Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
[01.09.46] Mr. CONYERS. Now, too many members have are beginning to think that we are casting the final decision on impeachment in the Judiciary Committee. Well, let me remind you that there are 400 other members that are going to decide this and I resent any implications of people on the committee suggesting what, ought and what ought not to be introduced now that we have two articles of impeachment, because anyone that does not like whatever other articles-including this one that is presented to them--has their obligation to vote against them. But I do not think that they intimidate or curtail the views of any member or, this committee as to what they are supposed to do. NOW, I introduced the first motion that would have accelerated the impeachment procedure by taking to the floor immediately an article for the refusal of the President to comply, because if there is anything we must pull out of this impeachment process, it is the impeachment process itself, which the President himself now challenges by raising the spurious concept that he has raised here. executive privilege has _no basis in an impeachment proceeding, and most scholars have said so repeatedly. And so with those words, Mr. Chairman, I fully and strongly support this article and hope that it will be reported by the largest number possible on this committee, and that it will be sustained by the majority of our colleagues on the floor. Mr. SEIBERLING. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. CONYERS. Yes, 1 will. Mr. SEIBERLING. What this really comes down to is, does this committee mean what it says about conducting an impeachment inquiry, and mean it about the powers of Congress, or when we are really faced by a stonewall in the White House, do we just say "poof" and collapse? The CHAIRMAN./ The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Dennis, is recognized for 4 minutes. Mr. DENNIS. Thank you, 'Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, articles I and II can be debated on the law and on the facts as, indeed, they have been and will be. But this proposed article -we have before us now is utterly without merit. The President, in this instance, asserted what be claimed to be a constitutional right based on executive privilege and the separation of powers, and it is a right, incidentally, which under certain circumstances has now been recognized by the Court in the course of its recent opinion. We took a different position, and now we are going to say, without any resolution of that question, that because you, Mr. President invoked a constitutional position, we are going to impeach you. Now, that argument ought to carry its own answer. We elected never to test the question. We never went to the floor of the House and asked the House to vote a contempt as we might have done, and should have done if we thought he was in contempt. We elected by vote of this committee not to test the matter in the Court, as we have done, and even though as the Court reiterated the other day, the courts are emphatically the province to determine what the law is. We could have been parties to the recent suit or a similar suit, and we would probably have prevailed, and we know that the President would have complied, and we would have this evidence if we just had gone and asked for it in the proper forum. But, we refused to do that. Now, the full right to impeach does not carry with it the sole right to determine what the Constitution means. It does not make us the sole arbitrator of the Constitution. There is a bootstrap operation here, ladies and gentlemen, and we are in effect trying to say to the President that if you do not agree with our view of the Constitution we are going to impeach you. Now, that is not a reasonable position to take. The Court, in Nixon against Sirica the other day said this: "If a President concludes that compliance with a subpena would be injurious to the public interest he may properly invoke a claim of privilege." That is exactly what the President did. And it will reflect no credit on this committee if we try to impeach him for doing that. [01.14.43]