Posted on 07/19/2002 8:13:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:41:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Robert Torricelli will testify under oath to the Senate ethics committee in its investigation of allegations he accepted gifts from a New Jersey businessman in return for official favors.
The closed-door appearance Monday will mark the first time the New Jersey Democrat will answer committee questions regarding allegations made by now-jailed businessman David Chang.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Like every Deomon-rat!!
Should read: "In the dark of night, locked away in a media-inpenetrable bank vault, and with the three blind mice asking the questions."
Teddy Kennedy testifying he drinks only O'Douls.
Ethics to Hear From Torricelli
By Paul Kane
After six months of reviewing prosecutorial files and grand jury material, the Senate Ethics Committee is set to interview Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) today regarding allegations he exchanged official favors for more than $100,000 worth of cash and gifts.
Torricelli's testimony, behind closed doors, marks a pivotal moment for the Senator, who has never before answered questions under oath about the corruption allegations. If Torricelli can sufficiently answer the panel's questions, lawmakers and aides believe the case can be disposed of, possibly before the August recess, with Torricelli having been the only witness ever interviewed by the committee.
"Soon, soon, all will be ...," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the panel's vice chairman, cutting himself off regarding when exactly the probe would conclude. "Soon - the process is moving."
"Let's put it this way, I like to finish things as fast as I can. I don't think they appointed me to a two-year term," said Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who has been acting as chairman of the Torricelli probe since Feb. 1. The full committee chairman, Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.), recused himself from the case after watchdog groups said he could not be an independent voice given his $500 contribution to Torricelli's legal defense fund and his efforts to help round up more support for his defense.
With Inouye and Roberts in charge, Reid said he has been told to keep a distance. "I've been asked not to mess with the committee on this," Reid said.
Neither Inouye nor Roberts would comment on Torricelli's testimony or the nature of the questions he will face. But several sources indicated last week that the committee has given Torricelli and his lawyers a long list of detailed questions regarding cash-and-gift accusations, drawn from the staff's review of files and grand-jury testimony from the nearly three-year federal probe into Torricelli's personal finances and campaign fundraising.
Members of the six-Senator panel - Inouye, Roberts, Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) - are not expected to be on hand today. One source familiar with past Ethics cases said it is likely that all questions will be asked by the committee's staff director, Victor Baird, who has a handful of nonpartisan legal staff that may be on hand to assist him. Senators on the committee also have an individual aide assigned to handle Ethics cases, each of whom is expected to be on hand for the testimony.
The case is still in its "informal" stage, as one source put it. The committee has not moved beyond the "preliminary inquiry" stage of the process, which means the panel has still not cast a vote to decide whether there is "substantial credible evidence" of wrongdoing, according to the committee manual. If the committee finds such evidence and determines that it is of a serious nature, then the members would vote on whether to move into a more serious adjudicatory review.
Referring to today's testimony, an aide said, "It's basically a deposition."
As he has done all along, Torricelli maintained his innocence last week and said in a statement that he was "fully cooperating" with the committee.
Even if Torricelli is completely innocent, today's testimony is still significant, almost dramatic. Only in the rarest of instances does the Ethics Committee interview a Senator under oath. Gary Ruskin, a committee watchdog for the Congressional Accountability Project, said former GOP Sens. Bob Packwood (Ore.) and Alfonse D'Amato (N.Y.) are the only Senators in the past eight years to be interviewed by the panel.
More important to Torricelli politically, the New Jersey Democrat's opponent this fall, businessman Doug Forrester, who has pumped $6 million of his own money into the race so far, is making the lingering Ethics inquiry a cornerstone of his campaign rhetoric. If Torricelli can clear up the Ethics probe quickly, it will be more difficult for Forrester to target Torricelli on the issue.
And just as important as what the committee has done so far is what it hasn't done.
The panel has not made any contact with Torricelli's prime accuser, David Chang, according to Chang's lawyer, Bradley Simon. Chang pleaded guilty in June 2001 to illegally funneling $53,700 into Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign and has since accused the Senator of accepting bundles of cash and numerous pricey gifts.
One source indicated that there was no intention of calling Chang, who is currently serving an 18-month sentence in a federal prison in Pennsylvania. Committee staff did go to Manhattan in mid-February to review the evidence with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Manhattan, where the final 10 months of the probe were overseen.
The committee has not reached out to the retailers who operate the stores in Bergen County, N.J., where Chang purchased the gifts that he allegedly gave the Senator.
"No, nobody ever got in touch with me," said Garabet Tacorian, the owner of Englewood Jewelers who told the media last year that he gave the FBI credit card receipts for $600 earrings believed to be purchased by Chang.
Shahram Nazar, owner of Starr Oriental Rugs in Englewood, N.J., said he too had provided evidence to the FBI that Chang purchased a $1,500 area rug there in 1998, but that the Senate committee had not been in touch with him. "Not at all," he said.
What's not clear from the evidence that has become public is if the FBI was ever able to corroborate that these gifts did in fact end up in Torricelli's possession. "That part of it I don't know, but Mr. Chang did buy a rug here," Nazar said last week. "They picked it up from here and left."
