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Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
Impeachment Hearings. House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974. Cambodia Bombing Article of Impeachment
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.08.20] Mr. RAILSBACK. It seems to me ironic that when the Ellsberg papers came out the Nixon administration was concerned about that leak not because they revealed things that had happened under the Nixon administration, but, because of the decision and policy decisions that had been made under the Johnson and Kennedy years. What an irony and how foolish we would be, to impeach this President for that particular incident, when the whole South Vietnamese involvement was one series of mistakes, one right after the other. The CHAIRMAN. I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Sandman, for' 3 minutes and 4.5 seconds. Mr. SANDMAN. -Mr. Chair-man, I would like to address my remarks to the 37 other members, and I would just like. you to remember one little thing that I am going to say to you. Do you want to be remember as part of that Congress that tried to impeach a President of the United States because he did something which ended a war that his two predecessors could not do? That is a pretty good question. And I said yesterday that one of the closest admirers that the previous President had I think was myself. I thought he was a great man. I can remember when President Johnson. the first year was down here, invited 40 freshmen to come over to the Oval Office and sit down with him. And it was at that particular time that he was making up his mind to accelerate the bombing. I know that history is going to be very unkind, in my mind, to 'what was a great man and a great President He revealed to us the advice that he had received from all of the generals, General Westmoreland and all of the rest of them all on one piece of paper with their recommendations, and he said to us, you know, I never -went to West Point, I am not a general, and he said I don't know as we have any generals in this room or any West Pointers either. But, these are the best military minds in the world, and I want. you to look at their advice to me as the Chief Executive, and on every piece of paper, about 40 of them, the recommendation was to accelerate, and he said, what would you do, I am asking you. There was not one that gave a dissenting opinion. There were 40 people in that room besides the President and every one of them a Congressman. and hindsight is always better than foresight, isn't it? And a -Monday morning quarterback could made a better guess, I suppose, but based upon the best information available the President acted. It was not the right decision, as time revealed, and he is not going to go down in history as a man who did a very good job with that war. I remember when he, made his farewell address over in the Longworth Building, and I guess everyone does too, a very sad man, a brokenhearted man because on his conscience was the death of thousands of people, and the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else in the world -was to end that war and he could not do it. Then along came Richard 'Nixon with all of the faults that he may have had. He ended that war. One-half million people were in Southeast Asia when he became President. Fifty thousand Americans lost their lives there, and nobody is dying in Southeast Asia today. And so we want to reward him by impeaching him because he did not. tell everybody what he was going to do before he did it. And this is an awfully funny way to run a war, isn't it? Concealment. Every war is run on concealment. You do not tell the opposition what you are going to do before you do it. I voted for or the war powers amendment and so did everybody else. It is a good thing. But, let us not forget the commencement of activities in Vietnam was the 81st time an emergency power was exercised by a President. And I say to you, let us not be remembered because we want to reward this man by throwing him out of office. The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. [00.13.07]
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.19.25] The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Flowers, is recognized for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Mr. FLOWERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't object to the fair air consideration of this, I will say to my friend from Michigan, I only object to anybody voting for it. This is a bad rap for President Nixon and we ought to recognize it as that. Let's remember what the President's purpose was in Vietnam or Southeast Asia, and it was to get us out of there and let us remember those advisers that advised him in the early spring of 1969 earned their stars under President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, if you will. I don't intend to demean the author of this article in any way and I honor your conscience, Mr. Conyers, and those others who join in this effort. But by the same token, you all don't have a corner on conscience in this or *in any