describe the President's veto of a bill as “cowardly."

⚫ charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest."

• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” refer to alleged "sexual misconduct on the President's part."

In order to most judiciously fulfill our duties, I encourage all Members to abide by these rules of decorum in this debate.

The CHAIRMAN. We want to assure both of you that we certainly will be consulting with you, as I said during my opening statement, with you, both majority and minority, and as well as the Rules Committee, majority and minority, as we develop the second resolution which probably will come on the floor some time next week. You spoke, John, of the concern about other members of the Judiciary Committee having access to material and suggesting, as did Henry Hyde, that it be confined to just the two of you, and we could do that, we could consider that. But we have differences of opinion in both political parties in doing that.

We have Members who feel that if they are going to make a conclusion, ratify your conclusion of whether to go forward or whether not to go forward, they-and when I say they, more than 40 Democrats have come to me, John Dingell being one. I think we had a Member, Peter Deutsch sitting here from Florida, who will testify a little bit later that he wants an amendment to our resolution that would require that the entire communication received, and including all appendices and related material, be made available immediately.

What we are trying to do is to reach a bipartisan compromise, which you have spoken to, so that we can please as many Members as we can so that when we go to the floor it will truly be a bipartisan resolution. And I believe that from the concessions that I personally have made, Members on both sides of the aisle have made, some as recently as an hour ago when we removed terms like "ancillary" from the resolution, we have tried to cooperate in every way possible to make it a truly bipartisan resolution, and I believe it will pass overwhelmingly on the floor with very few dissenting votes.

The reason I would not hesitate to make it available to other members of your committee is that they are proud, distinguished Members on both sides of the aisle. I have had the privilege for the last 15 or 16 years of serving on the Steering Committee of the Republican Party in choosing members to serve on committees, and we do so the same as the Democratic Party does. I think Martin Frost has served on a similar committee on your side, and we choose Members because of their background, because of their qualifications and because of their talents to serve on these com

mittees.

I see Bobby Scott from Newport News in the back, a distinguished lawyer, was chosen by your party, just for an example. I see Amo Houghton, who was a very distinguished business leader before he came to this Congress, and I personally nominated him and was successful in placing him on the Ways and Means Committee because he probably is the most knowledgeable person in the entire Congress. So we do not hesitate to make that information available to your members of your committee in order that they can make the same kind of decisions that allowed you to come to your conclusion.

And by the same token, I just have to say in closing that all of the 435 Members feel very strongly that they should be able to have the same information available to them that caused you as members of the Judiciary Committee to draw your conclusion. To

M

give them less puts them at a disadvantage on being able to cast an informed vote.

And that is why you are charged in this resolution to make available the maximum amount of information that is being given to you exclusively and not made available to the public, and we know of your concerns, which are our concerns, about innocent people. We know that there are ongoing criminal investigations, perhaps. All of these things have to be scrutinized by you, and we feel for you in knowing that is a difficult job.

But I personally will take your recommendations into consideration when you come back and you ask to have certain information expunged. We will go along with your recommendations because of the great respect we have for you two gentlemen and your commit

tee.

So I want you to know that as we process this resolution today, and I deeply appreciate your testimony.

Mr. Moakley of Boston, Massachusetts.

Mr. MOAKLEY. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, and I would like to address this to Chairman Hyde and to Mr. Conyers: It is my understanding that the Speaker and the Minority Leader, along with you and Mr. Conyers and others, had an agreement that the Chairman and the Ranking Member would go through this material before they decided whether it was relevant or not, before they would expose it to the rest of the Judiciary Committee.

Am I correct?

The CHAIRMAN. No.

Mr. HYDE. I don't want to say it was an agreement. That was my understanding of how-how it would work. That has been a moveable feast, and discussions have gone on to which I was not a party and I don't think John was, between Mr. Gephardt and Mr. Gingrich, and I don't know what they came up with.

The advantage of having Mr. Conyers and myself and our designated staff is one of expedition, one of minimizing the opportunities for leaks. I know that sounds hyperbolic about members of our committee and I don't like to say that, but the more people in the loop, the more opportunities for unintentional leaks. But I can live with the other provision. I just

Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Hyde, I know what you can live with but I thought the agreement last night was what I just stated.

Mr. HYDE. I don't gainsay that, but maybe it was.

Mr. MOAKLEY. You were there.

Mr. HYDE. Well, sure, I was there.

The CHAIRMAN. He was there for most of the meeting-for all of the meeting.

Mr. MOAKLEY. All right; do you agree?

The CHAIRMAN. No. As a matter of fact, I don't like to speak for other Members especially

Mr. MOAKLEY. No, I just want your opinion.

The CHAIRMAN. -Other Members of the other party. But I just have to say that Mr. Gephardt, when he left the meeting, said that he could not agree to anything at that point because he had to go back and he had to talk to members from both opinions on the Judiciary Committee and members of the leadership, and no decision

was made. But I was in that conversation all during the meeting and I can tell you that no decision was made.

