Summary

Senate Judiciary Full Committee Markup of pending legislation including a resolution to subpoena Attorney General Janet Reno for documents related to the Elian Gonzalez case

Source CONUS Archive
Record ID 254304
Story Slug JUDICIARY COMMITTEE (2000)
Location WASHINGTON, DC
Format TVD
Date 06/08/2000
Archive Time 6:34
TRT 3:50
Supers 1) Sen Arlen Specter (R-PA) 2) Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT) 3) Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Video Description Senators at desk w/ cuts
Description Senate Judiciary Full Committee Markup of pending legislation including a resolution to subpoena Attorney General Janet Reno for documents related to the Elian Gonzalez case
Script (SUGGESTED TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO) 00:00 I think it may well be the case, Mr Chairman, that there has been obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice here, when the FBI and the Department of Justice had these documents, and didn't turn them over specifically when there was the return date, to do so Typically Well, Mr Chairman, I think it's high time of this committee exercised its rights, right, that this committee stopped being pushed around Lee damaging to the Department of Justice We have this hickeys memorandum There's a big question as to what happened at a November 21 1995 meeting where there were discussions of hard and soft money involving the president of the vice president And we have not been able to see that memorandum And it is extraordinarily difficult because we are trying to finish our investigation, linguistic Democrats on campaign finance matters By the end of July, 01:09 latest may 4, when they admit that he knew all about it, when there's something wrong with the Justice Department that violates the law like this And that ignores congressional subpoenas And I'm very appreciative of the work you're doing and your committee in in getting to the bottom of it Now 01:30 I don't, you know, with all due respect, Mr Chairman, I we seem to be trying to keep up with Chairman Burton over in the house and having investigations on top of investigations Well, let's dual track let's, let's investigate everybody in the world But at the same time, let's pass some of the legislation that this country like to see, including the one that we stole for over a year now, that will close the gun loopholes 01:57 The gun show loopholes This is serious stuff We've subpoenaed the Justice Department, they've ignored us the peanuts On the Elian Gonzalez case, it looks like the courts going to resolve those problems, but we have to resolve whether justice has acted legally in going into that home the way they did and trashing it Now, I've indicated that, that if they cooperate with us, we may be able to come to the conclusion We don't need any hearings But right now, there's a lot of people only ones that are criticizing criticizing this So let's get off the Elian Gonzalez kick and talk in terms of our oversight jurisdiction And the need to make sure justice is doing what's right I don't see any real reason to criticize anything that Senator Specter and his committee is doing They're doing a an excellent job And they're being hampered every step of the way by the Justice Department I want to know what these two successors to LaBella have said Why haven't we found that out by now? 03:02 I can hear you What as I recall, this came up and met with at the request of the Republican leader met with a number of us a couple of days after Elena Gonzalez was returned to her father answered every question that and were willing to stay longer to answer question, 03:25 I was given a good account of her decision, given the enormous anxiety in the Cuban American community over this issue And the chance that this becomes a new source of can
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