July 14, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 14, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
1:59 P.M.
MR. MCCURRY: What do I have today? Nothing.
Q Trent Lott's accusations?
MR. MCCURRY: What was that about? That was politics,
pure and simple. (Laughter.)
Q An independent counsel --
MR. MCCURRY: The question is, Senator Lott's comments,
which I found if they weren't so flabbergasting they would be
somewhat amusing.
Q Wait a minute. Read slowly.
MR. MCCURRY: Mr. Lott said they had reached no final
conclusions, but they had reached five major interim judgments, which
struck me a little bit like Alice in Wonderland time -- you know,
verdict first -- sentence first, verdict afterwards, facts sooner or
later forgotten.
We've addressed these issues and made it quite clear
that the license waivers granted by the Clinton administration,
pursuant to a policy developed by President Reagan and first
implemented by President Bush, had been consistent with U.S. interest
and had been consistent with our desire to be competitive in the
global satellite and technology market.
And they've now had, I think, something like 18 hearings
on the Hill; they've got more scheduled. There will be
administration witnesses from Commerce, from Defense, from the
intelligence community, from the State Department who have testified
in excruciating detail about this matter and made it quite clear what
this policy is and what it is not.
And Senator Lott today tried to connect a lot of dots
that, frankly, don't connect. And our judgment here is that that was
not a serious statement by a serious person; it was a political
argument made by a politician for political benefit.
.............
Q Mike, you're not saying that Senator Lott is not a
serious person?
MR. MCCURRY: I'm saying that that statement today he
made on the Senate floor was not a serious statement.
Q By a serious person?
MR. MCCURRY: Well, he can be more serious and bring
more reasoned argument to a serious matter like this than he did
today.
................
Q Lott and others on the Hill have also said, on the
satellite question, that the administration has not been forthcoming
enough in terms of providing information to --
MR. MCCURRY: That is ludicrous. I just told you, they
have eight committees looking into this; we've cooperated with all
them, to my knowledge. We've given hundreds, if not thousands, of
pages of documentation to them. We've had top-level administration
witnesses explain in categorical detail the basis of the license
waivers given and demonstrated I think to their satisfaction that the
license waivers that have been granted by this President are
consistent with the policy pursued by the previous Republican
President. And I think Trent Lott is making politics and not making
serious judgments about the facts.
Q But does the President think the policy has given
the Chinese a leg up on the --
MR. MCCURRY: I think the President is confident that
the license that he's granted have not contributed to China's ability
to design, develop, operate, maintain, modify or repair satellite
launch vehicles.
.................
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