Excerpts From Impeachment Hearings:
Clinton's Defense
(12/8/98)
Excerpts from impeachment proceedings against President Clinton Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, as transcribed by the Federal Document Clearing House and provided by the Associated Press:
"The independent counsel had four years to investigate the president. This committee has had four months. The White House is now getting two days.
"There is no question that the president's conduct was wrong, that he misled the country and the nation, but I believe that the legal case against the president is not strong. Republicans have said that Democrats do not contest the charges. Well, we do." _ Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking minority member.
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"The legal case against the president is, in my judgment, a house of cards. The Judiciary Committee has heard from no factual witnesses to validate any of the charges. Instead, it is relying on uncross-examined, often contradictory grand jury hearsay to support an already weak case.
"That wouldn't satisfy any court of law, and it cannot serve as the evidentiary foundation for an impeachment. And even if these shaky allegations were proven true, they would not rise to the standard of impeachment, which requires the abuse of official power." _ Conyers.
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"The time has finally come for the president to make his case and to give his side of the story. Over the next two days, we will present to this committee, to the Congress and to the country as a whole a powerful case based on the facts already in the record and on the law, a powerful case against the impeachment of this president.
"During our presentation today and tomorrow, we will show from our history and our heritage, from any fair reading of the Constitution and from any fair sounding of our countrymen and women that nothing in this case justifies this Congress overturning a national election and removing our president from office." _ White House Special Counsel Gregory Craig.
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"As we begin this undertaking, I make only one plea to you. And I hope it is not a futile one, coming this late in the process: Open your mind; open your heart; and focus on the record." _ Craig.
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"By the close of tomorrow, all the world will see one simple and undeniable fact. Whatever there is in the record that shows that what the president did was wrong and blameworthy, there is nothing in the record in either the law or the facts that would justify his impeachment and removal from office." _ Craig.
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"As an attorney, I must caution this committee to draw a sharp distinction between immoral conduct and illegal acts. Just as no fancy language can obscure the simple fact that what the president did was morally wrong, no amount of rhetoric can change the legal reality that there are no grounds for impeachment." _ Craig.
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"Mr. Chairman, I am willing to concede that, in the Jones deposition, the president's testimony was evasive, incomplete, misleading, even maddening _ but it was not perjury." _ Craig.
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"There can be no more solemn or awesome moment in the history of this republic than when the members of the House of Representatives contemplate returning an article of impeachment against the president of the United States. There can be no more soul-searching vote in the career of a member of the House of Representatives than when he or she considers impeachment of the president of the United States." _ Craig.
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"The phrase `high crimes and misdemeanors' is not a familiar one in modern American jurisprudence. Common law constituted a category of political crimes against the state, and neither high crime nor high misdemeanor have ever been terms used in the criminal law." _ Nicholas Katzenbach, former attorney general.
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"If we think of it in political _ not partisan _ political terms, impeachment is designed to provide the legislative branch with a method of removing a person from office whose conduct is so egregious as to justify reversing the process by which he was appointed or elected.
"It seems to me clear that in our system of separation of powers this cannot mean simply disagreement, however sincere, however strongly felt, but either the decisions of judges or the policies of the president. It must be some conduct, some acts, which are so serious as to bring into question the capacity of the person involved to carry out his role with the confidence of the public." _ Katzenbach.
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"Is the conduct of the president such that he should be removed from office because as a consequence of that conduct the public no longer has confidence that he can perform the duties of that high office?
"Remember, impeachment is a political process, a political remedy to preserve confidence in that political process, not to punish a perpetrator." _ Katzenbach.
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"I strongly believe that the weight of the evidence runs counter to impeachment. What each of you on the committee and your fellow members of the House must decide, each for him or herself, is whether the actual facts alleged against the president, the actual facts and not the sonorous formal charges, truly rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
"If you believe they do rise to that level, you will vote for impeachment and take your risks at going down in history with the zealots and the fanatics." _ Sean Wilentz, professor of history, Princeton University.
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"If you decide to do this, you will have done far more to subvert respect for the framers, for representative government, and for the rule of law than any crime that has been alleged against President Clinton, and your reputations will be darkened for as long as there are Americans who can tell the difference between the rule of law and the rule of politics." _ Wilentz.
