SENATE INVESTIGATORS WON`T ASK PRESIDENT TO TESTIFY IN BILLY CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200010094-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 94
• Publication Date: September 25, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Approved For Release 2007/03/22 : CIA-RDP99-00498R000:
:17" - , ' l .LL A.C'a L i D
o 1 AG i6 .4 1 -
THE WASHINGTON STAR (GREEN LINE
25 September 1980
Senate thves1igators Won't Ash
President to Testis in Billy Case
By Roberta Hornig
W ash:agton star Staff Writer
The Senate subcommittee prob-
ing Billy Carter formally decided
yesterday not to question President
Carter about his brother's Libyan
connection, either in person or in
writing.
? "The general consensus of the
committee is that asking questions,
of. the president should not be done
lightly and that it should be done{
only when we feel we need his re-
sponse," Chairman Birch Bayh, D-
'Ind., said after emerging from an
tiv
e
b
i
e
tt
e execu
comm
hour-long su
session. "There are no areas where
- Both Bayh and vice chairman
Strom Thurmond; R-.C., also said
that the subcommittee's report to,
the Senate, due by Oct. 4, will be an
interim one and not final as hoped.
e
"I am not sure we will - b
through," Thurmond said.
Special committee counsel Philip
Tone said, however, that he plans to
leave the committee Oct. 4 to return
to his law practice in Chicago, and
pledged that the report "will be as
complete as we can make it at the
time." "
Bayh said that' instead of ques-
tioning Presudent Carter, as the
committee initially said it would,
the subcommittee will have its staff
investigators submit written ques-
tions to the White House staff and
White House legal counsel Alfred
Moses. The idea, he said, "is to draw
loose ends together and to cover
areas that have 'noi'been fully
covered."
He said that President Carter may
`contribute to the 'answers but that
information would "be filtered
back" from the president only indi-
rectly through Moses.:
"There is no reason to believe the
president has information that
might be helpful," Bayh said, add-
, ing that the president has already
:answered most questions in the
"white paper" the White House
`released early last month outlining
'its involvement in'the Billy Carter
The leaders of the Senate probe
acknowledged that they cannot con-
sider their work finished until the
Justice Department completes its
investigation of Billy Carter - an!
investigation whose nature has not;
been disclosed. -' 1
But a "sanitized" declassified
transcript of a session the subcom-
mittee held with CIA Director Starts. field Turner on Sept. 7 reveals that
the Justice inquiry is based,.at least
in part, on a CIA tip.
According to the transcript, a
subcommittee member, Sen. Dennis
DeConcini, D-Ariz., asked Turner:
"Does your agency have additional
information- in relation to this
ongoing investigation . : at Jus-
tice.
Turner replied "yes," and re-
ported that he had turned over this
information to the Justice Depart-
ment.
"Now, are you prohibited from
discussing that with us also?" De-
Concini asked.
"Yes, sir," Turner replied, and
when asked why, he replied "be-
cause of source protection." .
The Turner transcript, released
by the subcommittee yesterday, re-
veals little new information in the
Billy Carter affair:
Turner was a key player in only
one instance. On March 31 Turner
turned over to President Carter's
national security adviser, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, an intelligence report
he had received five days before
indicating that Billy Carter was ne-
gotiating a lucrative oil deal with.
the Libyans on behalf of a U.S. oil
company-
- After receiving the information,
Brzezinski almost immediately tele-
phoned Billy Carter and told him he
was aware of the oil deal and that it
could be politically damaging to his
brother.
Most of the, questioning by the.
Senate probers involved the propri-
ety of the Brzezinski telephone call
-and inquiries about why.Turner
had chosen to give the information
-only- to Brzezinski and not to
federal law enforcement officials as
well ...... ' ,....'t ,. -
Turner told obviously skeptical
senators that he kept the report
from the Justice Department be-
cause he had no idea it was investi-
gating Billy Carter.
Tone asked Turner: "Do you be-
lieve your actions in that regard
might have been different if you
had learned that Billy Carter was
the subject of a foreign agents regis-
tration act investigation?"
Turner said that Tone's question
was "hypothetical" but said, "I be-
lieve that I would have acted differ-
ently."
At another point Turner said that
had he known of the Justice probe,
"I would have then appreciated that
.this did relate to a law enforcement
problem which was ongoing, and I
would have been sure that the attor-
ney general received it."
Justice Department investigators
on the Billy Carter case did not
learn of the oil deal on their own
until three months later.
Turner also said that he saw noth-
ing wrong with Brzezinski's relay-
ing the intelligence information to
Billy Carter. His insistence that
Brzezinski's action was proper dis
pleased some senators.:: .
A poll of the subcommittee mem..
bers last week showed that eight of
the nine members believed that.
Turner, Brzezinski and Attorney
General Benjamin R. Civiletti exer-.
cised bad judgment in their han-
dling of the Billy Carter case.
The Senate probers have a dead=
line of- tomorrows to tell the
subcommittee staff what conclu-'
sions they have reached up to now.
on the Carter case for the writing of
the interim report.
Meanwhile, Billy Carter was
again questioned yesterday by Sen-
ate investigators in his lawyer's of-
fice in Washington.
The lawyers attempted to jog'
Billy Carter's memory and to have'
him explain why so much of his
testimony differed from the testi-
mony of Justice and other U.S. offit
cials.
The biggest discrepancy was Billy
Carter's testimony under.oath that.
the entire $220,000 he received from.'
the Libyan government was part of
In July. Billy Carieraiad told Jus- J
lice investigators. that S20,000 was a
repayment of expenses he incurred:,