Defense Counsel

IN August, staff from Rep. Dan Burton’s House Government Reform and Oversight Committee informally interviewed David Wang, a 1996 donor to the Democratic National Committee. Wang voluntarily confessed that he wrote two $5,000 checks to the DNC at the behest of John Huang and was reimbursed in cash the same day. But when Burton’s staff decided to depose Wang-i.e., to question him under oath in preparation for public testimony-the committee’s ranking minority member, Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), balked. “There is no need to impose further burdens on [Wang],” Waxman wrote to Burton. In addition, Waxman publicly decried the fact that Wang had been interviewed without a lawyer present.

Since informal sessions like the Wang interview-conducted not by Burton’s GOP staff, but by non-partisan detailees from the Treasury Department-are standard practice in any investigation, Waxman seemed extraordinary solicitous for Wang. But his attitude suddenly changed when Wang showed up to testify in October. Waxman sprang a sheaf of documents on him, including a letter he had gotten the night before from John Huang’s lawyer asserting that Huang couldn’t have been present at a meeting alleged by Wang. Waxman said Wang’s testimony “appears to be a fix,” and hammered him for alleged “immigration and tax fraud.”

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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IN August, staff from Rep. Dan Burton’s House Government Reform and Oversight Committee informally interviewed David Wang, a 1996 donor to the Democratic National Committee. Wang voluntarily confessed that he wrote two $5,000 checks to the DNC at the behest of John Huang and was reimbursed in cash the same day. But when Burton’s staff decided to depose Wang-i.e., to question him under oath in preparation for public testimony-the committee’s ranking minority member, Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), balked. “There is no need to impose further burdens on [Wang],” Waxman wrote to Burton. In addition, Waxman publicly decried the fact that Wang had been interviewed without a lawyer present.

Since informal sessions like the Wang interview-conducted not by Burton’s GOP staff, but by non-partisan detailees from the Treasury Department-are standard practice in any investigation, Waxman seemed extraordinary solicitous for Wang. But his attitude suddenly changed when Wang showed up to testify in October. Waxman sprang a sheaf of documents on him, including a letter he had gotten the night before from John Huang’s lawyer asserting that Huang couldn’t have been present at a meeting alleged by Wang. Waxman said Wang’s testimony “appears to be a fix,” and hammered him for alleged “immigration and tax fraud.”