Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 1974 (1/2)
[00.26.05] [continued speech of Rep. LATTA, R-Ohio] The truthful answer is you don't, and I am not about to represent the good people of the 5th Congressional District of Ohio or the people in this great Nation that you can do otherwise. Everybody on Committee detests wrongdoing. No one condones it, and by their very nature such things have always been repugnant to me, and I would be the first in line to punish any wrongdoer. the President of the United States included, once he's found guilty. I have said before & I say now, show me the hard evidence that the President is guilty of the many serious charges being leveled against him, and I will show you a vote for impeachment. This evidence must be clear & convincing. It cannot be based on inferences. I cannot make articles of impeachment against the President by attempting to infer that he had knowledge of wrongdoing that was going on in his administration and yes, lo & behold, in the Committee To Re-Elect the President. which was composed of Democrats, Republicans & independents alike. Neither can we try to make him responsible under the old theory of principal & agent, as some of these articles are proposing. To impeach there must be direct Presidential involvement, and evidence thus far has failed to produce it. This makes it imperative that this committee not rush to judgment at this hour without the benefit of knowing what is in the 61 tapes that the, Special Prosecutor is to receive under this week's Supreme Court decision. I for one believe very deeply in one of the cherished, and previous cornerstones of American Justice, and that is that a person in America is considered innocent until proven guilty, Every American citizen including the President, is entitled to this presumption of innocence, and contrary to what I have heard said," it is not incumbent upon the President to prove his innocence. It is incumbent upon I his committee, if it goes to the floor of the House, to Prove, that he is guilty to the satisfaction of the members, and yes; over to the Senate if that arises. It was unfortunate during our deliberations that the American people were denied their right to listen to the few witnesses who all appeared before this committee by a party line vote & are now only invited to sit in on these hearings. They should have been permitted to listen to the tapes, expletives deleted, of course, in order that they could draw their own conclusions from the total conversation rather than from the bits and pieces extracted here and there to serve a particular purpose.Hopefully before this matter is finally resolved, this opportunity will be given to them. Before considering the charges being leveled against the President by his chief accuser. John Dean, we perhaps should check briefly his Credibility as a witness in several instances. Make no mistake about. it. John Dean came up with the answers to questions propounded by the Senate Watergate Committee from a good memory & even bragging about it, When he appeared behind closed doors before this committee, knowing that we had listened to the tapes & had the transcripts before. us, his testimony reveals that his memory was not good as it was in the Senate & he then apologized To us for not having a tape recorder memory. When Mr. Dean appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee, he stated his March 21 conversation with the President relative to paying attorneys fees & family support was left hanging In appearing before a closed session of this committee, he Indicated he might have discussed the matter with the President at an earlier date, but by so doing his testimony immediately came into conflict with testimony in the Senate that his friend, Mr. Moore, attorney at the White House had chastised him on the 20th for not going in & telling the President all the things he had been telling him. Mr. O'Brien then appeared before our committee & disagreed with Dean's testimony in several respects under questioning by this member, he disagreed with Dean's testimony on three different' places on 1 1/2 pages of transcript. John Dean admitted before our committee that he became involved in the Watergate coverup almost from the very beginning. He also testified before our committee that he did not see the President after the June 17 break-in until Sept 15, and that the President never gave him any instructions to cover up anything. He also testified before this committee that he authorized Caulfield to offer clemency to Watergate defendants, assisted Magruder in making a false statement & initiated an unsuccessful IRS investigation of certain individuals prior to his Sept 13 meeting w/ Nixon. Quite frankly, these hearings gave me more information on the President's chief accuser than I had previously had. Certainly during this committee's deliberations, one of the more important questions to be resolved was whether to choose to believe John Dean or the President. 8 of the 9 witnesses before the committee testified they had hot discussed acts of wrongdoing w/ the President. Here again, John Dean stands alone. In conclusion, let me say if the committee decides to recommend impeachment of the President, based on the wrongdoing of others, the evidence is here, and it is clear and convincing :-if the committee decides to recommend impeachment based on direct evidence of Presidential involvement in wrongdoing, the evidence is not here. The case is that Simple.
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 1974 (1/2)
[00.32.18] The CHAIRMAN. I recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Thornton, for purposes of general debate for a period not to exceed 13 minutes. STATEMENT OF HON. RAY THORNTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS Mr. THORNTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that everyone here in this room and throughout the Nation who has watched this debate. has been impressed with the fairness that the chairman has brought to these proceedings. and with the quality and the work that has gone into the comments of the various members who have spoken to us. As the gentleman from California, Mr. Waldie said earlier today, we are all conscious of the need to bring our best to bear on this question, conscious of how fragile our liberties are and how easy it is to abuse them or lose them. If these debates have done nothing else, I believe they have demonstrated that this committee has applied the work, the study and the concern which this grave problem requires us to give. For myself, last fall, after Mr. Cox was fired, and a inquiry was started, approached the problem with the hope that it would not be necessary to bring articles of impeachment against the President of the 'United States I started with the belief and the presumption of President Nixon 's innocence of the charges that had be been leveled against him. From. the beginning. I made my position clear that I would not prejudge this case, that it should be decided upon the law, the evidence, and not upon newspaper headlines or public opinion. For that reason, I have not conducted any public opinion polls in own district. I have read the letters that have come in. Those that come in and advocate impeachment do so with a sadness that recognizes the trauma of this process. And there are other letters that come from people who believe that the charges against the President are the result of a publicity campaign and perhaps some of these people will never believe anything else. I am happy to say tonight that most of the people in my State of Arkansas are law-abiding citizens who believe strongly in the rule of law of this country, and that all of the people of this country have an obligation to live by that standard of law, and that the leaders of this country have an obligation not merely to obey the, law but to set an example of justice and adherence to justice upon which our free Government must be based. As long as such people who believe in the rule of law are in the majority in this country, our free institutions are going to survive, and there will be no need to worry about personal political considerations when called upon to make a judgment such as the one, that we now have to make. There can be no national interest greater than the requirement that the public servants; must be bound by the laws that they make and administer. There can be no public policy which could be served by substituting for the permanent ideals of the Constitution the political expediencies of the day. This is not only applied the President's conduct, of his Office, it applies to each member of this committee as we make our decision. As Ms. Jordan indicated, it is a great privilege to serve our Constitutional system of Government. We now have a difficult task in this committee. But believe me. it is never easy to maintain a free Government. requires constant attention and diligence, and I believe it is a real privilege to serve in time of need. Now, all of us know it is clear that a President should never be impeached simply because of the unpopularity of his policies or ideas. It should be equally clear that the popularity of a President must never permit him to place himself above the law. The power of impeachment is not a substitute for the, political judgment of the people of this country. It is not a means to compel adherence to public opinion. It is not, in my view, a means of punishment, even. If used for any of these purposes, it -would be wrongly used, and might have the effect of placing out of balance the constitutional system of checks and balances which was designed to accommodate the mistakes and frailties of men as they go about their duties in the various offices they hold. You know, as I have reviewed the, many pages of evidence 'have been presented to its, and listened to the witnesses who have appeared before us, I could not help but observe that many of the, things that we, saw, the eavesdropping, the invasion of property, the dirty political tricks, these things had happened before.. It doesn't excuse them. But, they have, happened. Even violations of law such as been described in the evidence before us though they are rare in history they also have occurred. But, as I have reviewed the evidence and the testimony it has become. evident to me that while these offenses may have existed before, I know of no other time when they have been systematized, or carried on in such an organized and directed way.