Torricelli's lawyers, who have rung up $3 million in bills paid by his campaign committee and the defense fund, are currently fighting a motion by the Senator's local media to unseal a document that the federal prosecutors filed on Chang's behalf. The prosecutors were stunned by the 18-month sentence given to Chang, considering almost all of those convicted in the Justice Department's 1996 campaign task force probe - from which the Chang case grew - received no jail time.
The prosecutors are seeking a lighter sentence for Chang, and their nine-page filing details the help the convicted felon provided in their case and what evidence they were able to corroborate.
Torricelli brushed aside questions in person last week about today's testimony.
"It is hard to believe that anyone would take anything David Chang says seriously. He is a convicted felon who is behind bars," said Debra DeShong, Torricelli's spokeswoman, in a statement. "Before he was sent to jail, a federal judge described him as deceitful, deceptive and dishonest. All of these allegations have been investigated to the point of exhaustion. It is time to accept that they are not true and put this matter to a close."
As he prepared to answer questions today, Torricelli faced new allegations last week of accepting unreported gifts. Richard Detore, a businessman accused of attempting to bribe convicted felon Ohio Rep. James Traficant, testified on Traficant's behalf and mixed Torricelli into the Traficant mess.
Detore, a former executive of the U.S. Aerospace Group, which was seeking federal aviation contracts, testified that the company had purchased gifts for Torricelli. In an interview afterward, Detore told Roll Call that he had seen company receipts for a $100,000 necklace and $30,000 earrings from Nieman Marcus in 1999 that he said went to a Torricelli girlfriend, but he could not provide the receipt.
As New Jersey Republicans leapt on the new allegations, DeShong again issued a blanket denial, saying the charge was "so ridiculous, it's barely worth a comment."
At times Torricelli has told the media there were "no gifts" from Chang or that there were "no illegal gifts." In one instance, shortly after the U.S. attorneys dropped the case and gave their files to Ethics, Torricelli told radio talk show host Don Imus that he never took a Rolex watch from Chang.
Federal prosecutors seeking a bribery indictment faced a high hurdle to climb, needing to prove not only that Torricelli took the gifts but also that the only reason he took the gifts was because of the help he provided Chang in international business deals.
But Senate Ethics lawyers have a different standard to demonstrate that Torricelli violated the chamber's internal rules, only that he took cash and gifts worth more than $50, the gift-ban limit. Since he never asked for a waiver from the Ethics Committee regarding gifts from Chang, nor did he report on his financial disclosure form any gifts from Chang, he would have violated Senate rules if he accepted valuable gifts or cash from Chang.
In sentencing Chang, Judge Alfred Wolin lashed out at Chang, calling him "deceitful" but seeming to indicate that he believed Torricelli took the gifts. Wolin said he accepted the prosecution's contention that Chang "provided truthful, complete and reliable information" and added that "much of what Chang told the government was material and credible."
The day before that sentencing, Chang's lawyer, Simon, filed a detailed, 18-page brief that served as his official accusation against Torricelli. Reading at times like a Hollywood script, Chang accused the Senator of accepting:
¥ 14 different cash payments over several years, beginning in 1996, each worth between $8,000 and $9,000;
¥ a $9,200 Rolex watch for himself and a lady's Concorde watch for his former wife, Susan Torricelli, who remains a close confidante and his top fundraiser;
¥ 10 tailor-made suits, thousands of dollars worth of antique items, a 42-inch television set, stereo equipment and a cashmere coat.
Chang also accused Torricelli of threatening him to stay quiet. According to the brief, in late January 2001 - after three Torricelli aides had been notified that they were targets of the Justice probe - Torricelli followed Chang into a 7-11 convenience store in Fort Lee, N.J., late one night.
The FBI retrieved the store's surveillance videotape the next day.
According to someone who has seen the tape, Torricelli and a New Jersey waste disposal contractor can be clearly seen entering the store moments after Chang darted out the back door. Moments after Torricelli and his companion left the store, Chang reappears on the videotape, paying for the coffee that he had inadvertently slipped out the back door with.
Simon has, through the media, pleaded to have Chang appear before the committee to tell his story. Chang was interviewed on numerous occasions by the prosecutors and the FBI, but he never appeared before the grand jury.
His interview notes have been given to the Senate committee. Ruskin, the watchdog, said the committee should judge for itself Chang's credibility. "The nicest thing you can say about it is it's inexplicable," he said of the committee's inaction with regard to Chang.
But Inouye and Roberts chafe at suggestions that they are not sufficiently handling the probe, saying they have logged long hours on this case. "I can tell you this," he said. "We're not sitting around twiddling our toes. We're working."
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The "ethics" committee should have the "Torch" dead to rights.
If they don't lay a glove on him (which is likely) it will be proof positive
that the MAD(mutually assured destruction) aka "scorched earth policy" unleashed during the Clinton regime, still grips DC.
You got that right!
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