I appreciate your attention to this matter, and I look forward to you response to my letter of yesterday which I hope I will receive later today. Sincerely, THOMAS E. MOONEY, Sr., General Counsel. MR. THOMAS E. MOONEY, Sr., Esq., THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington, December 4, 1998. General Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. DEAR MR. MOONEY: Short of a declaration of war, there is no more significant or grave constitutional process than the impeachment inquiry currently underway in your Committee. Should the House of Representatives approve an article of impeachment against the President and send it to the Senate for trial, the impact on the national government and on the American people as a whole would be profound. For that reason alone, this process must be deliberate, thorough, fair and expeditious. We realize that the full Committee has conducted two public hearings about impeachment-related issues-one in which the Committee heard testimony from Mr. Starr, one in which the Committee heard testimony from witnesses about perjury. We also know that the Subcommittee on the Constitution conducted a public hearing on constitutional standards. We have been told that the Committee issued subpoenas and took deposition testimony and, further, that the Committee has held other proceedings in executive session. With the exception of one hour of time provided to us for questioning Mr. Starr at the end of his appearance before the Committee on November 19, however, we have been foreclosed from playing any role. We are grateful for the opportunity now to do so, and the purpose of this letter is to inform you of our intention to call witnesses to appear and testify as part of the Committee's impeachment inquiry. It is our view that the proceedings to date have been inadequate and incomplete in their exploration of certain important issues relating to the proposed impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. For that reason, we propose to call panels of witnesses about some of the very issues that the Committee has considered. We feel it is essential to the President's defense that we be able to call our own witnesses and present our own arguments to address these important questions. We plan to call witnesses to testify about the following topics: Constitutional Standards for Impeachment: Standards for Prosecution: For Perjury, Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Power; and Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Impact of Tainted Evidence. The Committee has set aside December 8 for the purpose of hearing from the President's counsel, and our request may require some modification of the Committee's plans. We take comfort, however, in the representation that Chairman Hyde made to the full Committee at the beginning of the proceedings on November 19 when he assured the members of the Committee that, "The President's counsel will have unlimited time to present his witnesses at the end of our hearings, when they are ready to do so." We anticipate that we will require no more than three to four days of the Committee's time to deal with the topics identified above, at which time counsel for the President will present a final argument as to why, given the law, the facts, and these circumstances, this Committee should not report out articles of impeachment to the full membership of the House of Representatives. We believe that, beginning on Tuesday, December 8, our presentation could be concluded by the end of the week. Sincerely, THOMAS E. MOONEY, Sr., Esq., GREGORY B. CRAIG, Assistant to the President and Special Counsel. CHARLES F.C. RUFF, Counsel to the President. THE WHITE HOUSE, Washington, December 4, 1998. General Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. DEAR MR. MOONEY: This is in response to your letter of today's date, as well as to one aspect of your letter of December 3. Your characterization of the rights accorded to Mr. St. Clair and his treatment by the Committee is misleading. On June 27 and June 28, 1974, Mr. St. Clair was given the opportunity to make the same sort of "initial presentation" as that made by Majority and Minority counsel. On those dates, he submitted to the Committee, orally and through numerous documents, evidence that he wished the Committee to consider. In that role he was, in essence, a witness and was treated as such—that is, he was questioned by the Members about the evidence he was presenting to them. Even then, the transcript reveals that virtually all of the questioning had to do with technical matters involving the nature of supporting documentation and the like and not at all with the substance of the evidence or the conclusions to be drawn from it. Indeed, on occasion a Member sought to question Mr. St. Clair about his own knowledge or other similar matters, and those questions were withdrawn or ruled inappropriate. By contrast, we would not be making any evidentiary presentation. Our role cannot, in any sense, be equated with that of Mr. Starr. He was called by the Committee as a fact witness. He was not counsel for the Majority, for the Minority, or for the President. Our intention is to appear as counsel for the President, pursuant to Procedure A(2) of the Impeachment Inquiry Procedures, "to respond to evidence received and testimony adduced by the Committee." We are not fact witnesses. We will be performing the same role that Mr. St. Clair performed on July 24, 1974-that is, in the nature of closing argument, he analyzed the evidence already before the Committee and explained why that evidence should lead to a particular result. As you know, Mr. St. Clair was not questioned on that occasion. We are entitled under the Committee's pro |