consideration we have here and by the same token my conscience dictates to me that I speak out against this article of impeachment. We might as well resurrect President Johnson and impeach him posthumously for Vietnam and Laos as impeach President Nixon for Cambodia. How many articles of impeachment were filed against President Johnson for what he had done in getting us into the war in Southeast Asia? I don't recall that any were. I was not a Member of Congress during his administration. We might as well resurrect the Memory of John Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs. President Eisenhower had his U-2 incident. President Truman in Korea. I don't know. We could go back almost throughout history, and remember the Alamo. I don't remember who the President -was-but Davey Crockett may have been a, member of CIA. Congress has acted. We have passed the war powers limitation bill and I believe that is action setting forth our judgment on this situation. We don't need to spell it out any further. We, ought to vote this down by a large margin. I notice when you say Vietnam a certain number of people still jump up. Let's see if they do on this. I hope not, because this is a bad rap for President Nixon and I call on all members of this committee to vote against this article. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mann, is recognized for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Mr. MANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is unfortunate that the relationships between the President and the elected representatives of the people in Congress have deteriorated down over these 198 years to the point that the President cannot confide in the Congress and that Congress -whose duty it is to declare war. That situation exists, ladies and gentleman and it exists today. And we look ourselves straight in the eye and decide -what can we do about it? To further exacerbate that problem by recriminations for past conduct is not the answer, unless we can attribute to that President a motivation that is treasonous, and none of us would do that. There is no neat way to fight a war and the judgments made under those circumstances can only be viewed in the light of history and the judgments of Congress as it failed to declare war. What were we doing in Vietnam without a declaration of war? Appropriating funds, tacitly approving the commitment of troops. We have lately undertaken a definition of the powers, the, respective powers of the President, and the Congress, and so we should. And we should refer to article I. section 8 of the Constitution and see that there responsibilities upon the Congress with reference, to the operation of our armed services. To make rules for the government and regulations of the land and naval forces and other powers. So let us direct our attention to improving and restoring those rules and regulating regulations, those relationships, those trusts, that will not cause us to engage in a confrontation when that important item of national defense or national security is involved. [00.24.52]
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.47.58] The CHAIRMAN. The time, has expired. All time has expired, and the question now occurs on the article as offered by the gentleman from Michigan. All those in favor of the articles, please signify by saying aye. [Chorus of "ayes."] The CHAIRMAN. All those opposed? [Chorus of "noes."] The CHAIRMAN. The noes appear to have it. Mr. LATTA. Rollcall. Mr. Chairman. Mr. CONYERS. Rollcall. The CHAIRMAN. A call of the roll is demanded and call of the roll is ordered, and the clerk will call the roll. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye when their names are called. and all those opposed no. And the clerk will call the roll. The CLERK. Mr. Donohue. Mr. DONOHUE. No. The CLERK. Mr. Brooks. Mr. BROOKS. Ave. The CLERK. Mr. Kastenmeier. Mr. KASTENMEIER. Ave. The CLERK. Mr. Edwards. Mr. EDWARDS. Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Hungate. Mr. HUNGATE. Aye. The, CLERK. Mr. Conyers. Mr. CONYERS, Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Eilberg. Mr. EILBERG. No. The CLERK. Mr. Waldie. Mr. WALDIE. Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Flowers. Mr. FLOWERS. No. The CLERK. Mr. Mann. Mr. MANN. No. The CLERK. Mr. Sarbanes. Mr. SARBANES. No. The CLERK. Mr. Seiberling. Mr. SEIBERLING. No. The CLERK. Mr. Danielson. Mr. DANIELSON. No. The CLERK. Mr. Drinan. Mr. DRINAN. Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Rangel. Mr. RANGEL. Aye. The CLERK. Ms. Jordan. Ms. JORDAN. Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Thornton. Mr. THORNTON. No. The CLERK. Ms. Holtzman. Ms. HOLTZMAN. Ave. The CLERK. Mr. Owens. Mr. OWENS. Ave. The CLERK. Mr. Mezvinsky. Mr. MEZVINSKY. Aye. The CLERK. Mr. Hutchinson. Mr. HUTCHINSON. No. The CLERK. Mr. McClory. Mr. McCLORY. No. The CLERK. Mr. Smith. Mr. SMITH. 'NO. The CLERK. Mr. Sandman. Mr. SANDMAN NO. The CLERK. Mr. Railsback. Mr. RAILSBACK. 