Word: altmans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Altman's worsening predicament sullied a week that had started out looking like a rare winner for the White House. Whitewater seemed poised to fade from the spotlight: House Banking Committee chairman Henry B. Gonzales proved he could stage farce on a grand scale by holding two days' worth of hearings that were designed not to inform but conceal. Gonzales opened the session with the strong suggestion that they were a waste of time and the confident assurance that "it is doubtful that any ethical standards were violated." The chairman prevented Republicans from raising questions about most aspects...
...Altman could be forgiven if, four days later, he thought he heard moving vans coming up the driveway. On Friday the Senate Banking Committee opened hearings on whether White House and Treasury officials had intervened in a federal investigation of a failed Arkansas savings and loan with ties to the Clintons. Republican Senators charged Altman not only with lying to Congress about the extent and nature of those contacts but also with breaking federal rules of confidentiality by telling the White House about the progress and timing of the probe. Altman was in a good position to know. From March...
...Altman, the new accounts of his disclosures to the White House could prove fatal. "Mr. Altman forgot," Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri told TIME, "that his job is to serve the nation, not just his old friend. Therefore, I believe his time is up and it's time...
...Altman's shifting explanation of his behavior proves once more that the axiom is true: it is the cover-up, not the original sin, that tends to bring down government officials. But to this axiom there is a Clinton codicil. Overschooled in damage control during the 1992 campaign, Clinton White House officials have exerted a kind of obsessive reluctance at every level to just let the government do its work. Evidence is growing that rather than allowing the RTC to try to recover the $47 million in lost taxpayer funds from the officers of a failed savings and loan...
Though special prosecutor Robert Fiske has cleared Altman of any criminal wrongdoing, congressional confidence in the former Wall Street investment banker is eroding so fast that he may be forced to resign within days. Four Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee believe privately that Altman has been seriously damaged. Senators Richard Bryan of Nevada and Barbara Boxer of California worry that Altman may have misled them. Nearly all the Senators will question him closely when he appears before the committee on Tuesday...