Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 24, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 24, 1974 (1/2)
[00.24.35] [cut to DUKE in studio] DUKE repeats the information about the bomb threat. Notes that there is a parliamentary development of significance, that the #2 Democrat, Rep. DONOHUE, has made a motion for impeachment on 2 articles, first the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, second THE ABUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER. DUKE says that a third article, CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS, was added to the first at the last minute. DUKE says that this means that these two articles are now designated the primary business of the committee and must be voted before any other articles can be debated, serving as a voting test that will potentially color the debate on any other articles after the first vote. DUKE says that a factor in the drafting of this bill of impeachment was factionalism and a desire to get bipartisan support in order to make the effort seem less partisan. DUKE notes that there have been partisan fights about the language of the ARTICLES. LEHRER says that it could be useful to keep in mind that the 21 DEMOCRATS on the committee constituted a majority, but if a handful of REPUBLICANS join to recommend impeachment, then the resolution will have greater strength on the full floor of the HOUSE. DUKE says that he talked to a White House aide who said that losing five REPUBLICAN committee votes would amount to "losing the ball game". [cut to LEWIS] LEWIS announces that the room has been found clear of bombs, but that due to increased security after the BOMB THREAT, it will take a while to get everyone back in the room. [cut back to studio] LEHRER asks TUCKMAN whether she had comments about LEWIS'S previous interview with Rep. DANIELSON. TUCKMAN says yes, the issue of the bombing of Cambodia deserved some attention as a most reprehensible act, both for the action and for NIXON'S lies about the bombing, raising again the point of CONGRESS's responsibility to regulate war powers and to chech the President on such matters, a responsibility that has been neglected throughout the Vietnam era (a President-driven war effort from Kennedy through Nixon), citing Congress' abysmal abdication of responsibility over LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. DUKE says that Congress has approved a war powers bill to check the Presidential power to committ military activity (the Javitz Act). LEHRER notes that it has been the more stridently Anti-War committee members who raised the Cambodia issue. DUKE says that it is curious that a REPUBLICAN like SMITH would mention Cambodia, in effect opening an entirely new can of worms that was not likely to be at issue at all, giving encouragement to an Anti-Nixon faction, saying that he has heard no indication from anyone connected to the committe that the Cambodia bombing had any chance of being included in the Articles of Impeachment. TUCKMAN says that it is possible that Rep. SMITH felt strongly and sincerely that the bombing of Cambodia was very wrong. DUKE asks TUCKMAN about the fundamental dispute over what constitues an IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE, citing the wide and narrow views, either that a package deal of offenses can amount, in sum, to impeachability, or that impeachability can only come from a charge of a crime that would be a criminal matter in a court of law. TUCKMAN says that she's not a constitutional lawyer, but that her impression is that the core of impeachability is the abuse of power, meaning that a strict standard of criminality is not necessary. That the entire body of the abuse of the Executive Branch is adequate for impeachment. LEHRER interrupts to point out, for the sake of fairness, that in contrast to the Broad View endorsed by TUCKMAN, there is a more literal Narrow View which holds "high crimes and misdemeanors" in a literal sense. [00.36.20]