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
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
Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Mr. Stans, was it the attitude of your committee and the attitude of your attitude that the American people are not entitled to know who is making political contributions to influence the election of the President of the United States? Maurice Stans. Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me, I d like to answer that in some detail, drawing partially on my testimony of yesterday, at which part I believe the chairman was absent. The laws in effect, prior to April 7 relating to candidates for nomination did not require any reporting of any kind, did not even require any bookkeeping. We kept a lot of books nevertheless. Beginning with April 7, they did require that all contributions be reported and we made an honest and total effort to see that that was done. But with respect to people who contributed before April 7, there were two parties in interest: there was our committee and there was the contributor. Our committee didn t care whether those names were disclosed or not. But we felt that we did not have the right to waive the contributor's privacy. If he wanted to tell how much he gave, that was his right. But it was not our right to say how much he had given unless he wanted to. Now, we were confronted with a political situation at the time which some of the candidates for President had release the names of their contributors and we had to consider whether we wanted to do the same thing. We met. We considered it. And we decided that we did not that we were not going to give away the rights to privacy of the individual contributors who had helped in the campaign. That was our decision.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). In other words, you decided that the right of the contributors to have their contributions concealed was superior to the right of the American citizens to know who was making contributions to influence the election of the President of the United States. Maurice Stans. We did not evaluate it in those terms. We evaluated it in the terms that it was the Congress of the United States in 1925 that gave the option to a contributor to remain anonymous and that we had no right to give away his anonymity.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Well Mr. Stans, do you not think that men who have been honored by the American people as you have, ought to have their course of action guided by ethical principles which are superior to the minimum requirements of the criminal laws? Maurice Stans. I do not have any quarrel with that, but there is an ethical question in whether or not I can take your money as a contributor with an understanding on your part that you are entitled to privacy in that contribution and then go around and release the figure to the public. Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Well all the law said, as you construe it, as your counsel construed it, was that you didn t have to make a public reporting of these contributions. The law didn t require you to destroy the records of those contributions, did it? Maurice Stans. Mr. Chairman, the law did not even go that far. The law did not even require us to keep all any records during that period of time, on the advice of my attorney. Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). But the law didn t require you to destroy the records you did keep. Maurice Stans. No, of course not. That would be a silly proposition.
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Well, do you think that men who exercise great political power, as you were exercising and as a former Attorney General of the United States was exercising and as other people engaged in this committee work that they ought to disregard the ethical principles and say they have fulfilled their full duty to the American people as long as they keep on the windy side of the law? Maurice Stans. Senator, I haven't said that and I would not say it. I m saying that I think we have to balance one ethical principle against another, the right of privacy of an individual as against the right of the public to know. The Congress recognized that there is a problem that s why it passed a new law. There was no reason that I know of why we should have anticipated the date that law was effective. The Congress, Mr. Chairman, gave us 60 days after the law was effective to operate under the old law. Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). You had an old law which required you to report contributions, didn t you? Maurice Stans. Only the case of a general election
Watergate Hearings: Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 13, 1973 Testimony of Maurice Stans
Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Well, Mr. Stans, you were soliciting and collecting millions of dollars in campaign contributions, is that right? Maurice Stans. Yes, I did. Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Some of the people you solicited were even your friends, weren't they? Maurice Stans. Yes, of course Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). Don't you feel some obligation to them to take an interest in what was happening to the money they contributed? Maurice Stans. Well, of course I did. Sam Ervin (D - North Carolina). In view of your position as finance chairman, didn't you think that these people were relying on your taking an interest in what happened to their money at least to the extent that it was used for legal campaign purposes? Maurice Stans. I think they had every right to assume that I would not do anything in contravention of the law.