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American Morning

Are the Clintons Being Unfairly Scrutinized?

Aired February 14, 2002 - 09:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to issues on the domestic front, "The Big Question" this hour, are the Clintons being unfairly scrutinized? Congressional investigators claim the Clintons acted improperly, with regard to hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts they received while he was in office, and the former president dismisses the findings as blatantly partisan, and full of inaccuracies.

Californian Congressman Doug Ose conducted the yearlong investigation. He joins us from Capitol Hill this morning, along with Julian Epstein, who joins us from Miami this morning, who is the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee.

Welcome, gentlemen. Good to see you both of you.

REP. DOUG OSE (R), CALIFORNIA: Good morning, Paula.

JULIAN EPSTEIN, FMR. CHIEF COUNSEL FOR HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Representative Ose, I know you have sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking him to open a criminal investigation. What was that you found in your own investigation that would lead you to the belief that perhaps something was done criminally wrong here?

OSE: Lack of disclosure, under valuation, lost gifts, things of that nature.

ZAHN: Can you give us some more specifics?

OSE: Sure, you can go to my Web site and check out what's up there, but we forwarded to the attorney general a 55-page referral for his consideration as to whether or not criminal activity occurred here. But inside that information, again, we list about 2 percent of the gifts that we looked at, and there's a pattern of undervaluation. There are gifts that are just frankly lost. I mean, come on, this the presidency of the United States. This shouldn't be happening.

ZAHN: Representative Ose, let's share with you some information that we had from former President Clinton in a statement his office issued to us. For starters, when you talked about the undervaluations. He says, "The White House gift unit of past administrations used certified appraisers. The Clinton administration continued this practice. The White House gift has for the past administrations used donor or store information which the item was purchased as a basis for gift valuation, where the cost of the item was available. No first family in recent times has ever been responsible for gift valuation.

OSE: I have to take exception to that. The fact of the matter is that an Yves Saint Laurent suit valued at $249 dollars, one dollar below the disclosure threshold. A 1793 French coin valued at $10. An 1826 John Quincy Adams land grant letter valued at something far below the threshold. I mean, if the president did use appraisals, it's on no more than say 40 or 50 percent of the items. The person running the White House gifts unit was a political appointee. The fact of the matter is the system is broken. The system is broken, and the people of this country are losing confidence that our public officials are not being unduly enriched.

OSE: Let's stay on point here with Julian Epstein. Specifically react to what Congressman Ose just had to say about the percentage of gifts that were properly valued in his estimation.

EPSTEIN: Well, I mean I took a look at the report this morning, and I have to say, with due respect to Congressman Ose, I think the report borders on unprofessional. The White House followed every single procedure that former presidents have followed. I point out that Mr. Ose referred at the Democrats request to look at former presidents, refused to involve the Democrats in this process, which should tell you how partisan it is.

But secondly, basically President Clinton and the White House followed the procedures set up by previous presidents. If the gifts were below the reportable figure of $260, if they were clearly below, they didn't get an appraisal. If they were close, they got an appraisal by a certified appraiser, and if they were above the limit, they reported unless otherwise exempted. The inability of Mr. Ose after three of your questions, Paula, to point out specific facts in how they are in any way in violation of any of the law or any of the regulations should tell you all you need to know. This really is in keeping in line with a long list and a long tradition I think of Republican accusations by Clinton haters against the Clintons, by people that don't have the facts or the law to back up their case.

ZAHN: What essentially, Mr. Ose, as you can see Julian is saying is the same thing that President Clinton saying, in this statement -- quote -- that "this is not a witchhunt." You say this is not a witchhunt to bash the Clintons. But the president is saying by examining the gift records for the previous four-year presidency was unnecessary to accomplish his purposes, that you are transparently partisan.

OSE: Paula, here's the facts, last March when I dropped this bill, I went and talked to Henry Waxman. Henry said you don't have enough evidence here, Doug. You need to put the evidence together, and when you do, I'll come back. We have 14,000 gifts. We don't know where they are. We have half of thousand undervalued, or improperly valued or completely absent in determining where they went. The system the broken. Now the reason we looked at only the Clinton administration is after 14,000 records, how much more evidence do you need that the system is broken? How much more do you want, Julian?

EPSTEIN: I mean this is really -- this becomes the theater of the absurd. I mean, the notion that the president of the United States, whether it's President Clinton or any other president, is going in conducting his own individual valuations as to what the price of a T-shirt is or something along those lines is absurd. These things are appraised not by the president, but by appraisers in the White House gift office, and the president is totally uninvolved in that. The notion that you have a president somehow making these decisions as to whether these are above or below the limit, like that's what the president has time to do, it's absurd.

The fact of the matter asked to look at other former presidents, both Reagan and Bush. You refused to.

I would like to have something. I would like to have a specific piece of evidence from you that suggests that this president did something that was different from any other of the past presidents and you failed to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Representative Ose, we've only 10 seconds left, why wasn't that a relevant comparison.

EPSTEIN: How much evidence do you want, Paula? Fourteen thousand records, the system is broken. I don't care if it's a Democrat or a Republican, but if the system is not fixed, the people of this country are not going to have any faith in their leaders.

ZAHN: All right, gentlemen, we've got to leave it there this morning, because we've move on to what's going on in the war tribunals. Representative Ose, thanks for your time. Julian Epstein, yours as well. Glad to have both of you with us.

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