Thomas Daschle: “This is an unprecedented request. Everyone needs to be fully appreciative of the nature of what it is we are called upon…”

“This is an unprecedented request. Everyone needs to be fully appreciative of the nature of what it is we are called upon to vote on here--an unprecedented request, an open-ended, unlimited request to continue this investigation forever if the majority chooses to do so--forever. There is no deadline, none whatsoever. So, Mr. President, we have looked back to try to find some other occasion when a committee has sought that kind of authority to say, ``We don't know whether we're going to take a week, a month, 2 months, the rest of the session. We may even need to go into the next Congress. Who knows? What we do know is that we're not going to give you any specific timeframe within which we realistically think we can finish this investigation.'' So what does that tell you, Mr. President? What it tells me is that they want to keep open the option to take this right up until the very last day of this Presidential campaign. We are unwilling to accept that.”