Henry Waxman: “I am sorry the Speaker would not yield to me because I wanted to tell the Speaker that in the Watergate investigation…”

“I am sorry the Speaker would not yield to me because I wanted to tell the Speaker that in the Watergate investigation the Chairman, Sam Ervin, did not accuse the President of the United States of being a scum bag. He did not say that he was out to get him. Those were the very words of the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in remarks in his district when he talked about what he was doing in this investigation. Are we stonewalling an investigation that is proper and legitimate and is trying to get to the truth under a chairman who is interested in objectivity and facts? The chairman of our committee has acted from the very beginning in the most partisan of manners. He has refused to give us the basic rights to request subpoenas to look at Republican abuses. He has refused to allow the Democrats to play a role. In fact, he does not even let his own members play a role. They delegated authority to him, and he, in turn, has delegated it to his staff. I might not be a Howard Baker, but the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Dan Burton) is no Sam Ervin. If we would have followed from the very beginning the requests that I made that we do a bipartisan, nonpartisan, fair investigation on campaign finance abuses, we would not be here a year and a half later having spent $6 million with a likelihood that at the end of this year we will have spent $10 million harassing witnesses.”