WAXMAN: Well, Mr. Libby, it appears that you agree with most of the points that the president made. Let me ask you the bottom-line question.
President Clinton apparently concluded that Mr. Rich had not committed the crimes he had been accused of. Do you agree with this? Do you think that Mr. Rich is a tax fraud and a criminal, or do you agree with President Clinton's assessments of the merits of the case?
LIBBY: I believe, sir, that based on all of the evidence available to defense counsel, the best interpretation of the evidence is that they did not any civil--any tax, even as a civil matter. That would be the interpretation given by the two tax professors.
WAXMAN: And therefore, that there should not have been a criminal liability.
LIBBY: Based on the evidence available to the defense, that would be correct, sir.
WAXMAN: Mr. Libby, according to press reports, you called Mr. Rich on January 22 of this year. Is that accurate?
LIBBY: That's correct, sir. I believe that January 22 is right.
WAXMAN: And where you when you called him?
LIBBY: At home.
WAXMAN: And why did you call him?
LIBBY: He had spoken to Mr. Green (ph), who is a good friend of mine, and he had told Mr. Green (ph), he thanked Mr. Green (ph) for all the work Mr. Green (ph) had done on his case over the years and that he also wished to thank me for the work I had done prior to the pardon on his matters over the years, but that he didn't know if it would be OK for him to call me. He did not want to get me in any trouble by calling me.
And so I thanked Mr. Green (ph) for telling me that and I said I would call Mr. Rich to say it was OK. And I called Mr. Rich and he thanked me for my work on the case. And I congratulated him on having reached a result that he had sought for a long time.
KANJORSKI: Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Libby, this is a pretty simple question. You were an attorney for Mr. Rich. You helped brief Mr. Quinn. You know all the facts from that side of the case. You're not expected to know the facts of the Southern District of New York. You feel that they should have stopped the prosecution because it was unwarranted with the facts you knew, but they didn't.
Now as a lawyer and prior to your assuming the office of chief of staff for the vice president, are you telling this committee that you don't know whether with everything that you know, and nothing more than you don't know, you have an opinion or not, whether or not the pardon should have been issued?
LIBBY: Correct, sir. I...
KANJORSKI: What's that opinion?
LIBBY: No, no, correct I am telling the committee that I don't know whether it should...
KANJORSKI: You have no opinion?
LIBBY: I have the opinion based on...
KANJORSKI: Do you have an opinion honestly? Let's start there. Do you have an opinion?
LIBBY: Do I have an opinion as to whether...
KANJORSKI: Do you have an opinion on whether this pardon was justified under the facts as you know them?
LIBBY: Sir, I do not have--I have never seen the application. I do have the facts available to...
KANJORSKI: I am not asking about the application, Mr. Libby. I am asking about the facts that you know of your own knowledge as a lawyer representing Mr. Rich over those several years. Do you have an opinion as to whether or not those facts warrant the issue of this pardon? That's a simple question.
LIBBY: No, sir.
KANJORSKI: You have no opinion.
LIBBY: I have no opinion because I would not be able to render an opinion without the full record before me. I do not have that record before me.
KANJORSKI: So when you worked on this case with Mr. Quinn, you didn't have the facts, you didn't have the information as an attorney?
LIBBY: I did not have the facts available to the government and I did not have the other materials...
KANJORSKI: Nobody has the facts available to the government. I'm not asking you to render an opinion on what facts the government may have. I'm asking you to render an opinion on what fact you have and had at the time. That's very simply. You ought to have an opinion yes, or you have an opinion, no.
LIBBY: I...
Is that what we should conclude from your statement?
LIBBY: No, sir. I believe in all of the evidence I know that there was no tax liability.
LIBBY: There are no facts that I know of that support the criminality of the client based on the tax returns you've been discussing.
KANJORSKI: So that on all of the facts that you know, is the pardon issued by the president justified?
LIBBY: I cannot say whether the pardon is justified because I don't have those facts and that application form.
KANJORSKI: Mr. Libby, I'm not asking to take any other facts than the facts that you have. And we're pretty able up here to understand as a lawyer for a couple of years working for a very wealthy guy and you come to the conclusion with Harvard law professors and Georgetown law professors about a lot of things. And we're going to accept all of what you know, accept nothing of what anybody else knows because obviously you don't know. We're asking an opinion.
I mean I like to see a guy hedge, but that's unreasonable. You either have an opinion or you don't have an opinion. If you don't have an opinion, tell us you don't have an opinion and therefore your client may have been a crook, should have gone to trail, was a fugitive, or do you have a opinion he wasn't?
Do you have an opinion he was a fugitive?
LIBBY: In every common sense term of it, yes, he was a fugitive.
KANJORSKI: OK, do you think he was a fugitive on justifiable charges or was he a fugitive because there was a mistake of the interpretation of the law by the Southern District of New York?
LIBBY: I believe that the Southern District of New York misconstrued the facts in the law, and that looking from all of the evidence available to the defense, he had not violated the tax laws.
KANJORSKI: And was not a fugitive?
