By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; D01
One after another yesterday morning, 10 of the 14 people summoned by Congress to testify about their role in a spying scandal that has rocked Hewlett-Packard Co. spoke into the microphone and invoked a constitutional right against self-incrimination: the Fifth Amendment.
Pleading the Fifth isn't unprecedented in a congressional hearing. Executives from Enron to WorldCom to Qwest Communications have all exercised the right in front of lawmakers in recent years. And lawmakers have grown accustomed to it.
"As a former lawyer myself, I cherish the right of witnesses to invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. It's one of our important constitutional provisions," said Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee that conducted yesterday's hearing.
"But it's very difficult for us in Congress to have an investigation where all the witnesses come in and, at the very last minute, inform the committee that they're invoking their Fifth Amendment rights," she said.
Legal experts say that it's often advantageous for witnesses in potentially criminal cases not to testify because it could create a legal trap for them later.
"There are a lot of potential pitfalls in congressional testimony," said lawyer Michael Levy, who represented some of the Enron Corp. executives in hearings. "An officer or director in a publicly traded company has to weigh the known employment risks of asserting the Fifth, versus the unknown risks of testifying" and potentially giving investigators information that can be used against them in a criminal probe.
In some cases, witnesses -- some of whom are now in federal prison for their roles in scandals -- should have exercised the right, DeGette said.
However, during yesterday's hearing she said, "when you haul in a whole panel of people like this just to have them take the Fifth Amendment, I think it's a waste of the committee's time and resources, and I think it's a waste of the witnesses' time and resources and legal fees."
The first 10 witnesses were called before the committee together and sat next to each other at a long table. As each was asked a specific question about the scandal, each exercised the right to not answer.
Ann O. Baskins, who was the company's top lawyer until she suddenly resigned yesterday morning, was the only one of the first 10 to answer a question. She confirmed her resignation and then respectfully declined to answer questions.
Later in the day, four others -- including former chairman Patricia C. Dunn and chief executive Mark V. Hurd -- answered the subcommittee's questions.
DeGette said she hoped that future hearings would not begin in a similar fashion. "I would hope we could work with witnesses in the future to prevent this kind of action," she said.
Staff writer Mike Musgrove and staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
