Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
[00.38.55] Senator TALMADGE. Tell us why You didn't, report, this Dahlberg check from Florida. I don't, believe you got, it, until the 10th of April, did you? Mr. STANS. Senator, I covered that, in great detail yesterday; I will be happy to review it again today. Because I think it is important that everybody understand This Was a Contribution which was promised by Mr. Dwayne Andreas in -March and before, and in March he went to the trouble of getting the money in hand. Senator TALMADGE, I don't think you need to repeat that testimony because You made that clear. But how do you consider that it could avoid being reported when the check didn't get to you until the 10th of April, do you take the position that it, was constructively received before you got it? Mr. STANS. NO, Sir. I take the position that it qualified under the definition of the contribution of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, and I would like to read the definition to you. "The term "contribution" includes a gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value and includes a contract, promise, or agreement to make a contribution whether or not, legally enforceable ." Now, Andreas had made a promise, an agreement, to make a contribution well before April 7. He had not only done that, he had gone to the point of doing everything he could personally to make the money available as a contribution It was Clear to me and it was clear to lawyers with whom I consulted: that that contribution was received as a matter of law before April 7 even though it didn't come into our hands until the 11th and, Senator, the Department of Justice has agreed with us in a letter of January 11, 1973 from Henry Petersen, the Assistant Attorney General to Wright Patman. It says: The issue TO be resolved is when the gift became effective as a matter of law. From the evidence developed we are forced to conclude that for criminal purposes, at least, we cannot prove that This contribution had been made after the April 17 effective date of this act and, accordingly, have closed the matter. Now, Senator, I fail to find any basis for criticism in the handling of that transaction. I acted on the basis of legal advice and it turns out that my legal advice was good. Senator TALMADGE. You do not think a promise to contribute to a political campaign is legally enforceable, do you? Mr. STANS. No; but the statute says that it, does not have to be legally enforceable. Senator TALMADGE. I thought, the statute said the receipt had to be reported, even though the promise of the agreement does not have to be. Anyway, we will not argue about that further, but my certified public accountant would certainly hold me to a greater degree of accountability than you would, I believe. Mr. STANS. Let us go a little further into that, Senator, because you have it and I think it is important that this be understood. As of April 7, we had millions of dollars of commitments from people to contribute. Many of these had been solicited by Mr. Kalmbach as early as 1971. I could have, under a literal construction of this law, concluded that every one of those did not need to be reported when the money came in, because it was a commitment before April 17. But I adopted a very much stricter standard for the purposes of a accounting and it, was that only in the case of a commitment where the individual contributor had done everything possible to hand it to us would I consider it a contribution under the second part of this definition. Mr. Andreas had done everything. He wanted to make the contribution He had it in hand. He put it in a safe deposit box for Mr. Dahlberg in his name. It would have been very unfair to him, it seems to me, not to consider it so. Senator TALMADGE. I will not quarrel with you further about, that, Mr. Stans. You have been a man that, I have admired greatly over a long period of time. But it strikes me as being literally inconceivable that you could spend the largest part of your time worrying about pen labels and bumper stickers and not, worrying about what happens to large sums of cash that are being disbursed by these people for unknown causes, particularly when the law is clear on stringent reporting of disbursements. [00.43.42]