Posted on 06/08/2017 8:59:48 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A senior Treasury official whose diary casts a bad light on the Administration's handling of the Whitewater affair will testify in Congress that his writings do not accurately reflect what occurred, Administration officials and Congressional investigators said today.
...Joshua L. Steiner, the Treasury Secretary's chief of staff, wrote that White House officials had put "intense pressure" on Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman to remain involved in overseeing the Federal handling of Whitewater. Then, when Mr. Altman told senior Clinton advisers in February of his decision to remove himself from the matter, they "told RA that it was unacceptable," the diary says.
At the time, Mr. Altman, a close friend of the President, was the acting head of the Resolution Trust Corporation, a Federal agency considering whether to sue a savings association and a law firm with ties to the Clintons.
Mr. Steiner wrote in the diary that senior advisers to Mr. Clinton wanted the agency to remain under the control of a political ally. He wrote that Mr. Clinton had become angry when he learned of Mr. Altman's recusal.
But Mr. Steiner has now told Congressional investigators that his diary was not meant to be a word-for-word rendition of events, officials said. They said Mr. Steiner would say that when he testified at the long-awaited Congressional hearings on Whitewater, which begin on Tuesday in the House Banking Committee.
Colleagues of Mr. Steiner say he was not pushed by Administration officials to change his story. But the prospect of the hearings has caused considerable concern at the White House and the Treasury Department.
...
At a meeting in early February involving Mr. Altman; Bernard W. Nussbaum, then the White House counsel; Harold M. Ickes, deputy White House chief of staff, and Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff, Margaret Williams...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Steiner—The guy who lied to his diary, as I recall.
I remember this.... he said (with a straight face) “I wish I had been more accurate in my diary” (or something very similar)
Arkanside looms large.
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