Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974 (1/2)
[00.52.33] The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio is--the time of the gentleman from Iowa had expired. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Sandman, is recognized. Mr. SANDMAN. Mr. Chairman, I don't propose to take up the 5 minutes and I hope that we can wind this thing up as quickly as possible and as gracefully as possible. There is nothing that I can do, I am sure, that is going to change the outcome of the vote,. But I would like to use these closing moments Of this long, and what some people -will refer to as a historic exchange to capsule -where we stand in my judgment and what I think -we Should be thinking about. Now., at the outset I don't think I am the most naive person in the world, but I like to believe that every man that has ever been President 'Of the United States had to be a good man and he had to be a great man or this great country would have never voted for him to be the leader of this country. It may be a surprise to some in this room but the President I -was extremely fond of that I had the good fortune to blow as everybody in the room did was not a, Republican. It was Lyndon Johnson. And I thought it was a horrible thing during the Bobby Baker talks that some people thought, well, maybe -we ought to try to impeach LBJ. That was wrong and. I hoped it would never start. Now, anybody who feels this way, and I kind of think the country feels this way, they would like to believe their President is a pretty. good man, and to do otherwise or prove to them. otherwise, it Would, take a tremendous amount of proof to do that, and it should, tremendous. You can't do this loosely. And this is important, The whole world is watching this proceeding and -what, we. do, we had better do right because. the effect of it is going to make a precedent for 1,000, years. That is the importance of the question as I see it. And because of this it disturbs me when I try to think of some of the problems in-- involved, the Ellsberg break-in and whatnot, I think maybe we are a little bit mixed up and maybe we ought to sit down for a moment and review where we are. was on a program one time in Long Island. I walked in the room with -a very famous man, a good Democrat, Senator Muskie. He got. a pretty good hand. I am sure. no one in the audience knew -me. But 'what applause there. was, I say they did it because of him. And then behind Senator Muskie, by about 3 or 4 minutes, walked in Daniel Ellsberg, one of the panelists on our program, and believe it or not, the stadium shook and I wondered why. Why did that happen? Here is a man who confiscated secret documents and against the law of the Nation he dispersed these documents. I thought that was wrong. And I couldn't -understand why this fellow came in there like a hero. But he is, This is a strange thing happening in this country. And now as a result of that, a mistrial was declared in that case and a man who is as surely guilty as guilty can be -was never declared guilty, was never penalized and instead we now talk about impeaching the President of the United States. I think our thinking is a little fuzzy here and maybe we ought to sit down and look over that once again and make sure we are doing the right thing. Is it more popular to give away secret documents, than it is to protect the security of a great nation? I don't think so. And I would like to believe in the absence of extremely heavy proof that what the Chief Executive did he did for a good purpose, and this is why I have the strong feelings in the, direction that I have and that is why I have argued the way I have in this proceeding. I don't take my obligation here any more lightly than any other person and I believe that what hat we are doing here we -ire acting as a judiciary in a sense. We are judging whether or not the President of the United States should be replaced. We are judging the rights that he has as an individual as -well as a President and it is not in line with what at least I learned in the 20 years that I went to school that he has any less rights than any other American, and no one can ever, make me believe that due process still isn't the law of this land and it is always going to be the law of this land, And for these reasons, I think we' have to not make an inference, against the President of the United States, if anything we have to make an innocent's -- an inference--that -what he did he did in the best interests of the country. This is what I would rather believe. The, CHAIRMAN. The, time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. SANDMAN. For this season, even though it is not going to be a popular position that I have taken, I know that, I am convinced it is the, right one, or at least 1 hope it is, and and only time will tell. [00.58.09]