Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 27, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 27, 1974 (1/2)
.[00.02.06] Mr. BUTLER. [quoting the WHITE HOUSE TAPES] HALDEMAN. Dean will not finger Magruder but Dean can't either-likewise, he can't defend Magruder. PRESIDENT. Well--- HALDEMAN. Dean won't consider [unintelligible] Magruder. [reading interrupted] The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will finish his sentence. Mr. BUTLER. Well, I will finish what I was reading of the statement by Mr. Haldeman in this quotation, if I may. But Magruder then says: [quoted section] Look, if Dean goes down to the grand jury and clears himself, with no evidence against him except McCord's statement, which will not hold up, and it is not, true. Now, I go down to the grand jury, because obviously they are going to call me back, and I go to defend myself against McCord's statement, which I know is true Now I have a little tougher problem than Dean has. You are saying to me, "Don't make up a new lie to cover the old lie." What would you recommend that I do? Stay with the old lie and hope I would come out, or clean myself up and go to jail'? The President, to Haldeman. "What would you advise him to do?" [end quoted section] The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. BUTLER. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California to speak in support of the--- Mr. WIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have started from an understanding of what the language is before us to be stricken, and I want to read the operative words, at least, These are charges against the President. mind you, approving, condoning, acquiescing in and counseling witnesses with respect to giving false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers, and so forth, including congressional proceedings, Note, if you will, that; the language is couched in terms or giving false testimony in the future. That is an important thing to remember because the perjury of Magruder and Porter occurred prior to March 17, well prior to March 17, and the., President did not learn about it until March 17, and so I ask the obvious question, can you counsel the giving of perjured testimony after it is already done? Well, the answer to that is no. The President is just learning about it, on the 17th, and a fair reading of the conversation between the President and John Dean on that occasion, my recollection is it is the 13th rather than the 17th, but on that occasion is that the President is learning about prior perjury as distinguished from counseling future perjury which is the essence of the allegation before us. In addition to that, my good friend has just read several statements from the transcript, of March 21 in which John Dean 'is speaking to the President and the President to John Dean about certain aspect 7 aspects of the, then unfolding Watergate case. The question is, which We have to decide and to decide on the basis of evidence convinced as we must be, that it is clear and convincing whether the President counseled anybody, to go before a duly constituted investigative agency and not tell the truth. I can only submit the record to you ladies and gentleman. Well, now, men and ask that you read it, again, those specific incidents called to our attention by Mr. Butler, and ask that, you read it fairly and resolve that question. Did the President indeed counsel anybody to commit perjury? Well, I call only, say, that I am satisfied, and I hope, that you -will be satisfied upon a rereading of that record, that the allegation is not true. There are other aspects, however, to this case which have been mentioned from time to time in the context of the President counseling false testimony. You will recall, ladies and gentleman, that there came a time in the course of this testimony when- we learned that the President advised various witnesses about what other witnesses were testifying to before grand juries, the assumption being that he was counseling them to phony up a story to counter the testimony which was then being received. I am talking specifically about Herb Kalmbach, and you are well aware of that situation Tom. I am also talking specifically about Magruder. The backdrop, of course. was that John Dean was then testifying before the U.S. attorneys. Magruder--strike that--LaRue, now a broken man, was offering testimony before the U.S. attorneys-The President said that others have to be advised as to that testimony, the implication being that they would concoct a story to lie. Well let me, within my remaining moments say that there are not less than two reasonable constructions to be drawn from that. One is that they phony up a story to lie. .Another is that they not lie, that they conform their story with that being offered before the attorneys so as to avoid a perjury situation, even unintentionally. The notion that someone should be advised about the context of someone else's testimony IF; wholly consistent, ladies and gentlemen, with developing the truth, and it is totally unfair I believe to suggest that that was part and parcel of a plot to develop the untruth. Now, we know here as the lawyers for the House that if you have these two reasonable possibilities, and I suggest that they are eminently reasonable, if you have these two reasonable possibilities, we solve that in favor of the President of the United States, the respondent, and not draw the adverse inference simply because some among us are relatively suspicions as to whatever the President does. One final comment and then I think my 5 minutes are up. Are they up now? The CHAIRMAN./ The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. WIGGINS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [00.08.44]