Rep. Dan Burton Discusses Elian Gonzalez, the Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the 2000 Census
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: I'm Robert Novak. Mark Shields and I will question the leading Republican investigator in Congress.</s>MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: He is Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.</s>JANET RENO, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yesterday, Mr. Gonzalez came to our country to be reunited with his son. Today, we move forward with that reunification. Early next week we will give the relatives instructions on when and where Elian is to be turned over to his father.</s>SHIELDS: Congressman Dan Burton, listening to the attorney general, following the news, it appears that the resolution of the Elian Gonzalez case will end up where you don't want it to end up, the repatriation, reunification with him and his father going back to Cuba. The rule of law will prevail. There have been voices in the Cuban-American community in Miami and outside of it, suggesting that there should be forceable resistance to any court order and the implementation of it. What do you say to those people?</s>REP. DAN BURTON (R-IN), GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT CHAIRMAN: Well, I think the rule of law ought to be followed. There should be law order and no civil disobedience. The reason I took issue with Janet Reno's decision is because as a boy I went through child abuse, saw my mother beaten and I was beaten. And I thought all the facts concerning Elian Gonzalez should come out in a domestic court where child custody cases are decided. And that's the reason I took the position I did.</s>SHIELDS: Given the fact that 1,500 American children each year are kidnapped and taken to other countries, usually by relatives, does the rule of law in this case make sense?</s>BURTON: Well, the attorney general has the right to revoke the amnesty, if you will, for Elian Gonzalez and send him back. But I still maintain that we don't know all of the facts about the father, why the mother died on the high seas trying to come to America with boy. And I still maintain that it would be better to have it decided in a court of law like other domestic cases are handled.</s>NOVAK: Are you out of options in Congress right now on this case, being realistic?</s>BURTON: Oh, I think so. The only option that could happen would be if somebody would push a permanent resident bill in the Congress like Connie Mack or somebody and get that passed in a very short period of time. I don't think that's likely. So, I think that Janet Reno's decision probably will stand.</s>NOVAK: On the broader aspect Mr. Chairman, all the polling data indicates that the American people are losing confidence in the desirability or the effectiveness of embargoes on Cuban trade. Surprisingly to some, a majority of the American people want the boy returned to Cuba. Do you feel there is a loss of American support, voter support for the policy that you have advocated in the Helms- Burton bill which codifies the embargo on Cuba?</s>BURTON: Well, President Clinton wanted to normalize relations back when the Helms-Burton law was pending. And he said he would veto it. And when the two planes were shot down with Americans aboard by Soviet Migs, flown by Cuban fighter pilots, all of sudden he had a politically untenable situation facing him.</s>BURTON: And so he agreed to sign the Helms-Burton law, but he has never lost his ardor, desire, to normalize relations with Cuba. And I think he's using this opportunity right now to further his goal of normalizing relations with Castro.</s>NOVAK: But I asked about the American people. What do you think they want?</s>BURTON: Well, I think the American people are getting a very strong pro-Cuba view from members of the media. And I don't think they're getting all the facts. People don't realize that Fidel Castro takes the money and doles out to the people who work in American institutions down there, about one-seventy -- one-seventieth -- of that in Cuban currency. And so people who get $400 a month from companies that work there, only get $10 a month to live on. It's a very repressive society, but that fact is not getting out to the American people.</s>NOVAK: Well, one more point on that, Republican Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a leader of the Cuban-American community, saying that this is all a -- this whole Elian affair is an attempt to undermine public support for the Cuban-American community, public -- to instill public dislike for that community and therefore undermine the Helms-Burton law. Do you think that's the case?</s>BURTON: I think that's a strong possibility and the president I think is trying to further that although he's not out front. You will notice that the lawyer that defended him in the Lewinsky matter, is also the lawyer for the father of Elian Gonzalez.