Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers (D - Alabama).
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers
Peter Rodino (D - New Jersey). The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Flowers, is recognized for 4 minutes. Walter Flowers (D Alabama). Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and colleagues. I have voted for two articles of impeachment here because I was clearly convinced that they should have been supported, and that the evidence and the facts justified each, although I had a great deal of reluctance. Now, here in this instance I am just as clearly convinced, and I do not have any reluctance whatsoever in voting against Article III. And I Seriously, seriously ask that my friends on this side and the two lonesome ones on the other side that that appear to be voting for it, and it is kind of lonesome over here on this side, opposing all I ask that you consider what we are doing here. And let us not kid ourselves. If this article were standing alone and I think that is the way we must look at it, but if it were standing alone, would we be seriously thinking about impeaching the President of the United States for this charge alone? I honestly think not. I honestly think note. Now, there may be some that disagree with me, but I honestly think not for the majority of this committee. And I do not see how we can possibly approach it in any other way. Perhaps we ve been too imbued with our new found power. We ve been thinking too much about the House having the sole power of impeachment. I do not know what, but I just think this is too much to impeach the President, too much for me to consider impeaching the President of the United States for. It s just not sufficient. Now, here are the kind of things that run through my mind, and again this is me. At some point, at least to me, there is a question of whether the President must comply with a subpoena issued by this committee. I think that at some point that the President, the Chief Executive has an opportunity to raise the issue of whether or not he has already given enough evidence. I don t think we anywhere near approached it in this instance, but we did what we had to do to insulate our charge of not doing what we had to do.
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers
Secondly then, we have not elevated this to the level of an impeachable, offense by either going to the House Floor or going to the courts, as my colleague from Illinois, Mr. Railsback, suggested. In this particular, you might argue that we are putting the cart before the horse. I think as my colleague from Arkansas has suggested, it would be better placed in either Article I or Article II that we have already voted on. I probably would oppose it as an inclusion, but it would certainly more likely lie in one of those articles.
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Statement of Representative Walter Flowers
Now, one of our colleagues has quoted President Polk in 1846 this morning and I think that is carrying it a little bit too far too. President Polk was talking in the abstract about a matter and it seems to me like he was trying to avoid the issue. You couldn t seriously argue that if President Polk were about to be impeached that this language would mean that he was going to go ahead and comply with the subpoena. That was not the case that was put to him and I just do not think we can carry it that far. This situation may be what I was talking about the other night when I said that some people think there are too many lawyers on this committee and I appointed myself without objection as the representative of the non-lawyers and the public. I have heard somebody say since then that I was best qualified to do that. In any event, my friends, please reconsider what you are doing here. Does it stand on its own as an impeachable offense? I think not. And I firmly oppose this article of impeachment offered by my friend from Illinois. Robert McClory (R Illinois). Would the gentleman yield? Peter Rodino (D - New Jersey). The time of the gentleman has expired.