agree with the decision, if it is to give the gentleman the opportunity to make that background statement. I think that what this committee has before it is a simple task, and I think the simple task is, did the judge have a fair trial, did he have an opportunity to be heard, did he have counsel, did he have a chance to appeal, were the appellees heard and rejected, and is he now in jail?

I think it is a fairly simple situation that we have, and I think that to go beyond that very narrow-which the gentleman, our chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin, clearly conveyed to Judge Claiborne, to his attorneys and, therefore, they were prepared for that kind of an inquiry, it seems to be unnecessary.

But, again, if the chairman feels like it is necessary to make that step, I won't make any official protest, but I don't think it is a decision which has to be made.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. FRANK. I move the witness be given 2 hours in which to make such presentation without prejudice to the subcommittee's decision as to the proper scope of this inquiry. If I may speak briefly, I think many of us share the views of our friend and colleague from Kentucky as to what the appropriate scope of our decisionmaking should be, but given that the witness, on behalf of Mr. Claiborne, has expressed an interest in going beyond that, I believe that in the interest of the broadest procedural latitude, we ought to do that. I think we should make clear we don't mean by this to set any precedent as to what is or is not relevant. The subcommittee took a decision under your leadership.

I don't think in allowing the witness whatever latitude he wishes to take we ought to in any way be interpreted as going back on our decision.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Does the 2-hour time limit include the time for questions by members of the committee?

Mr. FRANK. Yes; it does.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The gentleman from California.

Mr. MOORHEAD. I would be interested in knowing how long the witness feels it would be necessary to make an adequate presentation in the case, if I could have that information.

Mr. GOODMAN. May I answer?

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Yes; of course.

Mr. GOODMAN. If I were to go through each and every detailed allegation which we have made to support our position of Government misconduct and prosecutorial abuse, it could conceivably take 2 days.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. What is the minimum time required, I think the gentleman▬▬

Mr. GOODMAN. I am going to try to do it within the 2 hours. Mr. MOORHEAD. Do you feel the committee is treating you fairly if you have 2 hours to make the presentation?

Mr. GOODMAN. I think if the committee has before it the record of the proceedings in court

Mr. MOORHEAD. Which we do.

Mr. GOODMAN. Including our latest filing, which has not yet been ruled upon, which is called the motion to vacate judgment and sentence for evidentiary hearings and for discovery proceedings which were filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Nevada, and you make yourselves familiar with these particular pleadings, then I am being treated fairly.

Mr. MOORHEAD. If we do not have that, would you offer that?

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The chair is informed we do have that. We have a copy of that.

Mr. GOODMAN. Very good. That is our latest-

Mr. FRANK. If the gentleman would yield, let me say, as in any case, I believe the 2-hour rule, in conjunction with the documents, be more than adequate, but if we should decide some line of inquiry needs to be pursued, we ought to have the option of extending, although I anticipate that.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Under the conditions the witness feels it would be adequate to make that presentation, I will support the motion. But I am very interested that this be considered a fair hearing and that he does have adequate time to make his statement.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. I am ready to put the question, then. The question is on the motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts. All in favor say "aye"; all opposed, "no." The "ayes" have it. We will proceed on that basis. I will further say to the witness that failure on examination, or on questions and answers to address any particular aspect of your presentation does not constitute_agreement with it or accession to that which is said, because I don't think we will be necessarily able to cover all aspects. That I think is understood.

Therefore, at this point, Mr. Goodman, you have the rules of the House and the rules of the committee at the witness table, and I will ask you to proceed under oath as all other witnesses have. [Witness sworn.]

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Please be seated, and it is now 3 o'clock. You may proceed. We will presume to conclude this around 5 p.m.

