*EPF301 05/22/2002
Transcript: White House Briefing, May 22
(Trade bill, Enron documents, Chandra Levy, September 11, Bush European trip, Berlin demonstrations, Bush Berlin speech, First Lady's arrival, Bush discussions with German Cancellor Schroeder) (2200)

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed reporters on Air Force One as they accompanied President Bush on his trip to Europe.

(begin transcript)

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (Berlin, Germany)
May 22, 2002

PRESS GAGGLE WITH ARI FLEISCHER
Aboard Air Force One En Route Berlin, Germany

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me just fill you in on a couple things on D.C., just so you know. The Senate vote is 68/29 in vote cloture on the trade bill. So the President is very pleased, and it looks like the Senate will shortly take final action on passage of trade legislation. This has been a long time coming. It's been a decade. This brings prospects for more free trade one step closer to reality. So the President looks forward to seeing the final vote, and he hopes that trade promotion authority will pass.

Senator Lieberman's committee, as expected, voted out on a party line today a subpoena of the White House for Enron documents. This was unnecessary; the White House has cooperated with Senator Lieberman. That's probably why this is a party line vote. Our cooperation has not been matched by the committee. And just even this afternoon, we're going to be providing additional information to the Senator's committee and they issued a subpoena without even having the chance to review the info that we're sending off.

QUESTION: You said you did provide this afternoon --

MR. FLEISCHER: Just this afternoon, we're sending additional information up.

Q: You said you're sending. You haven't sent it?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct.

Q: Are you going to send it --

MR. FLEISCHER: And they knew that before the vote.

Q: What's the material?

MR. FLEISCHER: What they asked for is information about White House contacts with Enron. And, as we know, we've released it to you, we've released to the press the memorandum from the Counsel's Office to White House staff with a series of questions on it. All that's been in the process of being compiled and being sent up to Senator Lieberman's committee.

Q: That is what is being sent up as we speak? The answers to a memo that we saw?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct. And our inquiry thus far has disclosed no instance in which Enron approached anyone in the Executive Office of the President for help prior to their bankruptcy.

Q: -- nothing?

MR. FLEISCHER: For financial help, in the EOP. And, again, the question was for financial help in the EOP. That's what the White House is looking into.

On the final item, just so you guys know this -- this is what's driving all the coverage right now -- I'll just read this to you straight from UPI. "Police said Wednesday they had found what may be human remains, including a skull which could possibly be Chandra Levy, the 24-year-old intern that disappeared more than a year ago. The remains were found in Rock Creek Park in a heavily wooded area in the middle of Washington not far from Levy's apartment."

I don't give you that for any White House comment; I just give you that as a courtesy. You're on this plane and you don't have communications.

Q: Why not on the front page tomorrow?

Q: What did it say? It said that they found --

MR. FLEISCHER: Just reading straight again from the wire, "Police said Wednesday they had found what may be human remains including a skull which could possibly be Chandra Levy, the 24-year-old intern, in Rock Creek Park." So that's just FYI to you guys.

Q: Back to trade, this is going to conference. What are the prospects in conference?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, first the Senate has to get final passage. But the cloture vote is an important step. And then -- this will be an important conference, a difficult conference, but a conference that's full of promise and hope. And the difficulty is that it passed in the House by one vote. So this will be an important, difficult conference. But the President believes that there's enough will there in both parties to get trade promotion authority passed and enacted into law. It's also one of these issues, having come this far, it's too important for members of Congress to let it fail. And that applies to members of both parties.

Q: -- said it might act. Is there a --

MR. FLEISCHER: Could be tomorrow.

Q: Could be tomorrow?

MR. FLEISCHER: They didn't vote cloture today, so now they have a few more amendments to go through. But it brings the debate to an end, in other words. We believe it could be tomorrow. Of course, the Senate schedule is Senate schedule. They're heading into a recess.

Q: You haven't heard anything from Daschle that said, we're going to vote tomorrow? There's been no --

MR. FLEISCHER: No, you know, the floor schedule for the Senate is always hard to handicap.

Q: Ari, what does the President think about criticism about this latest round of nonspecific warnings that have the appearance of being responsive to the controversy over potential mis-signals before 9/11? I mean, there's all kinds of information out there that's so general in nature, that it's very difficult for the government to do anything about it or for the general public to do anything about it.

MR. FLEISCHER: Keep in mind -- take what Secretary Rumsfeld said, for instance, yesterday, almost verbatim that had been said by other officials in open testimony on Capitol Hill prior to September 11th. So Secretary Rumsfeld was restating something that had been said repeatedly with no notice by the public or even the media prior to September 11th. So I think if he had changed what he said, that would have been news. That's been a longstanding position DOD has said in public testimony. I think July 11th was one recent testimony that I saw yesterday.

So the President will continue to rely on the judgments of the experts, experts in intelligence, experts in law enforcement, review information and make determinations about what information should be shared. Very often information is shared law enforcement agency to law enforcement agency. That's meant to be a private conveyance of information. Sometimes it doesn't always stay private. Nevertheless, we're an open society and the balancing act will continue to be found.