Mr. FROST. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MOAKLEY. Glad to yield.

Mr. FROST. As the gentleman knows, the gentleman from Massachusetts was not able to be present last night because he had to be in Massachusetts to attend a funeral. I was there on his behalf. The people in the room were the Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Minority Leader, the two gentlemen at this table, myself and Mr. Solomon.

The Speaker at that meeting said that this was what he was proposing. Mr. Gephardt went back to the members of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Gephardt had to leave town today to attend his son's wedding. When he-when he left town-when he left town it was Mr. Gephardt's understanding that the agreement was as described by Mr. Hyde; that the two Members at the table would review the documents, not the entire committee.

The Speaker appeared on television at noon today. I watched his appearance, and the Speaker said at noon today that it would be the two gentlemen who would review the material, not the entire committee.

Some time after that the majority on this committee changed the agreement between the Speaker and the Minority Leader. It is very important that we act in a bipartisan manner. The two gentlemen at the table have attempted to do so, Mr. Gephardt has attempted to do so, I believe the Speaker was attempting to do so, but for some reason unexplained the majority on this committee has changed the agreement made between Mr. Gephardt and the Speaker.

The CHAIRMAN. Would the gentleman yield at that point?
Mr. MOAKLEY. I yield.

The CHAIRMAN. I would just have to differ with my very good friend, Mr. Martin Frost of Texas. The fact is that there is divided opinion on this in both parties. You are going to hear testimony, again, from my good friend Peter Deutsch who will return in a moment, a Democrat who disagrees with that and who thinks we ought to make all the information available immediately. We are trying to arrive at a bipartisan agreement that will receive the strongest vote possible, as I alluded to before, and I believe that it will.

Now if you want to test this, you know first of all, and this is confusing to perhaps the listening audience, but we are not considering a rule here today, we are considering a privileged resolution. We will go to the floor not with a rule but with a privileged resolution, and we do so under existing rules of the House.

The privileged resolution is not amendable when you take it to the floor, and therefore any change that we were to make up here would have to be with a vote of this- a majority vote of this committee would then take that amendment to the floor and have it ratified separately on the floor. We will not do that. We will take this resolution to the floor.

Should the opposition party want to make a change, they could attempt to defeat the previous question to try to offer an amendment. And if you want to test this on the floor to see if your party,

if they agree with you, fine, and we certainly would not hesitate to have you do that.

Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for informing the people what the procedure is, and we agree. And we don't want to test anything. I just want to get my own mind, my feeling- my information was that we had an agreement, and if we don't have that agreement any longer- of course I know if it comes to a vote up here, we lose, but I thought this was the agreement that was entered into.

Mr. Conyers.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Moakley, let me point out to you why that agreement was entered into repeatedly by the Speaker, the leaders and myself and the Chairman. It is because you cannot talk about excising material, if that need arises, with 35 Members of Congress. I don't care how much integrity they have. This is a simple administrative procedure.

It is tough enough. We have already worked out what happens if we disagree, and the agreement was we would take it to the Speaker for resolution. We wouldn't even subject the committee to what could be rancorous votes.

So it is not that the Chairman and I are trying to devise ways to get more work and have more responsibility and be eligible for more criticism. It is just the simplest way to proceed.

Mr. MOAKLEY. I understand exactly what the purpose of the agreement was, and that is why I am making it here today, because I know that if we have to do this by an amendment before this committee, of course it is a 9 to 4 vote against us. But I am just trying to uphold the will of the Speaker as I heard it and as I assumed it was.

The CHAIRMAN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. MOAKLEY. I think Mr. Hyde

Mr. HYDE. Might I just make this quick suggestion?

It is very important that we have a pre-release review of the supporting material if we are to protect innocent people. Now what we are arguing about is the makeup of the reviewers. Whether it is Mr. Conyers and myself and our designated staff- I don't propose to put blue jeans on and stay there for 2 weeks going through cartons, but I would have staff help. That is why we hired them, that is why they get those big bucks. But the dispute is whether 35 members of the committee would have equal access and we would stumble over each other trying to do this, or whether we do it effectively and efficiently, and at the end of that period release everything and make everything available to the other Members. Now what will pass the floor? Maybe Mr. Deutsch's remarks, which would have Mr. Dingell's support, Mr. Pombo's support. I could name several who want to go that route, and we lose theentirely the pre-release review. That would be the worst scenario. So maybe we debate it on the floor and whoever wins, wins. But we don't want to lose the pre-release review if we want to be responsible in protecting

Mr. MOAKLEY. Yes, I yield, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I am just going to have to object to all of you talking about an agreement. There has been no agreement. And, again, I don't like to put words in other people's mouths, but