Mr. GOODMAN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. This is a strange procedure for me because I have never appeared before such an august body at one time, and I want you all to know that I, when we received the invitation to attend these proceedings, we were honored, and we were pleased with the opportunity to be invited here to present our position, even within the limited context that the letter set forth, limiting it to a discussion of the two tax counts of which Judge Clairborne was found guilty. We believed at that time, though, that it really would be unfair to this subcommittee for you to proceed against Judge Claiborne based on the mere fact that he was found guilty, because this case, at least in our opinion, has been different than any other case that either Judge Claiborne in his many many years as a trial attorney and a judge, and myself in over 20 years of practicing law, have been exposed to.

We have made serious allegations along the way, the allegations were those that Judge Claiborne, as a trial lawyer in Nevada, who specialized in the defense of persons accused of crime, developed a reputation of a fighter, of a maverick, and along the way made enemies. I am sure many of you can appreciate that being in politics,

that there are two sides to every question, two sides to each issue, and Judge Claiborne, as a criminal defense attorney, was representing people who were unpopular in the State of Nevada.

One of his last offenses before he went on the bench was representing a child molester who was ugly in stature, who was hated by the entire community, who was in the newspaper every day, and Judge Claiborne went forward and defended him as vigorously as he knew how.

When the FBI began to investigate Judge Claiborne, the trial judge who handled that case indicated Judge Claiborne had made misrepresentations to the trial court in obtaining bail after this child molester had been incarcerated.

From that point on, there seemed to have been a trail by the Federal authorities concerning Judge Claiborne and Judge Claiborne's supposed fitness to become a Federal judge because he represented people who were unpopular, and he fought tooth and nail with governmental authorities.

He did become a Federal judge, in September 1978, and as a Federal judge, and this is important to know, he was respected by members of both the prosecution as well as the defense, as well as the citizens of this country, who stood before him charged as criminals, because Judge Claiborne gave all sides a fair trial, and then it came time for sentencing, he was a stern sentencer and members of the prosecution who appeared in front of him in the years took the position uniformly that Judge Claiborne was a prosecutionminded judge, a fair judge, the kind of judge who should be sitting on the bench.

That was the general attitude on the part of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas, NV. In 1980, an FBI Agent came to Las Vegas by the name of Joe Yablonsky.

Joe Yablonsky came to Nevada with a mission, and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Joe Yablonsky, when he came to Nevada, indicated that he was going to get Judge Claiborne's head on a silver platter, and he was going to get other people, too.

And believe it or not, there were political hit squads, as strange as it may seem, set up between Yablonsky representing the FBI and an overzealous sheriff and his adjuncts, where they targeted people in the Las Vegas community.

And the primary target

Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? It looks like we are going to have a vote here. Let me just ask the questionMr. KASTENMEIER. The gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. MAZZOLI. When a representative of the Government testified, he referred constantly to book, page, and verse, document data, page references, document numbers, in order to set the background. At this point, the gentleman who is at the witness table today speaking of people who are going to get somebody's head and out to get them, and political hit squads, I mean, would the gentleman from Wisconsin suggest that the gentleman who is our witness today document, at least made reference to factual data, or do we have a tale spun today which might have editorial comment, might have personal communications woven into it?

Mr. GOODMAN. If I may respond?

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Yes; would you respond?

Mr. GOODMAN. Congressman Mazzoli, these allegations have been made and are part of the court record. They are allegations which we made in our motion to dismiss.

Mr. MAZZOLI. You refer to them then? This political hit squad, where does that come from, where does Yablonsky, about handing somebody his head, is that in the record?

Mr. GOODMAN. It is in the record under our motion to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct.

Mr. MAZZOLI. The fact appears in a brief-I don't want to make a point of it, Mr. Chairman, but it seems to me they are operating at two different wavelengths.

If we ask the U.S. attorney to document and make a presentation, we are entitled to a factual presentation. What appears in the brief could very well be your own comment, not so much data. The gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DEWINE. My question would be to follow up on his question, is there testimony to this effect?

Mr. GOODMAN. It is my recollection, Mr. DeWine, Joe Conforte when he testified during the first trial, indicates that there was some discussion with Yablonsky, indicating that Judge Claiborne's head would be on a platter.

