Chapter One -- Part D The Nixon-Clinton Impeachment Tragedy |
1998: A "made-for-Television" Impeachment?
In early January 1998, Washington events were at low ebb, as they typically are in January. However, it was clear that a number of "Clinton scandals" remained as open issues, in various phases of investigation, and in various venues including Congress. Furthermore, several of these investigations related to potential wrongdoing that had both occurred during the Clinton administration, and that arguably involved serious misuse and abuse of institutions of the Federal government. The White House had obtained hundreds of FBI files illegitimately — open questions remained regarding both how and why the files were obtained. The recent Clinton Presidential campaign fund raising violations included the possibility of illegal participation by foreign citizens and/or foreign governments, including China, in the U.S. election process. Additional questions were being raised regarding Chinese access to U.S. technology that could be used for military purposes, including building intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads that could be used against the U.S. All these areas of investigation potentially involved wrongdoing that was so serious that if President Clinton could be shown to be involved, such wrongdoing would clearly raise the issue of his impeachment.
1998 was an election year. Given the open issues, and a Republican controlled Congress, it was almost certain that Congress would become increasingly persistent and demanding in pursuing several areas of investigation.
For years, Congress has been studied along the line of the consideration Members of Congress give to their political base — and this base is typically seen as the core of either the Republican or the Democratic party. During 1997, Republicans had become angry about the Clinton scandals, and what seemed to have become an almost institutionalized cover-up. Democrats were also frequently angered when the Republican Congress was portrayed to them as favoring the rich, the powerful, and the special interests, and not caring about the average American.
However, in addition to their political bases, the Members of Congress were also closely watching their economic base of campaign contributors. Some elements of this base were ideologically aligned with their political bases. But for all incumbents, Republican and Democrat, a significant element of the economic base of campaign contributors has no ideological agenda, but rather is interested in specific issues before Congress that will affect their own interests. Their concern was maintaining stability, a strong economy, and whatever advantages they had secured through years of lobbying and campaign contributions. As a political question, Members of Congress were interested in meeting the expectations of both their political and their economic bases.
It was apparent that any one of a number of pending investigations could reach a point where impeachment of the President became a possibility. It was also apparent that should an impeachment be based on an issue as potentially explosive as national security, or campaign finance, political divisions could become even sharper. Washington's political forecast in early 1998 was something like: Low-hanging, over-saturated clouds of political conflict, widely scattered scandals, pollution at toxic levels — impeachment possible. In a way, the real question was: which investigation storm front would open up first?
Given this dangerous, volatile situation, many people in Washington must have wondered if there was any way to clear the air, to release the electric charge that had built up between the two political bases. During 1997 and up to early 1998, the Clintons might have wished that if they did have to face an impeachment, it would be one where the alleged wrongdoing was relatively minor, and posed no immediate, obvious threat to the nation. As we have seen, they must have believed they had good prospects for defeating that kind of impeachment on Constitutional grounds. The worst danger was of a sudden, out-of-control impeachment proceeding, possibly involving national security, that could be impossible to predict regarding the outcome or the effect. From the Clintons point of view, the preferable option might have been to have some kind of drawn out, year long process, even possibly one that resulted in an impeachment, but on grounds that were so difficult and murky that the prospect of a Senate conviction would be highly unlikely. It would be even better if the course of events left everyone thoroughly sick of the whole idea of impeachment and scandal.
Amazingly enough, that’s exactly what happened.
In late January 1998, just before President Clinton’s State of the Union address, televisions, front pages and cover articles reported that the President had been involved in an improper relationship with Monica Lewinski, who had been a White House intern. It was reported that President Clinton may have perjured himself in his deposition testimony on the relationship, conducted as part of the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Coverage of this story was the number one media event of the year.
