Lawmakers investigating Sen. Bob Packwood's sexual conduct are urging a federal court to seize his diaries now that a secretary claims he tampered with tapes used to transcribe his notes.
Describing their request as urgent, Senate lawyers said in legal papers Tuesday that "it is now apparent that the integrity of Sen. Packwood's diary tapes and transcripts is not guaranteed."The Senate Ethics Committee must "ascertain whether Sen. Packwood has endeavored to obstruct the committee's inquiry," the lawyers told U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson. Obstruction of a federal proceeding violates federal criminal law.
The committee is investigating allegations that Packwood made unwanted sexual advances to more than two dozen women, including Senate employees, and attempted to intimidate some of the accusers.
Jackson previously scheduled a hearing Thursday on the Senate's demand that Packwood end his defiance of a committee subpoena for the diary tapes and transcripts. That proceeding now will include the request for the court to take custody of the materials.
The assertion by Packwood's former Senate secretary, Cathy Wagner Cormack, that he had altered some diary tapes recalled the 181/2-minute gap in Richard Nixon's White House tapes that emerged during the Watergate scandal 20 years ago.
After the Watergate discovery, the Senate legal brief said, U.S. District Judge John Sirica asked the White House to voluntarily turn over the original versions of the subpoenaed tapes, for safekeeping by the court.
In addition to the Ethics Committee probe, the Justice Department also has subpoenaed Pack-wood's diaries as part of a criminal investigation. A Justice Department spokesman had no comment on whether federal prosecutors now would investigate possible obstruction of justice.
Elaine Franklin, Packwood's chief of staff, said, "We have no details" on the alteration and referred calls to Packwood attorney Jacob Stein, who did not return telephone messages.
Cormack told the Ethics Committee on Dec. 10:
"Subsequent to the initiation of the Ethics Committee investigation, the senator took back some tapes in my possession which I had not yet transcribed.
"At a later time, it appeared to me that he may have made some revisions to those tapes. Subsequently, he confirmed that he had."