Q: Is the President now saying that in order for the government to cover itself and to avoid scrutiny that the best policy is just to do a data dump on the American people when it comes to intelligence information? Because, I mean, it has that appearance here, that we're getting this immediately after all the questions raised about why we weren't told about warnings before 9/11.

MR. FLEISCHER: I totally disagree with that. Why didn't the press cover in the same fashion on July 11th what they cover now? It also is part of the media environment, to be honest. The exact same statement almost verbatim given in July 2001 that Secretary Rumsfeld gave yesterday, of course, given more attention yesterday by the media --

Q: -- state of giving it, Ari? Was that the point of him giving it?

MR. FLEISCHER: If he's in testimony and the topic comes up and he's in a Q&A session or giving a discussion that's relevant, no one should expect the government to change its longstanding position, if that's what --

Q: But it wasn't a demonstration on the part of the White House to show us that, in fact, we are treating this information differently on this side of 9/11?

MR. FLEISCHER: The judgments will be made based on what the experts believe is the best way to share information. Always a judgment call. Always difficult calls to make. But those judgments will be made on the basis of -- by law enforcement officials and intelligence analysts.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the trip? What's he doing? Has he talked to anyone on the phone?

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't believe there's any calls with foreign leaders. He's going to look forward to his coffee tonight with the Chancellor. It's kind of an informal way to begin the trip. And he's got a busy agenda. I won't walk you through it all; you've heard it before.

Q: When you say he didn't talk to foreign leaders, was he talking to people back home? How did he spend the trip?

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't asked him who he made phone calls to.

Q: How otherwise has he spent the trip? Is he sleeping? Is he working out? Is he meeting --

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't asked him what he was doing up in his cabin when I the couple times I've seen him on the flight. Typically what he'll do is he'll read, may watch a movie, watch some TV, talk with staff. He did have a CIA briefing on the flight, the first thing this morning.

Q: Was this a regular CIA briefing?

MR. FLEISCHER: The regular CIA briefing was held aboard the flight early this morning.

Q: Is it written down or is it verbal?

MR. FLEISCHER: It's both.

Q: What does he think of the demonstrations that are taking place in Berlin and will apparently continue while he's here?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President believes that's part of a healthy democracy. These are how freedom-loving people express themselves.

Q: What about tomorrow's speech? What does he hope to accomplish?

MR. FLEISCHER: The Bundestag will reflect our shared values and vision with the people of Germany and the German government. It will be a message of how freedom triumphs. It will be a message of strength in the face of terrorism and thanks to the people in the government of Germany for their strong efforts. It will be a message of optimism, strength based on trade and the ties that bond the United States to Germany.

Q: Is he going to address any of these concerns in Europe that America is too unilateral in some of its actions?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think, just listening to the President's speech, people will hear how the President makes decisions based on principle and that involve a multilateral coalition. He'll talk about relations with Russia, a neighbor that Germany knows well a near neighbor that Germany knows well -- and how bilateral, multilateral our relations with Russia are, which strengthens Germany.

And as for the competition with Germany I mean, with Russia and Europe in terms of trade and the economy, the President believes very deeply that healthy competition is good for both sides of the Atlantic.

Q: Ari, the President mentioned he's never been to Germany. Just curious, why does he so infrequently schedule time for sightseeing?

MR. FLEISCHER: These trips are pretty action-packed with meetings. This trip will have a little bit of sightseeing. This trip will have at the Kremlin time to do a little sightseeing. In St. Petersburg, of course, on his visit he'll be going to the theater. He'll go to the White Nights presentation. So there will be a little room for it here. But these trips are mostly business.

Q: The First Lady is linking up with him. Is she at the hotel now?

MR. DICKENS: She will be awaiting us in Berlin.

Q: But not at the airport, at the hotel?

MR. FLEISCHER: I'll find out.

Q: I didn't see her mentioned in the stuff

Q: And what is the President having for desert tonight, do you know?

MR. FLEISCHER: Coffee.

Q: It's coffee and dessert?

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know. I don't know if he'll go through and make selections --

Q: Please, stonewalling on dessert. Okay.

MR. FLEISCHER: Why can't "I don't know" mean "I don't know"? I haven't gotten the dessert briefing.

Q: We don't know what we don't know.

MR. FLEISCHER: We don't know what we don't know.

Q: Get any sleep?

MR. FLEISCHER: I did. I took a nap for about an hour.

Q: Now we've got to try to get to sleep again.

MR. FLEISCHER: (Laughter.) Right.

Q: Are there any problems in the Germany trading off police in Afghanistan? It's sort of their mission.

MR. FLEISCHER: Any problems?

Q: No, I mean, is he going to discuss that with Schroeder? And is it going along smoothly?

MR. FLEISCHER: The war on terrorism and actions in Afghanistan will certainly be a topic.

Q: Germany has taken the lead role in trying to train an Afghan police force, just like we're taking the lead role on the army.

MR. FLEISCHER: Correct.

Q: As far as you know, the German operation is going along okay?

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't heard anything to the contrary. I'm sure it will be a topic that gets discussed.

Q: Has he been discussing the line "ich bin ein Crafordian"? Or is that (laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: I hope not.

Q: Will those demonstrators be anywhere nearby, do you know, Ari? Or how far out they're going to be? Will he see them?

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know.

Q: Thanks.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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