Meanwhile, on March 9, 1998, U.S. News and World Report published a short "In brief" blurb titled: "Campaign finance reform dies." [54]
On January 16, 1998, the day Lewinski was detained by Starr's investigators, Lewinski's mother, Marcia Lewis, came to Washington to be with her daughter. On February 23, 1998, Newsweek reported that Lewinski was reported to have "told her mother that the prosecutors had laid down a threat: unless Monica agreed to wear a secret recording device to entrap Clinton and his friend Vernon Jordan that night, she was 'going to jail.'" [55] On February 9, 1998 Time reported on an unusual aspect to the case: Lewinski's mother was engaged to "R. Peter Straus, an opera buff who met Lewis at one of her book signings." [56] Time reported: "Straus is also a close family friend of Vernon Jordan's. 'I feel like I've known Vernon forever,' he says, 'and I honestly cannot identify when and where we first met.'" Straus denied ever having a conversation about Lewinski or Lewis with Vernon Jordan. On February 23, 1998 Newsweek reported that when Lewis was required by Starr to testify to a grand jury about her daughter "Lewis was so upset about the experience that a nurse had to be summoned and her interrogation stopped. 'It was disgusting what they did to her,' Monica's lawyer, William Ginsburg, told Newsweek." [57] On May 11, 1998 US News published a two page article on the marriage of Straus and Lewis.The article noted: "As a matter of law, the marriage would enable Straus and Lewis to invoke spousal privilege if either were called upon to testify against the other..." US News reported: "[A] source close to the Clinton administration who has spoken with Straus has told U.S. News that Straus — a one time protege of Edward Bernays, the father of American public relations — has played a significant role in at least some parts of Lewinski’s case. According to that source, Straus was, for instance, the strategist who advised Lewinski to stick to her original affidavit denying a sexual relationship with Clinton..." US News reported: "Despite his extensive contact with Lewis, and the close bond she shares with her daughter, Straus says he has only met Lewinsky ‘maybe three times in my life’ — all of them last fall when she was in New York for job interviews." [58]
On August 17th, the President gave a second deposition, this time to a Grand Jury, investigating the truthfulness of his statements in the earlier deposition. [59] There was widespread speculation that if President Clinton did not testify truthfully to the Grand Jury, an impeachment might result.
On August 31, 1998, nine days before the Starr report went to Congress, a 1 page US News article appeared titled: "The heir apparent has a problem of his own", with the subtitle "Did Al Gore knowingly solicit illegal money?" Reno was faced with the option of extending a 30-day review of fund-raising allegations, to an "additional 90-day inquiry — the next step towards appointing a special prosecutor. That timetable could help or harm Gore. A 90-day review would last through the November congressional elections..." [60]
On September 9th, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, after a careful investigation, presented an overwhelming mass of evidence to the House of Representatives, including a strong showing that the President had committed perjury and obstruction of justice. In October the House voted 256 to 178 to begin an impeachment inquiry. A subdued, "lets not talk about it" Congressional election campaign followed, resulting in a Republican loss of five House seats. Campaign finance reform, and the possibly illegal 1996 Clinton fundraising, were not major issues in the campaign.
After the election, many assumed the question of impeaching President Clinton had been effectively resolved by the Republican House losses. However, the House Judiciary Committee went forward with hearings, on a tight timetable, and voted Articles of Impeachment in December, largely along party lines, based on their conclusion that it seemed likely that the President was guilty of both Grand Jury perjury and obstruction of justice. The House of Representatives, on a largely party line vote, concurred that President Clinton should be impeached for likely Grand Jury perjury, and for obstruction of justice based on apparent attempts to influence what his secretary, Betty Currie, might have said in possible future testimony as a witness.
The Senate was then faced with a complicated, technical legal case, involving massive amount of evidence, and a reasonable claim for the need to both examine and cross examine many witnesses, and to recall witness based on later testimony. The Senate agreed to proceed with an abbreviated trial that would not require the institutions of government to be diverted for months by an attempt to fully accommodate the requirements of trial on the legal issues associated with possible violations of Federal criminal statutes. After a long, secret deliberation, the 100 Senators, acting in a way analogous to jurors, returned a verdict of not guilty on all Articles, on a largely party line vote.
It was over. In the process, all the other "Clinton scandals" had been largely sidetracked. Campaign finance reform had been sidetracked. Everyone was sick of the whole thing.
Mission Accomplished?
