Rules of Congress, Truth Be Damned

That Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) might have a screw loose is not news. But the fact that the media fell for his inflammatory attacks on the president and printed his dishonestly edited fragments of the Webster Hubbell tapes is.

Why weren’t the media more skeptical of the selective leaks by Burton, who has been using his chairmanship of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight to randomly smear the president? How could anything Burton does be taken at face value after his recent scurrilous outburst in which he called the president of the United States “a scumbag” and added, “that’s why I’m after him.”

But last week, Burton captured headlines when he released deceptively edited transcripts of private conversations between Hubbell and his attorneys, accountant and wife, recorded in a federal prison. For example, in one excerpt, Hubbell seems to be anticipating a White House pardon, but in the full context, he is referring to an immunity agreement with Kenneth Starr. That and other distortions were revealed by Henry A. Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on Burton’s committee.

Waxman points out that Burton had no authorization from the committee to release the documents. Nor had Burton convened a meeting of the subgroup that governs the release of documents, which committee rules require him to do. Indeed, it was not until Friday evening that Democrats on the committee received a copy of the portions of the transcript that had been released to the media.

The edited transcript made news because it seemed to contain the smoking gun proving the allegation that the White House had intervened with Hubbell to ensure that he not implicate the Clintons in his troubles. Those troubles stemmed from Hubbell’s overbilling clients while at the Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Rodham Clinton also was a partner. Hubbell had been considering a lawsuit against his former partners and in the transcripts released by Burton, it was implied that Hubbell held off from suing because it would embarrass Hillary Clinton.

However, what was edited out of the transcript and withheld from the public exonerated the first lady. Hubbell mentions that some partners would be vulnerable if he sued but then states clearly, in an excised passage, that “Hillary’s not. Hillary isn’t. . . . She just had no idea what was going on. She didn’t participate in any of this.”

Burton conceded in a letter to Waxman on Monday that Hubbell’s remarks favorable to Mrs. Clinton “should have been included in the transcript.”

Another portion of the transcript released by Burton has Hubbell referring to the very serious charge that his denial of the Clintons’ complicity in Whitewater was purchased with lucrative jobs arranged by friends of the Clintons. Hubbell is quoted in the Burton transcript as saying: “We have to be very careful of this. . . . Editorials are all talking about how all this is designed to keep me and Susan quiet. We have to make sure that it’s our personal friends that are helping.”

Pretty damning and quoted on front pages and in newscasts everywhere, but the media were tricked into a lie. As Waxman stated in a letter to Burton, “This is not what Mr. Hubbell actually said. In fact, what he actually said appears to exonerate Mr. Hubbell.”

The following is the full excerpt:

“Hubbell: They’re all talking about how, you know, all of this, everything is designed to keep me and Susan [MacDougal] quiet. OK? I’ll give you a hypothetical--is that most of the articles are presupposing that I, my silence is being bought. We know that’s not true. You know, we’re dead solid broke and getting broker. But from that supposition, you have to realize that we have to be careful and only talk to friends. And make sure, you know, that it’s only our personal friends that are helping.”

It is unacceptable that the leader of a congressional investigation would edit a transcript to reverse the truth. As Waxman said in a letter to Burton: “This distortion in both words and meaning is inexcusable. . . . You have unilaterally subpoenaed these tapes, unilaterally released them and apparently unilaterally altered the contents to suit your purposes. You act, in effect, as if the committee were your private playground and that none of our nation’s laws, the rules of Congress or any sense of decency or fair play applies to you.”

The problem is not merely that Burton is incapable of performing his duties in an honorable manner but rather that the House GOP leadership has entrusted what should be an important bipartisan investigation of improper campaign funding to one so blatantly biased in his behavior.