</s>NOVAK: Greg Craig.</s>BURTON: Yes. And I don't think that's a coincidence.</s>SHIELDS: Mr. Burton, just to a point (inaudible), the majority of the people don't want Elian sent back; the Americans don't want him sent back to Cuba, want him rejoined with his father. And that was -- obviously goes back to given the choice of his staying here or staying in Florida -- staying here or staying in Cuba...</s>BURTON: Let me just make one thing clear. I am not opposed to the boy being with his father.</s>SHIELDS: OK.</s>BURTON: But I think that all the facts need to come out in a court of law because I don't know, he may have been abusive father. Why did the mother risk coming to America on the high seas? I don't know. We need to know that.</s>SHIELDS: We do know that he had primary custody of the child, and that was the case in Cuba. But in returning to that, your party -- and you've led very forcefully -- criticism of the Castro regime. Yet, at the same time the other surviving communist country in the world, China, is embraced by Republicans. Overwhelmingly they are pushing for Most Favored Nation status. They just can't get enough of China. They think it's a wonderful market. They see 1.3 billion consumers. Now isn't there a certain inconsistency and contradiction on the part of Republicans when you have led this fight and you have been strong on criticism of China as well, but the Republican Party can't get enough of the repressive regime in Beijing.</s>BURTON: Well, I have voted against almost everything for communist China because of the repression over there, the 10 million people that are in slave labor camps, making tennis shoes and everything else and the human rights violations and the imbalance in trade. There is a myriad of reasons why I don't think we should give permanent MFN status and WTO status to China. But a lot of my colleagues see it differently on both sides of the aisle. Now regarding Cuba there is a difference. Cuba is 90 miles from our shores. Castro has been supporting revolution forever. He did it in Grenada. He did it in Nicaragua. He did it in El Salvador. He did it in South America. And for that reason I think people feel like that here's a person who is a dinosaur that needs to be eliminated so we have complete democracy in this hemisphere.</s>SHIELDS: Just to ask you this though, Cuba is not selling nuclear weapons to rogue nations. Cuba is not firing missiles across the Taiwan Straits. Cuba is probably less of a formidable threat you would agree I think, than is China.</s>BURTON: Yes.</s>SHIELDS: ... to the U.S. than the Zhiang Zemin leadership.</s>BURTON: Oh, I think that's probably true, Mark. The problem is I think Fidel Castro, if he gets an opportunity, will continue to try to export revolution, the revolutionaries throughout this hemisphere.</s>NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, on this program about two weeks ago, one of your colleagues, Republican Congressman John Kasich of Ohio, was asked about your investigations of the campaign scandals of the Clinton administration. And this is what his response was. Let's take a look at it.</s>REP. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), BUDGET COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I don't like to tell chairmen how to do their work. And I was just on TV saying I like Dan Burton. I just don't want any more stories about this. This president is leaving office. Let's just get on with it. And I just -- I'm tired of all this.</s>NOVAK: What's your response to that sir?</s>BURTON: Well, my response is that I have high regard for John Kasich and I disagree with him because if somebody broke the law, if somebody took campaign contributions from communist China, Macao, Indonesia, Taiwan, Egypt and so forth, which was illegal, they should be held accountable to the law for breaking the law just like any -- like you or Mark or anybody else. And my responsibility as chairman of this committee that does investigations is to ferret out waste, fraud, abuse and illegal activities in the government and oversee that. And I am not going to curtail my investigation until we get some final results.</s>NOVAK: Just quickly, John Kasich also said he would advise George W. Bush in his campaign for president, not to bring up the campaign scandals. Your opinion?</s>BURTON: Well, I think parts of it inevitably are going to come up...</s>NOVAK: Do you think it's good to bring it up?</s>BURTON: Well, I think the Hsi Lai Temple is inevitable -- yes, I think it should come up because there's some activities there that need to be clarified.</s>NOVAK: We have to take a break and when we come back, we'll ask Dan Burton who is his next target by the House Government Reform Committee.