John Sarbanes: “Mr. President, I am going to be very brief. It would be expected that the assertions would be made that have just been…”

“Mr. President, I am going to be very brief. It would be expected that the assertions would be made that have just been made. The fact is that Senator Daschle offered a perfectly reasonable proposal with respect to this inquiry dealing with Whitewater, and that was to provide an extension into early April. The inquiry was supposed to end at the end of February. That was provided for in the resolution which the Senate passed. The reason that was done was in order to keep this inquiry out of the election year so it would not be subject to a public perception that it was being carried on for political reasons. Now, that concern paralleled a concern that was expressed by the Republican leader, Senator Dole, in 1987, when the Iran-Contra inquiry was undertaken. That was in a Congress controlled by Democrats. It was an inquiry into the activities of a Republican administration. There were Democrats who wanted to carry it on indefinitely through the election year. Senator Dole, at that time the minority leader, was very insistent that it would have a fixed timeframe that would keep it out of the election period.”