LIBBY: No, he was. In every common sense term of the word, he was a fugitive.
WAXMAN: How about in a legal sense?
LIBBY: There is a fugitivity statute which is very complicated. I haven't looked at it in years. It has to do generally with avoiding state process. It wasn't a state process. A very technical matters--I don't recall them after so many years now.
KANJORSKI: OK. But you did say something that I want to go back, and let me get this in context now. You represented Mr. Rich from what period of time until which period of time?
LIBBY: From spring of 1985 until fall probably or end of summer of 1989. Not continuously, of course, but periodically. And from 1993, after leaving the government, some period after leaving the government, you know, with the matter that was under consideration, until about 1995. It was then inactive. And I represented him again in connection with Mr. Quinn's approach to the Southern District and the Department of Justice sometime in 1999, and that effort ended sometime around spring of 2000.
KANJORSKI: '99 until the end of 2000 approximately.
Now, at what period of time and what information that came to your attention that you made the conclusion, both legally and otherwise, that he was a traitor?
LIBBY: Sir, what I said is that I can understand someone viewing the evidence that he traded with Iran as a traitor.
KANJORSKI: The question wasn't put that way, Mr. Libby.
LIBBY: I'm sorry.
KANJORSKI: The question was, do you consider Mr. Rich a traitor?
LIBBY: On that trade, I can understand that, yes, sir.
KANJORSKI: No, I didn't ask you if you can understand.
LIBBY: Yes, sir, I do not condone...
KANJORSKI: Mr. Libby, do you consider him a traitor or don't you? I mean, it's just very straightforward. If you don't consider him a traitor, say you don't. If you do, say you do.
LIBBY: I would not have made that trade. You could apply the traitor to it.
KANJORSKI: Fine. Do you consider him, for having made that trade, a traitor?
LIBBY: Sir, it's not a word I would use, but I accept it.
KANJORSKI: You can't be half-pregnant, Mr. Libby, he is or he isn't. It seems to be very simple. Is he or isn't he? You said before you consider him a traitor. Is that correct, what I heard?
LIBBY: I would say yes.
LIBBY: The information is in the indictment which was issued in 1983, something like that.
KANJORSKI: So for this period, the last 17 years, you've considered this client of yours a traitor.
LIBBY: Sir, my understanding is that the conduct in which he engaged was not illegal, but I agree with the description that you could consider him a traitor for trading with Iran during that period.
LIBBY: Yes.
KANJORSKI: How many traitors to this country do you call up in your official capacity?
LIBBY: I called none, sir.
KANJORSKI: You did on January 22 when the new administration took office and you were chief of staff to the vice president of the United States.
LIBBY: Not in my official capacity, sir.
KANJORSKI: Oh, but you do call traitors in your unofficial capacity.
LIBBY: No, sir. I called Mr. Rich to respond to his request.
KANJORSKI: Why would you call a traitor, somebody you consider a traitor, after he got a pardon that was a hullabaloo in this country? You can't tell me you didn't know about the reaction to the pardon. So you knew that there was a hullabaloo in the country about the pardon. You, in your own mind, consider him a traitor. Why did you call him?
LIBBY: Mr. Rich is a former client. I believed he was not guilty of those things of which he was charged, based on the evidence available to me. He had called Mr. Green to say that he wished to call me and thank me for my services. I had always taken his calls when he was a client of mine. He had been pardoned by the president for those very trades. And so I called him.
KANJORSKI: Would you call another traitor in the country again? Would you ever do that?
LIBBY: Don't believe I know any other traitors.
KANJORSKI: Stick around this committee long enough you may learn something.
Thanks. Good contribution to the thread. Nice surfing.
LIBBY: Don't believe I know any other traitors.
KANJORSKI: Stick around this committee long enough you may learn something meet many more traitors!
I read this transcript in total amazement.
TRANSCRIPT OF LIBBY SUPPORTING CLINTON'S REASONS FOR THE RICH PARDON March 2, 2000
CUT
But you're here, as, now, a government official, and I just want to ask you this question, and I hope I like the answer, but I may not. I want to know if you left the administration, would you come back to lobby your boss, Dick Cheney, or the president of the United States on behalf of a client, given the unique relationship that you have as the chief of staff of the vice president?
LIBBY: I doubt it. I can't be sure, but I doubt it.
SHAYS: Would you concur that if you were looking to lobby the White House, and you were hired to represent a certain interest, that your position would be to present that interest as forcefully as you could, even if it meant not disclosing information that might be helpful for the person making that judgment?
LIBBY: If I understood your question properly--I think I missed part of it--I do not believe I would every appear before Vice President Cheney or President Bush, under terms in which I would withhold any information from them.
SHAYS: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
LATOURETTE: Thank you, Mr. Shays. And I think that that exhausts any question that anybody could possibly have.
I want to thank you, Mr. Libby, and you, Mr. Fink for your patience and your forthrightness with the committee. You were both excellent representatives. Vice President Cheney is lucky, and Mr. Rich is lucky. And we thank you very much.
And this hearing is adjourned.