</s>SHIELDS: Dan Burton, my partner has called you the leading Republican investigator in Congress and there's statistics to back it up. You have personally issued as chairman of your committee 900 subpoenas in terms of the investigation of the vast campaign finance reform. Ninety-nine percent of them have gone to Democrats. How can you justify that when in fact Fred Thompson's own committee in the Senate, a Republican of impeccable credentials, said this was a bipartisan -- yes, Clinton-Gore was primary, but this was a bipartisan scandal.</s>BURTON: We have asked for and received information from Republican sources involving -- in the campaign finance scandal. And they have volunteered it. They have given it to us without the necessity of subpoenas. We have subpoenaed some documents. But the large number of subpoenas should be put into proper perspective. For instance, if we have one individual we're trying to get information from, we may subpoena his credit card records, his phone records, his bank records and there maybe several banks involved even overseas. And so as a result, one person may have 20 or 30 subpoenas because you have to get all the facts to make the case.</s>SHIELDS: You said publicly in order to be credible as chairman and investigator you had to be fair.</s>BURTON: Yes.</s>SHIELDS: And yet congressional scholar Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute said this of your hearings on campaign scandals. "The Burton investigation is going to be remembered as a case study on how not to do a congressional investigation and is a prime example of investigation as farce."</s>BURTON: Well, all I can say is that everybody is entitled to their own opinions. We are committed to getting the facts out to the American people on the illegal campaign contributions coming into the Clinton campaign from Indonesia, from communist China, from Macao, from Taiwan and so forth. And I think the American people have a right to know those things. I also think that people who broke the law ought to be held accountable and come to the bar of justice.</s>SHIELDS: And those people -- including Republicans?</s>BURTON: Yes. And as a matter of fact, let me just tell you that the biggest fines levied against people who broke the finance laws, have been against Republicans, two fines that I know of, one was for $8 million, one was for $6 million. And yet Charlie Trie and John Huang who were leading characters in the campaign finance scandal, one got a $5000 slap on the wrist; the other got a $10,000 slap on the wrist and community service time. Now contrast those two. When Huang and Trie brought in millions of dollars and these other people brought in thousands.</s>NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, your committee has asked for the full report about Prosecutor LaBella recommending an independent counsel in the Clinton campaign scandals. Most of that report has been leaked and published. What do you expect to learn from it that you don't know now?</s>BURTON: Well, there's parts of that report -- both to those -- that have been redacted. My counsel on my committee and my legal staff have gone over and read the LaBella and Freeh memos and I believe there's some very important information to come out about the president, the vice president, Harold Ickes, and the first lady, that's in those reports that has not come out. And I think they're very important and relevant to our investigation.</s>NOVAK: In regard to the missing e-mails that we talked about at the beginning of this interview, what -- do you have a target? Is there a high level official in the Clinton administration that you really think covered up these e-mails?</s>BURTON: Well, Chuck Ruff was the president's counsel at the time, and these e-mails started missing in September of 1996 when the campaign scandal was really reaching its peak. They found out about the missing e-mails in 1998. Five people from the Northrup-Grumman company were involved in keeping track of these e-mails. When they brought these to the attention of Ms. Crabtree, and Mr. Lindsey, one of the counsels to the president, they were threatened, three of them with possible jail if they told anybody about it.</s>NOVAK: But you're not blaming President Clinton for this one specifically?</s>BURTON: No, I'm certainly not. But I will tell you this, that a message was sent to his chief counsel and they did nothing. And we had to find out about them by accident. It should have been given to us two years ago, and the independent counsels because these e-mails could be relevant to a whole host of investigations.