Robert Dole, R-Kansas
United States Senate, August 6, 1993
(Congressional Record, p. S10797)

Lawrence Walsh

Mr. DOLE. Madam President, it used to be said that death and taxes were the only two certainties in life. But after nearly 7 years on the job, we can now officially add independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, to this list.

Since December 1986, Mr. Walsh and his army of lawyers have destroyed reputations, harassed families, run up a tab of more than $40 million, even left top-secret documents behind at an airport taxi stand.

But like the Energizer bunny, Lawrence Walsh keeps going and going and going, apparently, without any sense of remorse for the mean-spirited witch hunt he has led for nearly 7 years and counting.

Since last December, when President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Cap Weinberger, Lawrence Walsh has spent nearly 8 months drafting his so-called final report. According to press accounts, this report has now been filed with the court of appeals here in Washington.

Although not yet publicly available, the Walsh report is no doubt a self-serving testimonial to the heroics of the Independent Counsel's Office, and even worse, it has been paid for by the American taxpayer.

Over and over again, Lawrence Walsh has failed in the courtroom of law. And now, desperate to revive his own sullied reputation, he is apparently seeking success in another venue -- the courtroom of public opinion.

It is never easy for a prosecutor when he loses a case. But when the not guilty verdict is read, a prosecutor normally picks up his briefcase, hopefully learns from his mistakes, and moves on to the next file.

He does not spend 8 months, at taxpayer expense, writing a report, memorializing his own efforts and blasting the very people he failed to convict, an approach I suspect Mr. Walsh takes in his just-completed, but still secret, final report.

And Lawrence Walsh is not the only culprit. Much of the blame lies with the independent counsel statute itself, which requires the IC to submit a final report -- without any limitations on time or expense, and with few restrictions on the permissible scope of the report.

Madam President, the Senate will have the opportunity to fix the independent counsel statute when we consider its reauthorization, probably in September.

But these fixes will be little consolation for the good men and women who have fallen victim to Lawrence Walsh's selfish crusade to enhance his own professional reputation.

June 27, 1995

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