Word: altmans
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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'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...
...MUCH TOUGHER RECEPTION lay waiting in the Senate, where Republicans on the Banking Committee had uncovered new details about Altman's efforts to keep himself and White House officials informed of the RTC's investigation of Madison Guaranty S&L. The Senate committee had a special reason to double- check Altman's story: at a hearing earlier this year, he repeatedly told the committee that he knew of only one meeting on the RTC case between the Treasury and the White House -- on Feb. 2 of this year. Altman hewed to the line that the Feb. 2 meeting -- attended...
More revisions may be coming. Several Senators now report that Altman's interest in the Madison case began nearly a year earlier. Republican Senators who have reviewed the evidence say Altman asked RTC senior staff members on March 22, 1993, to keep him personally informed of "politically sensitive" cases. When that meeting concluded, RTC senior vice president William Roelle pulled Altman aside and informed him of the ongoing probe against Madison Guaranty. Two days later, Altman faxed a copy of a 1992 New York Times story on Madison and Whitewater to White House counsel Nussbaum. On Sept. 24, 1993, with...