Pete Sessions: “I rise at this time, Mr. President, to make some remarks about the hearings going on in the Governmental Affairs…”

“I rise at this time, Mr. President, to make some remarks about the hearings going on in the Governmental Affairs Committee. I think they are most important hearings. I think it is important we remember that the committee, headed by the excellent and fine Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Fred Thompson, was commissioned by this body. They were mandated by this body to go out and discover the facts and to conduct an investigation of illegal and improper activities in connection with the 1996 political campaigns. So they have a responsibility and a duty that falls to them at this point whether they want it or not, whether they wish they did not have it, and they have to see it through and do it in a formal and proper way. I think the committee is at a point where it is not dealing with exact science, but with a process by which that committee needs to go out and find the facts, apply those facts to the law, to decide what actions ought to be taken and to evaluate it that way. It was by a 99-to-nothing vote that this Senate, Democrats and Republicans, directed that committee to do its work. And so we ought to let them do their work and let them follow the evidence where it leads, to let them apply that evidence to the law and to analyze the results and make recommendations for the future. A key part of that investigation is gathering the facts. I served for 12 years as a U.S. attorney. That was the Federal prosecutor for the southern district of Alabama.”