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Record

Hearing

1949-08-18

Congressional Record (Bound Edition), vol. 95, pt. 9, Senate, pp. 11699-11703, via govinfo

Congressional Record, Senate, 18 August 1949: Representative Busbey's additional views to House Report No. 2441 on the "Capone gang paroles"

During debate on Tom C. Clark's nomination to the Supreme Court, Senator Ferguson had printed Representative Fred E. Busbey's additional views from the Seventeenth Intermediate Report of the House Expenditures Committee. Busbey lists what the subcommittee examined, including the dismissal of a mail-fraud indictment and the reduction of tax liens on two of the men.

Date
1949-08-18
Kind
hearing
Source
Congressional Record (Bound Edition), vol. 95, pt. 9, Senate, pp. 11699-11703, via govinfo
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
The Congressional Record, printed by the Government Printing Office. A work of the United States Congress, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

The bound Congressional Record for 18 August 1949, Senate section, read from the text layer of the govinfo PDF. The text layer interleaves the printed columns, so only short phrases are quoted.

During debate on the nomination of Attorney General Tom C. Clark to the Supreme Court, Senator Ferguson of Michigan (the Record prints “Mr. FERGUSON”) identified a statement by Representative Fred E. Busbey as part of the Seventeenth Intermediate Report of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Eightieth Congress, second session, House Report No. 2441. He said it is about the hearing “on the so-called Capone gang paroles.” Senator Connally objected, but the views are printed as Exhibit 1 in the bound Record.

Busbey reprints his telegram of September 8, 1947 to Attorney General Clark demanding “a full explanation regarding the parole from Federal prison of Paul Ricca alias DeLucia, Louis (Little New York) Campagna, Philip D’Andrea, and Charles Gioe.” He lists matters the subcommittee examined: the transfer from Atlanta over the warden’s protest, the dismissal of “the mail-fraud indictment against the men seeking parole,” and income-tax liens against two of the men that “were reduced from approximately 70,000 to 28,000.” He records Paul Dillon’s testimony that he “was paid 0,000” for one appearance before the Parole Board, and the testimony of Maury Hughes that he “was paid 5,000 for obtaining the dismissal of the mail-fraud indictment.”

These are one member’s additional views, written during a contested nomination. His allegations against named officials are his own and are not findings. His tax figures differ from Hoffman’s 1947 figures for Campagna alone (86,877 compromised for about 9,000); each is quoted with its source. House Report 2441 itself was not found online, and the mail-fraud indictment and its dismissal were not found in a court record.

itemCongressional Record, House, 28 November 1947: Representative Hoffman, "The Parole of Four Capone Gangsters"The chairman of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments reports on his subcommittee's inquiry into the August 1947 paroles: hearings in Chicago on 25 and 26 September 1947 (508 pages of transcript) and in Washington on 7 October, paroles granted "just 37 days" after eligibility, a tax compromise, and the Atlanta warden's 1945 letter against the transfer.itemKefauver Part 5: testimony of U.S. Attorney Otto Kerner, Jr., on the parole grand jury (5 October 1950)In executive session at Chicago, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois described the grand jury that heard Campagna, Gioe, De Lucia and D'Andrea on "the manner of obtaining their paroles," and Accardo's visits to Leavenworth under the name Joseph Bulger. Printed pp. 182-196.itemHiatt v. Compagna, 178 F.2d 42 (5th Cir. 1949)The Fifth Circuit reversed the Atlanta court on 10 November 1949 and remanded Campagna and Gioe to the warden's custody. It records that after the 1947 paroles "Unfavorable newspaper publicity followed" and a congressional investigation; Judge Waller dissented.