</s>SHIELDS: Mr. Chairman, on the CBS broadcast "Face the Nation" you charged that the Clinton administration was using the IRS to conduct audits in prosecution, persecution -- however you want to do it -- to harass their political foes. And yet a three-year investigation, bipartisan -- just concluded by the Congress has established that there was no political skullduggery, influence in any IRS audits. I mean, do you withdraw that charge now?</s>BURTON: I really don't recall making that charge. If you could cite exactly what I said...</s>SHIELDS: Sure, October 1997, "Face the Nation."</s>BURTON: I would like to see what I said.</s>SHIELDS: OK, would be happy to do that.</s>BURTON: But I will tell you this that the Justice Department has obstructed and I believe illegally, obstructed congressional investigations for the past three-and-a-half to four years. And I think Janet Reno is blocking for the president.</s>SHIELDS: Tell us this -- put on your fair hat for a second -- what one initiative of President Bill Clinton's nearly eight years in office, do you most admire?</s>BURTON: Oh, I admire his signing on to the tax cuts. I admire after vetoing twice, his signing on to the welfare reform bill. There's a number of things that I think...</s>SHIELDS: What about an initiative of his?</s>BURTON: I think most of the things that he's accomplished have been reactions to Republican initiatives in the Congress, although he takes credit for them and does a good job of it.</s>NOVAK: All right, just a short time before we take another break, but Mr. Chairman, your committee is still going ahead with more investigations into the Waco massacre. But the Justice Department has just named former Senator John Danforth, Republican, a very respected man, to look into it. Why can't you rely on Senator Danforth to make a fair investigation of this problem without your committee getting involved?</s>BURTON: Well, our committee is charged in the House with investigating things where there's illegal activity that may have happened. The Justice Department and Janet Reno had a memo back when we first investigated four years ago, five years ago, and that memo has 49 pages and when the committee got it, it had only 48 pages and the 49th page showed that incinerary devices were used in Waco. And they left that off. And they tried to blame Louis Freeh for withholding that information from Congress when it was Janet Reno.</s>NOVAK: Do you have confidence in Senator Danforth's investigation?</s>BURTON: I do but I also believe that there's things he may not be looking into that we are. For instance I have hired two floor tape experts to look at those floor tapes in addition to who he has.</s>NOVAK: Just quickly we have to take a break and when we come back we have "The Big Question" for Dan Burton.</s>NOVAK: And "The Big Question" for Chairman Dan Burton. The Congress approved two years ago detailed questions to be asked in the census and that came under the jurisdiction of your committee, I believe. In view of that, do you recommend that that American people who get the long form on the census should or should not answer those questions?</s>BURTON: Well, I think if they have the time and can they should answer all the questions. It's pretty much the same form that we had 10 years ago. But I will say this. If they just answer the first six questions, and don't have time the answer the others, that will still be a big help as far as letting us know where people live and where we ought to be getting the...</s>NOVAK: So, it's an option you think then for those?</s>BURTON: Well, I wouldn't say it's an option. And my subcommittee chairman Dan Miller who handles the census would be better qualified to answer this. But let me just say that I think they ought to return the census form and if they don't answer all the questions, they ought to answer at least the first six.</s>SHIELDS: You're a strict constructionist Mr. Chairman. The census is mandated. It's one of the few things that the founding fathers said we had to do every 10 years. You're telling the American people to be indifferent to it?</s>BURTON: No, no, no. I'm saying they should send it back. I'm saying if they don't have the time...</s>SHIELDS: Fill it out?</s>BURTON: Yes. There's two forms. There's a short form which has about six or eight questions that are very important to finding out where people live so we can send money equally divided based on population of the various states for various purposes -- education and so forth. But also the long form goes into more detail just like it did 10 years ago which bothers a lot of people, myself included. I think it should be shortened. I think it will be shortened in the future. So, if people don't fill it out completely, I think they should fill out at least the first part of it.</s>SHIELDS: We will be back with a comment. Thank you very much for being with us Congressman Dan Burton.</s>BURTON: Thank you Mark.</s>SHIELDS: Thank you. Search CNN.com CNNSI.com CNNmoney.com The Web