'NO, The CLERK. Mr. Wiggins. Mr. WIGGINS. No. The CLERK. Mr. Dennis. Mr. DENNIS. No. The CLERK. Mr. Fish. Mr. FISH. No. The CLERK. Mr. Mayne. Mr. MAYNE. No. The CLERK. Mr. Hogan. Mr. HOGAN. NO. The CLERK. Mr. Butler. Mr. BUTLER. No. The CLERK. Mr. Cohen. Mr. COHEN. No. The CLERK. Mr. Lott. Mr. LOTT. No. The CLERK. Mr. Froehlich. Mr. FROEHLICH. NO. The CLERK. Mr. Moorhead. Mr. MOORHEAD. NO. The CLERK. Mr. Maraziti. Mr. MARAZITI. NO. The CLERK. Mr. Latta. Mr. LATTA. No. The CLERK. Mr. Rodino. The CHAIRMAN. No. The CLERK. Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. The clerk -will report. The CLERK. Twelve members have voted aye, 26 members have voted no. The CHAIRMAN. And the article is not agreed to. The committee -will be recessed until 8 o'clock this evening. [00.51.46] [cut DUKE in studio, offers recap of the day's session--this is the end of the broadcast, the daytime session broadcast on tape delay after the evening session] DUKE says that the third proposed article, for defiance of Committee subpoenas was passed, while a fourth, for misleading Congress and the public about the BOMBING of CAMBODIA was defeated. At the night session, a fifth and final article citing TAX FRAUD was defeated. Jim LEHRER says this is it for the Judiciary committee, scene shifts to the full HOUSE for a vote there. If the HOUSE debate is to be televised, NPACT will be there. Signs off. [title screen "Impeachment Hearings"--NPACT screen--PBS network ID] [00.53.34--TAPE OUT]
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.30.58] Mr. DRINAN. Those who want the Congress 'to stand up in the future will say, I am never going to allow another President to ratify the concealment from the Congress of basic facts and give to the Congress false and misleading statements about anything domestic, about anything foreign, especially about bombing operation-, in a neutral nation. I hope that all of us will say with Jerry Friedheim that we knew at the time it was wrong and we are sorry. The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Seiberling, has 3 minutes and 45, seconds. Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find myself in agreement with the arguments of the proponents of this article on the issue that gave rise to it and that issue is the falsification of information, the misleading of Congress, the failure to consult Congress on a matter as grave as an act of war. On the, 19th of March 1969, President -Nixon approved the secret bombing of Cambodia and ordered that information on it be limited to those who had an absolute need to know. A Year later, in April of 1970, the President made this statement in a public address to the Nation: "American policy has been to scrupulously respect the neutrality of the Cambodian people." That statement -was a bald lie. Now, as Father Drinan has said, the heart, of this issue is the secrecy, the falsification. of information, and thereby the deprivation Of Congress of the ability even to exercise its constitutional powers over appropriations and over making war. And I certainly agree that just Informing a few individuals in the, Congress is -not informing the' Congress. Yet, I also find myself in agreement with the statements of some Of, the opponents of this resolution, particularly Mr. Flowers, Mr. Mann, Mr. Railsback, and Mr. Cohen. They have 'shown a sensitivity to the situation that we are in because of the, fact, that Congresses have not; always lived up to their responsibilities, and have allowed this sort of thing to go on. My mind goes back to 1940 -when President Roosevelt ordered destroyers to escort ships to Great Britain, a belligerent, which was an act of war, and yet I thought that was a great idea at the time. Now, there are a couple of other reasons why I am opposed to this resolution. Here, [holds up documents] is a collection of documents that has been published that the committee reviewed on this issue and here is a question of--here is a collection of the documents that the, committee reviewed but that have not been published and the reason they haven been published is because the administration refuses to declassify them. They are top secret. And yet there is no justification for the secrecy. The war is over. But they also, by doing that, prevent us from using as evidence in this case before the public. Some of the documents which tie the President into this very act of concealment So the concealment is continuing and prevents us from effectively presenting the facts. And there is one other reason, and that is that the Congress has passed the War Powers Act and laid down some guidelines so that from here on out every President is on notice that it is the law, the black letter law, not just the Constitution, that he must advise every Congress as soon as possible, preferably before he initiates military action. I Yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Eilberg. The CHAIRMAN-. Fifteen seconds. Mr. EILBERG. Mr. Chairman, I simply would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio, I appreciate his yielding to me and I Would like to add that I suspect that the lessons of this era have been well learned and are extremely unlikely to occur again, that my concern in impeachment is with those events that are continuing in nature and that our