United States Senate Whitewater Committee Explained

The Senate Whitewater Committee, officially the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, was a special committee convened by the United States Senate during the Clinton administration to investigate the Whitewater controversy.

The committee was created by ^[1] on May 17, 1995, and approved by the Senate, 96-3. Hearings ran for 300 hours over 60 sessions across 13 months, taking over 10,000 pages of testimony and 35,000 pages of depositions from almost 250 people,^[2] and culminating in an 800-page final majority report on June 18, 1996.^[3]

The hearings did not receive much public interest:^[2] they were televised on C-SPAN, not the major networks; they were reported on in daily newspapers, but rarely made evening newscasts; media critics rated the hearings a "snooze"^[2] - and there were few dramatic moments of testimony, as D'Amato and Chertoff were unable to find any "smoking guns" for their case.^[2]

Some key figures of the Senate Whitewater Committee were:

• Al D'Amato (Republican - New York), chair
• Paul Sarbanes (Democratic - Maryland), ranking member
• Michael Chertoff - majority (Republican) counsel
• Richard Ben-Veniste - minority (Democratic) counsel

External links

• The Special Committee's Whitewater Report

Notes and References

1. "A resolution establishing a special committee administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to conduct an investigation involving Whitewater Development Corporation, Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, Capital Management Services, Inc., the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, and other related matters"
2. [David Maraniss]
3. Brian Knowlton, "Republican Report Stokes the Partisan Fires : Whitewater Unchained", International Herald-Tribune, June 19, 1996. Accessed June 30, 2007.