Trent Lott: “Wait, I have the floor and I will yield when you ask me to. I am on that committee, and all I ever said was find out…”

“Wait, I have the floor and I will yield when you ask me to. I am on that committee, and all I ever said was find out what happened, was there apparent fraud or not. As a matter of fact, investigators never went into Louisiana until July. Shortly thereafter, in something I have not seen in 25 years in Congress, the Democrats walked out of the committee's proceedings and said, ``We won't participate.'' In investigation after investigation over the years in the House and the Senate, I never saw the Republicans or Democrats, in any other instance, say, ``We're not going to participate.'' What happened after the investigators' being down there for like 2 weeks, the Justice Department withdrew the FBI agents. It couldn't come to a conclusion. The week before we went out, I talked with Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle, and we worked out an arrangement that I thought everybody was satisfied with for a special allocation of money to complete that work and in time to complete that work. At the last minute, it was jerked away. What has happened is, I think Senator Warner is going to make an announcement today, I believe, about a schedule he has in mind. There are several boxes of documents that have been turned over now to the committee as a result of the subpoena duces tecum to get evidence with regard to gaming interests and involvement in the election. By the way, I think they have every right to support a referendum.”