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Percy profusely apologized to Lance for causing him a Labor Day weekend of pain over the tax fraud reports—and fatuously claimed that he, too, had been appalled by the way the newspapers had interpreted his remarks. In fact, there was no other way Percy could have been read; he had, indeed, knowingly and quite precisely suggested that Lance may have intended to cheat on his income tax.
As the committee fell into a series of haggles, Lance and his recently acquired attorney, Clark Clifford (see box), watched with faintly hidden amusement. Later, Missouri Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton picked up the Lance line and harshly assailed Percy: "On September 9, Senator Percy gave every indication that Lance was a tax fraud cheat, and in his mellifluous tones he said well, you know, I am not saying directly that you are a tax cheat, I am saying inferences can be drawn therefrom. Yesterday, Senator Percy said, 'I apologize for any anguish I may have caused you over the weekend.' Marvelous! We're playing with a man's character and his decency and reputation here. The charge of being a tax fraud will linger around Mr. Lance for the rest of his life. We can't play so fast and loose with the reputation of any person, because all we take with us to our graves is our reputation. And in some measure, Mr. Lance's has been irrevocably tarnished."
More broadly, Eagleton raised another issue neatly fitting the Lance defense. Citing the "guilt by association" that characterized the red-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Eagleton charged that "here in 1977 we have a newer technique—guilt by accumulation—every day someone will hurl a charge at Mr. Lance and a little bit more mud gets on the character and reputation of Mr. Lance." He criticized Ribicoff and Percy for spreading the vague claim that Lance had been accused of new illegalities—but never revealing what they were. In a closed session of the committee, the two leaders briefed the other Senators on what they had found and, said Eagleton, he heard only rehashes of what had been in the newspapers.
Lance's case was also strong, when he denied that he had made any attempt to conceal damaging information from the committee during its confirmation hearings in January. He said that he had met with committee investigators on Jan. 13 and discussed his major financial troubles. They mainly concerned overdrafts in his accounts at the Calhoun bank; the overdrafts incurred there by his campaign committee when he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Georgia in 1974; and the agreement that the Calhoun bank reached with the Comptroller of the Currency in 1975, requiring, among other things, an end to all overdrafts by Lance, his wife and other relatives. Moreover, Lance noted, newspaper stories about a federal investigation into possible campaign-law violations by him had appeared before his confirmation; in fact, he had been asked about this at his initial hearing. He found it "somewhat puzzling" that Percy and Ribicoff later claimed they had not known about such matters.