Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
[01.15.33] The gentleman from Iowa. Mr. MEZVINSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that we, are all fired, and I know that all of us -who have wrestled - with the votes we have cast are awaiting the relief which is promised -when you, Mr. Chairman, bring down the gavel to end this unwelcome task. But. I believe that the kind of conscientiousness which so thoroughly marked our deliberations would be jeopardized if we failed to give serious consideration to the President's failure to pay his proper income taxes and his misuse of tax dollars. Now. I respect my colleagues reasons for not including, this in the other articles. But, I feel so strongly on this issue that I must introduce this article so that full consideration can be given to the overwhelming evidence on the matter of the Presidential wrongdoing. -Now, my special concern will be the area of the taxes which I believe constitutes criminal wrongdoing and an abuse of power. And the other part of that article is equally -important, and the evidence, that the President violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution which is equally distressing. As we proceed with the debate I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Mr. Brooks, who will thoroughly discuss this issue. He can give the kind of lucid view that is so very vital because he is chairman of the Government Operations Activities Subcommittee that handled the matter of the Presidential east and west coast estates, both San Clemente and Key Biscayne. Now, really what I want to discuss is the question of whether or not Richard Nixon -willfully evaded the portions Of his Federal income tax In the years 1969 through 1972. In addition to the work that has been done by the committee, I have talked with the staff of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation which reviewed the President's taxes and I am thoroughly convinced that the evidence justifies, indeed it really demands, an article of impeachment calling the President into 'account for his actions on the matter of his taxes. Now, if yon remember in my opening remarks last Thursday night I went down the litany of President Nixon's taxes citing the, great discrepancies between what he owed and how much he paid. We remember 1970 when he had an income of about $350,000. He only paid $793 of the more than $90.000 that -was owed. You recall that in' his first 4 years as President he underpaid Federal income taxes by nearly $420,000. This was because he claimed over $565,000 in improper deductions and he failed to report over $230,000 in taxable income. So what do we see? We see a total error on his tax returns in excess of three three-quarters of a million dollars. That is right. Three-quarters of a million dollars. 'Now, some might possibly argue and say that this was an honest mistake but unfortunately the facts really don't support that conclusion Instead, they point toward the President's deliberate failure to pay his proper tax. And really what is the central element of Mr. Nixon' assault on our tax laws? It is that unlawful deduction taken or ft gift of his personal papers. As I said last Thursday night, the reason that that one-half million dollar deduction was improper was that the loophole that he tried to use, that allowed such deduction was closed July 25, 1969. Now the President claimed on his tax returns that, actually the gift was made prior to that time. But what do we find? We' find that in the spring of 1969 the papers which actually made up that gift hadn't yet even been selected and appraised and the man who supposedly selected them and appraised them didn't even view them until months after the cutoff date of July 25, 1969. And in the spring of 1969, the recipient of the gift, the National Archives, had no idea that the gift had even been made. Now, don't you think you would know about it immediately if somebody gave you something worth $500,000? 1 submit that you would. [01.20.56]