Wednesday, March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today delivered a statement before the committee regarding his opposition to the Democrat proposal to create a "truth commission" to investigate the Bush Administration. Below are excerpts from Sen. Cornyn's remarks, as prepared for delivery:

"I oppose the creation of a so-called 'truth commission' because it is a redundant and politically divisive exercise that would distract the Executive, Congress, and the American people at a time when we should be focused on reinvigorating our economy and winning the war on terror. This roving, unaccountable inquisition into each and every grievance with a Bush Administration policy is a backward-looking proposition that is directly at odds with President Obama's stated goals of unity and moving forward.

"Perhaps the most striking feature of the various 'truth commission' proposals is their seemingly boundless scope…{which includes} many of the most well-tread oversight topics in the history of the United States Congress.

"I asked my staff to take a sample of the oversight hearings on these subjects conducted by various Senate and House committees, including this one. Their sample-which I ask be made part of the record-found that Congress has:

held more than 150 oversight hearings on the above subjects;

logged more than 320 hours of witness testimony in unclassified settings;

transcribed more than 3,200 pages of witness testimony; and

printed more than 17,000 pages of unclassified, publicly available reports.

"These numbers do not include hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of hearings, Nor do they include the voluminous transcripts and valuable time taken for dozens upon dozens of staff depositions and interviews concurrent with this oversight.

"The proposed 'truth commission' would do little more than duplicate years of congressional oversight-not to mention the numerous Executive Branch investigations and related litigation, investigation and prosecution.

"I believe that reasonable-minded proponents of this legislation will digest these facts and numbers and conclude, as I have, that Congress has done anything but shirk its responsibility to perform oversight over the past eight years.

"It is worth noting that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is about to begin its own comprehensive inquiry into detainee interrogation and treatment by the CIA. Senator Feinstein, who chairs SSCI and also sits on this Committee, might be wondering why proponents of the 'truth commission' would rather outsource her committee's inquiry to an 'independent,' 'fair,' and 'nonpartisan' body. And if her committee can be all of those things—independent, fair, and nonpartisan-which I believe it can, then why should Congress appropriate a dime of taxpayer funds for a 'truth commission' to study the same subject?

"President Obama has stated that he is more interested in looking forward than looking back. I would urge my colleagues on the other side to consider the precedent that would be set by creating such a commission-and what it implicitly says about the institutional competence of Congress. Now is not the time for government to waste more of taxpayers' money by outsourcing a core congressional responsibility."

Source:

http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ForPress.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=d3b61259-802a-23ad-4cce-d52951b548bb