CONGRESSIONAL RECORD (House of Representatives)
April 30, 1996
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, Newsweek magazine reported this week that the FBI had discovered Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton's fingerprints on billing records from the Rose law firm discovered at the White House in January. These billing records have been under subpoena and could not be found for over 2 years. Nobody knew where they were. And yet, just recently, they were found in President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton's personal residence at the White House by Mrs. Clinton's secretary.
Independent counsel Kenneth Starr is investigating to determine if anyone obstructed justice by hiding the subpoenaed records. The billing records supply important information about Mrs. Clinton's work for Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan and the Castle Grande real estate projects. Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, who at the time this was taking place was the Lieutenant Governor under President Clinton, is on trial right now in Arkansas for fraud because he defaulted on loans over $1 million related to Castle Grande.
Now, Mrs. Clinton was the billing partner at the Rose Law Firm for the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan account. However, she stated in a sworn statement to the Resolution Trust Corporation that she did very little work for Madison Guaranty and could not recall the Castle Grande project.
Yet, these mysterious billing records, that could not be found for over 2 years that were just found, tell a different story. They show that she had 14 meetings and conversations with Madison executives about Castle Grande and she drafted a comprehensive option agreement for this project.
Regarding the fingerprints, White House lawyers told reporters that Mrs. Clinton reviewed the billing records during the campaign in 1992. Now, this sounds strange, because if she reviewed them in 1992, she should have remembered that she had done extensive work on this project and on this comprehensive option agreement for the project.
Anyhow, they said that the fingerprints on the.... records can remain intact on paper and other materials for years, so her fingerprints on the billing records do not necessarily mean that she saw the records recently.
Now, this is very interesting, Mr. Speaker, because when Vincent Foster died, you remember Vincent Foster, the assistant counsel to the President at the White House, when Vincent Foster died, a suicide note was found in his briefcase. At least that is what they called it. Despite the fact that it had been torn into 28 pieces, you have to tear it to get 28 pieces 14 or 15 times, there was not one single fingerprint on any one of those pieces. Investigators and various Clinton administration officials said at the time that it was not unusual, because fingerprints do not attach themselves easily to paper.
Now, here we have the President's wife, the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, her fingerprints are all over these telephone records that nobody could find for 2 years and were found in their residence, while they were under subpoena, incidentally, and they are saying that it is not unusual for the fingerprints to be attached to paper, and that she probably attached them to those documents in 1992 during the Presidential campaign.
Now, you cannot have it both ways. Either it can be attached to paper, you can get fingerprints on paper, or you cannot. Her fingerprints were on the documents, but the fingerprints were not on Vince Foster's alleged suicide note.
Adding to the mystery, the first two times that the White House counsel at the time, Bernie Nussbaum, search Vincent Foster's briefcase, he did not find any torn up note. The note was found 6 days later when another White House aide searched the briefcase for a third time.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it has to be one way or the other. If fingerprints attach themselves easily to paper and stay there for years, there is no explanation for why Vincent Foster's note had no fingerprints on them, especially since it had been torn into 28 pieces. And if fingerprints do not attach themselves easily to paper and if they wear off quickly, then Mrs. Clinton must have handled the billing records more recently than her aides are saying, which was 4 years ago, in 1992.
Mr. Speaker, this is something else that I hope we get to the bottom of. Those records were subpoenaed over 2 years ago. They should have been given to the independent counsel. They are not. They were found in the White House Presidential residence. They had the First Lady's fingerprints all over them.
There is something very mysterious about this. It should be explained fully to the American people. They were subpoenaed. They may have been an obstruction of justice, keeping those records from the independent counsel. If that is the case, somebody should be held accountable for it.
This document is an unofficial version of the Congressional Record. The printed Congressional Record produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version.