Interior Employees Give Boss Babbitt Big Pat On The Back He Promises Them He Will Fight Accusations ‘To The Bitter End’
Whistling, cheering and applauding, hundreds of Interior Department employees wearing hastily printed “friend of Bruce Babbitt” stickers greeted their embattled boss Friday in an emotional and defiant show of mutual support.
Babbitt, the interior secretary, had called them together in the department’s main auditorium to urge them not to be distracted by the investigation of him that is now to be prolonged by the appointment of a special prosecutor.
But the event seemed to boost his morale, too, as he told employees that he would fight the accusations against him “to the bitter end” and be vindicated.
Their loyalty, he said, “really makes a difference - thank you, thank you, thank you.” Again and again, they responded with prolonged standing ovations.
The crowd was on his side. Employees cheered him for speaking without a microphone when the sound system failed, and cheered again when a new microphone fixed the problem.
Afterward, Courtenay Miller, who works in an Interior Department scheduling office, said that Babbitt’s problem “probably makes you a little more cynical, but outside of D.C. this stuff doesn’t play. It’s not even a blip on folks’ screens. People are concerned about clean water.”
Babbitt called the continuing inquiry, involving accusations that he misled Congress about possible improper political influence over a decision about American Indian gambling, the result of “a corrosive, antagonistic, bitter culture that has settled over this town.” He said the news media and his critics in Congress had decided that “the facts are not enough” to sway their conclusions.
Conceding that he had sometimes been tempted to give up and leave office, he declared: “I never will. I’m here, and I am going to fight this out to the bitter end, and we will be vindicated.”
He urged Interior Department employees, who work for agencies like the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not to let his difficulties divert them from their mission. “Sometimes you are at an intersection at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and you get broadsided through no fault of your own, he said. “But we believe that what we do in this department, in public service, does make a difference.”
He offered no new explanation of his sometimes contradictory statements about the case, which will be investigated by a special prosecutor, requested on Wednesday by Attorney General Janet Reno.