Mr. DEWINE. Whose testimony?

Mr. MAZZOLI. Conforte's stuff isn't even before us.

Mr. FRANK. Would the gentleman yield? I would hope within the 2 hours we might get questions toward the end. I wonder if we might do what we often do in cases like this, which is to note we would extend to anyone mentioned adversely in this testimony an opportunity to respond as part of the record.

That might be an appropriate way for us to proceed. I think it is often done in other situations, and that might alleviate some of the concerns if anyone is adversely mentioned.

Mr. MAZZOLI. Just 1 second, and I will yield to my friend from Wisconsin. The point is not to worry about Joe Conforte's reputation or Joe Yablonsky's reputation. My point is to say we are operating on two different sets of rules, one for the U.S. attorney and one for you.

I think we are having editorial comments, biases, that I am not sure appeared in the early record.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I think your point is absolutely correct. We are seeing the danger of opening this up beyond the scope announced. If there are statements that need to be rebutted by those whose reputation might be defamed by what Mr. Goodman is telling the committee, this will further drag on these proceedings and we will have an endless query into all kinds of issues completely unrelated to Judge Claiborne's fitness to continue serving on the bench.

Mr. FRANK. I said first, we did adopt a motion which said the witness could proceed the way he thought appropriate. Second, I suggested leaving the record open, not because I think those things would be relevant to our consideration, but in case anyone was worried about a record which made some unfair allegations.

I don't think leaving the record open in that case would necessitate any delay in our decisionmaking.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The Chair would make two comments. We are, and this is one of the purposes of being in executive session. This is an embargoed record at this point.

Two, I would like the witness with respect to attempting to document or ascertain a source in a record-not precisely-I realize you do not have the page numbers or anything of this sort.

But when you give a characterization involving an individual, if you will at least cite from what proceeding and whether such a matter or allegation was made public or put on a record, that would be helpful to the committee to ascertain that this is not something new or whether this is just conjuncture or characterization by you as a person.

Mr. MAZZOLI. I think my friend from Ohio put his finger on it, it ought just be in your brief, but should have testimony that had a chance to be impaired at time of trial, not because you have heard these things, and they wind up in your brief.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. We have a live quorum. The Chair intends for us to continue since it is only a quorum call. Members of course can excuse themselves and answer the quorum call if they elect. In my case, I do not intend to answer this quorum call. We will have a vote perhaps in 30 minutes or 40 minutes. It is with that in mind that we will-

Mr. FRANK. That will not come out of his time, the time for voting. I would interpret the motion when we recess to vote that will not come out of the time for the witness.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. I think in all fairness, that would be the case. We expect that to be a 15-minute process. We will not recess, however, during this quorum call.

Mr. Goodman.

Mr. GOODMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In an attempt to satisfy the request that the matters be documented about which I am addressing, the first documented act that we believe constitutes governmental misconduct concerns the prosecution of one Eddie LaRue. Eddie LaRue was a private detective who worked in Las Vegas, NV, and had been a private detective for some 25 years, and he had done work for Judge Claiborne when he was a private practitioner in Las Vegas, NV.

In 1980, Eddie LaRue became the target of an FBI investigation. Now this is documented in an affidavit of Eddie LaRue dated May 2, 1980, attached to the motion to vacate the judgment and sentence to which I have made reference. And Mr. LaRue was charged with certain offenses involving illegal wiretapping.

But, prior to that, the investigation into Mr. LaRue concerned itself with the fact that the Federal grand jury was investigating him for doing illegal wiretapping for Judge Claiborne when Judge Claiborne was a private practitioner of whom somebody Judge Claiborne was associated.

Mr. LaRue said that was not the fact; that was never the case; he never engaged in illegal bugging activities, and certainly no illegal bugging activities on behalf of Judge Claiborne.

The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, the same division that prosecuted Judge Claiborne, came out to conduct the prosecution of Eddie LaRue, just a little private citizen in Las Vegas, NV, and they prosecuted him for the wiretap.