focus should be in that area, and I am particularly concerned with the classified information which we Cannot use. Mr. SEIBERLING. May I complete my statement. I feel particularly strongly about this. I am not known as a hawk in this Congress, to put it mildly. I voted against continuing the bombing of Cambodia last summer for, even 1 more hour. Kent State University is in my district. Four Kent State, students died 4 years ago because of the fact that the President of the United States again abused his power and invaded Cambodia without consulting the Congress. And if there is anything that we can do, that we haven't done, to stop that from happening again, we should do it. But we should not use our impeachment power to Impeach this President for acts of the, sort other Presidents have taken with impunity the same sort of action and for. which the Congress bears a very deep measure of responsibility. [00.36.04]
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.42.05] Mr. RANGEL. Reserving the right to object- Mr. SARBANES. I will take the lesser time, 3 1/2 minutes. Mr. LATTA. Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Latta. Mr. LATTA. Reserving the right to object, and I shall not object, I will Just take the time, however, to point out that earlier, even though I had my hand up on another matter, the Chair failed to write my name down and denied me my 4 minutes and 35 seconds, or something like that, and the Chair was very charitable and he gave me 1 minute, but I shall be much more charitable and I shall not object and you shall have all of your time. Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. RANGEL. I reserve the right, to object. I -would just like to inquire as to whenever my distinguished colleague makes up his mind as to what side he is going to speak on this issue as to what order his name will be listed as being recognized. The CHAIRMAN. There is no--no time is left. The gentleman has the gentleman from -Utah had been the last speaker in support, and actually all time had expired. Mr. RANGEL. I hate to find myself in the position as my distinguished Colleague, Mr. Latta, but having heard the distinguished chairman mention my name as one that had been on the list, I was hoping that you had not forgotten. The CHAIRMAN. The Chair wishes to state that the names of all of those who had been seeking recognition were all read. Mr. RANGEL. I am certain, Mr. Chairman, that if the stenographer were to review the notes that she has taken, that my name would be recorded among those that wanted to speak. In any event, I would request unanimous consent to speak briefly on this subject. Mr. HUNGATE. Would the gentleman from Ohio perhaps yield his 4 minutes and 35 seconds? Mr. KASTENMEIER. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I do so because we may have open-ended this thing, if I understand it, Mr. Sarbanes is seeking----- Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, withdraw the request. Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, you had mentioned my name as being On the list. The CHAIRMAN. Well, the Chair wishes to state that the, list was submitted to the Chair of those people and- Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Chairman? The, CHAIRMAN. Is there objection? Mr. LATTA. Mr. Chairman? Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that Sarbanes and Mr. Rangel both be. given 3 minutes, and let's then vote on this and not argue about whether or not their names were down. They both want to speak. I would be delighted to hear them. It wont take much longer, and we call then go On and vote. We will spend more time arguing about it. Then let them speak. Mr. FROEHLICH. Mr. Chairman. reserving the right to object-- Mr. SMITH. I request that Mr. Rangel be allowed to have, up to 4 minutes, or whatever the time IS. Mr. FROEHLICH. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object. The CHAIRMAN. 'Mr. Froehlich. Mr. FROEHLICH. I know this time my colleagues, Mr. Maraziti and Mr. Moorhead would also like to speak, and if we are going to give that right to the two gentlemen over there, I ask unanimous Consent that they be included for the same amount Of time. The CHAIRMAN. Well, the Chair would like to state that the Chair erred in not, recognizing the gentleman from New York, and the Chair does want to state that he did know that prior to the recognition of those members that the member from New York, Mr. Rangel, had indicated that be -would be one of those -who wanted to speak on the article if it -were proposed. And I do have his name, but I did not have his name at the time, and I would wish maybe that the members might recognize that he could do that, and out of consideration for that fact, the Chair will state that it erred and that the Chair asks unanimous consent, that the gentleman from New York be given that 4 minutes. Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to Object, I Will simply suggest that under a similar circumstance under another article, Mr. Latta, was granted I minute, so I think if Mr. Rangel is granted 1 minute that ought to take care of it in the, same way. Mr. RANGEL. I don't think--- The CHAIRMAN. Maybe -we -will not wrangle over the 1 minute. Mr. RANGEL. