Pierce Won’t Testify, Cites 5th, 6th Amendment Rights : ‘Prejudged,’ Ex-HUD Chief Says

Former HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr. refused to answer questions today from a House panel investigating housing scandals, invoking his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. He contended that he had been “prejudged by this body.”

Pierce, compelled to appear by a subpoena, accused the subcommittee of trying to rush him into testifying without adequate preparation and said he hopes to tell his story later.

His refusal to testify came at a dramatic meeting of a panel that has been investigating allegations of billions of dollars worth of fraud, mismanagement, influence peddling and political favoritism at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which Pierce headed throughout the Reagan Administration.

Disagreements between the subcommittee and Pierce even extended to news coverage of the hearing. Pierce invoked House rules that forced subcommittee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) to bar television, radio and photographic coverage, despite the chairman’s complaint that the move was unwarranted.

Pierce read a brief statement saying he had not had time to prepare, did not have the HUD documents he needed and would invoke his constitutional right not to testify.

Lantos then posed eight questions to Pierce, some raising new suggestions of political influence involving HUD and the Reagan White House.

Each time Pierce refused to answer.

“The subcommittee’s desire to rush me through this process, together with various statements made by members . . . leads me to the painful conclusion that I have been prejudged by this body,” Pierce said.

“Under these circumstances, my counsel has advised me and I have agreed to assert my constitutional rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments by refusing to answer questions before this subcommittee,” he said.

The Fifth Amendment protects individuals against self-incrimination and the Sixth ensures a person the right to counsel to prepare his defense.

Paul L. Perito, his attorney, said he hopes Pierce will be ready to testify on Oct. 27, the next date he has been ordered before the employment and housing subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee.

But Perito, outside the committee room, told reporters that the subcommittee wouldn’t give Pierce a fair hearing and wanted to “rush him to judgment.”

“They want to try, convict and sentence him, and we will not let that occur,” Perito said. “This man is an innocent man. . . . This man wants very much to tell his story.”

Perito and Lantos engaged in a brief but heated exchange after the lawyer attempted to challenge the presence of three lawmakers who are not members of the subcommittee.

Lantos said that under House rules, Pierce’s attorneys had no right to speak but only to advise their client.

“In this hearing, you are in fact a potted plant,” Lantos told Perito--a remark that recalled the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings when Oliver L. North’s attorney, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., told a different investigating committee, “I am not a potted plant,” something to be ignored.