Bill Clinton: “Well, if that were the whole story it might be. That is not the whole story. Compare the difference in the White House…”

“Well, if that were the whole story it might be. That is not the whole story. Compare the difference in the White House drug policy and the Congress drug policy. We are the branch of Government, the White House, that has a zero-tolerance policy. A complete--everybody was tested. Then people are subject--everybody who works here is subject to random testing. And people that have any kind of recent drug problem who were hired because they were felt to be drug-free at the time are subject to regular drug testing. So the truth is we know that the people here, insofar as we can possibly determine it, are drug-free and that we have had a zero- tolerance policy. And I think the question is if people have put their lives in order and are prepared to be tested and are prepared to be held accountable and are judged as best as possible not to present a threat in any way, shape, or form and are doing a good job and are clearly drug-free, should they be denied the right to work because of some problem they have in their past? Now, at the time these decisions were made in '93, the people who made them concluded no, as long as we had a system for regular testing. And I find it interesting that we get criticism from the Congress, from people who can't make that same assertion about their own staffs because they don't have anything like the testing program we do to hold people accountable. So we have done our best to tell you what I think you want to know, which is, do we have a strict zero-tolerance policy here, and do we have a means for knowing whether we're right or not? Thank you.”