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. RANGEL And I thank my very generous colleagues on this committee. And I was not a Mr. Truman and Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson -were here, and they are not here, now, to set the record straight, All I am saying that Americans do not ask too much from their country, and when there is a problem, when our -Nation's safety is at stake, military people go forward, American men go forward and they defend our country. The only thing between war and people is the United States Congress. I refuse to believe that you have, got to change the rules of the game and say that this President, or any other President, can meet with a handful of Congressmen and thereby send American boys to fight a war in some Country that they did not even know existed. Perhaps there was no argument made, against Mr. Truman, but on that, troop ship that I was on in June of 1949, had the argument been raised on the question of impeachment, I am certain there. would have been a lot of support for it, I yield back the. balance of my time. [00.47.58]
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
[01.20.56] Mr. MEZVINSKY. And really. the only thing that lends credence whatsoever to the claim that a gift was made prior to the July 1969 change in the law was the fact that the deed on its face said that it was executed in the spring of 1969. But what do we find as a fact? The fact is the IRS ruled that the deed was actually signed in 1970 and was falsely backdated, Now, I know that the White House has argued and some of my colleagues might contend that this pattern of deception which resulted a personal enrichment of the President was really manufactured by his aides and without his personal knowledge. But we know that Mr. Nixon takes, an active interest in his personal financial affairs. We know that he was involved in very detailed fashion and personally executed a deed for a much smaller- gift of papers he made in 1968. We know that. he went over his 1969 tax return page by page and attested to its accuracy before signing on the bottom line, under penalty of perjury. We know that he personally discussed the tax benefits of this one-half million dollar gift with his lawyer. And we know that Mr. Nixon knew that he never signed a deed for the gift. So really what is the question for this committee? We have. to consider whether we can believe that President Nixon, who has told us he has practiced a lot of tax law, did not know the truth about a of over one-half million dollars, the largest gift he has ever given in his life. I think we are all a-ware that some have argued, and this is a key point in our debate, that a President can be impeached only for criminal conduct, and then there are others who contend that this tax matter, although involving criminal conduct, is not an impeachable offense because it involves "unofficial conduct". Now, I think we should take a look at the President's conduct and see whether or not it is impeachable. All of 'is on the committee know that if one of us took an unlawful deduction for a half million dollars on our tax returns, we, would be subject to criminal prosecution. The President's signing of his tax returns may not be an official act but is likely that if it weren't for his official capacity, he, too, would be prosecuted for willful tax evasion. But unfortunately, due to his special position, really only the impeachment process can call the President into account for his actions. We, must also con confront this is evidence as ,in extension of the abuse of IRS. Last, night we, heard members--Walter Flowers, Alabama, Tom Railsback, from Illinois--speak so eloquently about, the abuse of IRS and how it corrodes the system. Well. let. me, say that, I think this falls in that category because we have a, President who, due to his position, could assume that his tax returns were not subject to the, same scrutiny as those of other taxpayers. Rather than taking care to insure that his tax returns complied with the laws, he took advantage of the Presidency to avoid paying his proper tax. And really what is more significant, and this to me is the key, is that this poses a serious threat to our tax system which operates on the premise that everyone is expected to be honest. The reason it works so well is that we expect the laws to be, equally applied to every taxpayer, whether he is a resident of Iowa or Alabama, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arkansas or whether he resides in the White House. And when the President of these. United States-, refuses to be bound by the revenue laws and if he. escapes the judgment here as he, evaded his taxes, then it is not just, the treasury that is poorer. The, very integrity of our system of self -government is diminished. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman has consumed 10 minutes. Mr. MEZVINSKY. I yield to--does the other side care to take up some time? [01.25.54]
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