DURING THE GULF WAR, Rep. Dan Burton proposed launching nuclear weapons against the Iraqis. A noisy Clinton critic, he’s lambasted the White House for using taxpayer dollars to respond to letters written to Socks. He’s also questioned whether Vince Foster’s death was a suicide. A few years ago he escorted one of Arkansas’s veteran Clinton-haters, Larry Nichols, around Congress, and just months back he hired one of the administration’s most tireless foes, David Bossie, to be his committee’s chief investigator. Michael Kinsley used to class Burton as a “GCG” — Good Crossfire Guest — because he could be trusted to produce more heat than light on a television show.
But Burton, 58, who now chairs the House committee investigating the administration’s fund-raising practices, may be a changed man. He pledges, ” We’re going to try to make this [investigation] as bipartisan or nonpartisan as possible.” He’s even persuaded a few people that he means it. White House counsel Charles Ruff says he and his staff have had “nothing but courteous and professional conversations” with the congressman, and Bossie himself has chastised staffers for leaking information about the investigation.
Hearings won’t begin until April or May, but Burton is taking care to keep from being tarred as either a pushover or a partisan hack. He won’t hold as many hearings as Al D’Amato’s Whitewater committee did — “It’s not going to be a fishing expedition,” he says. But he also says he’s willing to play hardball. If the administration doesn’t comply with his document requests, Burton says he will issue subpoenas unilaterally.
Burton claims to bear no ill will toward the president. They had a friendly chat at the White House a year ago when Clinton signed legislation Burton had sponsored tightening the embargo on Cuba. And though some aspects of their backgrounds couldn’t be more different — Clinton has a law degree from Yale, while Burton never graduated from college — both came from troubled families with abusive fathers. Burton has described his father as a “vagabond,” which seems fair considering the family lived in 38 states, Mexico, and Canada before Burton was 12. His parents eventually split up, but his father returned and kidnapped Burton’s mother, for which he spent two years in prison. As a teenager, Burton once used a loaded shotgun to ward off his father when he appeared in front of the home where Burton, his siblings, and their mother were living.
Burton’s challenge now is to prove that he can run untroubled hearings. Given his record of partisanship, some doubt his fitness to be chairman. Even Republicans have wondered whether Burton could — or should follow in the footsteps of his predecessor as chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, William Clinger, a non-threatening but effective moderate. He did not get off to an auspicious start. Just as the investigation was beginning last November, Bossie was fingered for leaking John Huang’s phone records. A minor controversy erupted, briefly setting back Burton’s effort to prove himself trustworthy.
But it’s been mostly smooth sailing since then. Burton says that while he doesn’t apologize for aggressively seeking out waste, fraud, and abuse in the past, his new role is different: “When you’re chairman you’re in a quasi- judicial role. . . . I won’t have any problem adapting.” In the past month he’s turned in impressive performances on Meet the Press and This Week, and even Clinton demurred last week when asked whether Burton was grandstanding by issuing subpoenas. Burton has also scored at least one coup. It was his request for documents from Harold Ickes, Clinton’s former deputy chief of staff, that exposed the use of the Lincoln Bedroom and the level of Clinton’s personal involvement in fund-raising.
Burton isn’t stopping there. He issued more subpoenas last week, and he has threatened former Clinton administration aides John Huang and Webster Hubbell with contempt of Congress citations for failing to turn over documents. He also hopes to alter the questioning process during the hearings, allotting members more than the traditional five minutes and allowing staff counsel to participate in interrogations.
Two recent developments have made Burton’s job easier. The first is the controversy surrounding Fred Thompson’s Senate investigation, which has kept Burton out of the spotlight. The second is press coverage of Bill Clinton’s and Al Gore’s fund-raising, which is shifting the burden of proof from Burton to the administration. In addition, the Burton hearings should avoid the Whitewater problem — namely, allegations near-impossible to comprehend or explain. “It’s important for the media and the public to understand what’s going on,” says Burton. “If there’s not some clarity, then the investigation looks like a political witch hunt.”
But Burton will still encounter obstacles. Paramount will be the difficulty in obtaining documents and testimony from key figures. Huang, Hubbell, and Clinton crony Mark Middleton all have taken the Fifth Amendment, while Clinton pal Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie has apparently fled the country. The investigation could falter if none of these men cooperates. Another obstacle will be the press, which is sure to give Burton a working-over once he’s truly in the spotlight.
A third obstacle will be House Democrats, who have indicated they’re going to support the president. Though the committee’s ranking Democrat, Henry Waxman, now favors the appointment of an independent counsel, he’s also been dogging Burton on procedural matters like subpoena powers and the portion of committee funds allocated to Democrats. With an extremely liberal Los Angeles constituency, Waxman can do the administration’s bidding — no matter how messy the scandals get. This is no small concern, as Waxman is skilled at parliamentary procedure. Burton diplomatically describes his relationship with Waxman as “adversarial, but not acrimonious.”
Burton’s committee staff will be tested by the sheer mass of information (up to a million documents) and the complexity of the legal questions. Thus he’s fortunate that three of the four attorneys who worked for Clinger opted to stay put. Three other lawyers have also been hired, two of them former U.S. attorneys with experience investigating money laundering. Bossie was an investigator with the Whitewater committee for the past two years and before that toiled at Citizens United, an anti-Clinton group, where he became a source on Whitewater for numerous members of the national media (he’s also profiled in the latest issue of George). Some eyebrows were raised when Bossie was hired, and it’s almost guaranteed some Democrat will use him to try to discredit the committee’s work — it happened during the Whitewater investigation — but Burton indicates he’s fully supportive of his 31-year- old aide.
Whether Burton’s past will affect his conduct of the hearings remains to be seen. But colleagues speculate that after having felt like an outsider for much of his life, Burton views the committee chairmanship as a chance to gain acceptance. “I think you’ll see a dramatic change,” says Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, who attends Bible study sessions with Burton and says his fellow Hoosier appreciates the need for moderation if he’s to be effective. Indeed, on Meet the Press on February 16, Burton said, “I don’t think anybody wants to see a president maimed by this kind of investigation.” Such rhetoric must please the Clintonites, but they’re hardly off the hook. Burton recently noted that all of Clinton’s problems “could end up being much bigger than Watergate ever was.”
Matthew Rees is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
