Mike Levin: “I thank the Chair. So then I observe, Mr. President, that the quote which I just shared with this body is from the…”

“I thank the Chair. So then I observe, Mr. President, that the quote which I just shared with this body is from the agreement, and every single item on that inventory is a summary document. Two additional FBI summaries were added to the seven listed in the original agreement before the Senate finally voted on the Tower nomination a month later. These FBI summaries, which were eventually placed in S-407 for review by all Senators, were the only FBI materials received by the Armed Services Committee. As Senator Nunn stated on the Senate floor when he opened the debate on the Tower nomination--and this probably is the most succinct place where Senator Nunn stated this on the Senate floor-- What we have in S-407 is the summary of interviews the FBI conducted. They prepare the summary. We do not see nor do we have the underlying interviews. That is stated about as succinctly and directly as you can by the then-chairman of the Armed Services Committee. So, in short, the committee did not have access to any raw investigative files or interview transcripts, nor did the Senate. What we had were the nine chapters of the FBI summary of its investigation. Following the committee's action on the Tower nomination, Senators Mitchell and Dole reached an agreement with the Bush administration that all Senators would have access to the same FBI summary of the background investigation of Senator Tower that was made available to the members of the Armed Services Committee.”