John Conyers: “Well, we do not have enough time to discuss the conduct of the chairman of the committee, but I can tell you that never…”

“Well, we do not have enough time to discuss the conduct of the chairman of the committee, but I can tell you that never in any committee can I recall to the Members of the body that we went into privacy and violated the spirit of privacy laws in the way that they have been done now. And there was a curious coincidence between the release of information from the special prosecutor and the release of these tapes. The chairman, a friend, his own chief counsel, advised him not to release the tapes, but he did so anyway. The Speaker of the House of Representatives publicly stated that a third party should screen the tapes for privacy issues before further releases were made. What did the committee do? It continued to release more tapes. So almost daily, the impression continues to grow that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) or his committee is simply out of control. If the chairman's goal is simply to get at the truth, then there was no need to doctor the tapes. Considering all of this, along with the chairman's recent public statement that he was after, quote-unquote, the President, President Clinton, how can the important investigative work of the committee lead to any findings that will be accepted as legitimate by the public? I would appeal to the higher instincts of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) to apologize to the Hubbells and to the President and to the First Lady.”