At the beginning of this chapter, I suggested that the Clinton administration was probably doomed from day one to either some kind of an impeachment proceeding, or to re-election defeat. In the course of this chapter, you have seen the basis for this assertion. Were actions taken and events shaped by anyone before Clinton’s Paula Jones deposition to "set the stage" for the actual impeachment proceeding that occurred? Was Starr "entrapped", or "entripped", into going after a "fake" impeachment, leaving the reporting and pursuit of more serious wrongdoing to be buried in an avalanche of news coverage of a diversionary scandal? Based on the circumstances presented, this seems to be a possibility. Looking back on this history, and to the Nixon House Judiciary Committees’ discussion about "essentially private" wrongdoing, it does strike me that the actual Clinton impeachment proceeding that occurred in 1998-99 was relatively "benign" in terms of an absence in the Impeachment Articles of allegations of serious and pervasive misuse of institutions of government. Other kinds of impeachment proceedings, on other kinds of issues, appear to have been at least within the realm of possibility in early 1998. An impeachment proceeding based on the 1996 Clinton campaign finance abuses might have had an underlying basis closer to the grounds for Impeachment Articles approved by the House Judiciary Committee against President Nixon. It also strikes me that many parties to the impeachment proceeding, including the Clinton Administration, Members of Congress, and Corporate and special interest campaign contributors, all could be viewed as benefiting from a relatively "benign" impeachment — one that would discharge the antagonism of the Republican and Democratic core supporters, but would not upset the campaign finance apple cart.
This brings me to two further points. First, the question of Presidential impeachment and removal must be viewed in the context of this fact: if we are going to have laws regulating Federal campaign finance, there will be the possibility that these laws will be broken. If these laws are broken, what are we going to do? Second, if Corporations and special interests continue to dominate Congress, there will always be a "built in" institutional preference against impeachment — instability and disruption is bad for business.
During the Nixon impeachment proceeding, many argued that "lying to the American people" was itself grounds for impeachment. I will argue later in this book that the Senate has the Constitutional power to try Articles of Impeachment on grounds of deceiving the American people — even if no corresponding Judicial criminal trial is possible. If President Clinton was at some point involved in staging events that lead to his actual 1998 House impeachment with the intent of doing this as a deliberate diversion — something to obstruct any effective pursuit of other Clinton scandals that appear to go directly to wide scale abuse of the office of President — such an act of "stage managing" a diversionary impeachment would itself be both impeachable, and may be a criminal obstruction of justice. The effect would be to disrupt other investigations that may have resulted in criminal charges, specifically regarding the 1996 Clinton campaign finance violations.
The Nixon-Clinton Impeachment Tragedy
The Clinton Presidency has been both hard on our country, and devastating to the Clintons as a family. Many innocent people have suffered terrible consequences from the actions of the Clintons.
In the face of these facts, I want to offer four suggestions. First, obviously Bill Clinton comes from a broken home, and this must have had a bad effect on him. Second, this fact has certainly influenced Hillary Clinton, if only to be an enabler. Third, they are obviously both very talented, and may have come over time to justify the unjustifiable based on their answer to President Kennedy's challenge: what they thought they could do for the country. There are philosophical doctrines I’m sure they encountered first as students, and later in their political careers, that they probably see as justifying what they have done. Fourth, if the Clintons hadn’t been taught by the apparent conclusion of our government, our House Judiciary Committee, to think that "private wrongdoing", if not egregious, was not serious enough to prevent someone from serving as President, might none of this have happened? A higher standard set at the time of the Nixon impeachment proceeding could have been a check on the Clinton’s (and many others) behavior and actions that might have prevented all of this. At a minimum, the dangerous doctrine that ascended from the Nixon impeachment proceedings, that even criminal wrongdoing is not impeachable if it is "essentially private" and not egregious, introduced an element of tragedy into the Clinton’s personal lives, into the lives of their associates, and into our national life.
Looking back on all this, it seems evident that both "family values" and "the rule of law" are far more than slogans. Let me suggest something further. There has always been a libertarian strain in our national political thought, and it seems to have recently gained strength. Could it also be that one of the lessons of this tragedy is that a legitimate purpose of "the rule of law" is to guard us, ourselves, against temptations that can lead us to become something horrible? If our House Judiciary committee, in 1973 had not taken the position that "private wrongdoing" is in some way permissible, might the Clintons themselves have been better off? We may think we know what harm they have done to our Republic. What have "We the People", or post-Watergate "We the Enablers", done to the Clintons? If you think this is far-fetched, consider this: much of the legislation that Congress passes is referred to by the semi-technical term: enabling legislation.
Power corrupts. Can a Republic such as ours survive if we hold publicly the doctrine: "private wrongdoing", including criminal wrongdoing, is not a basis for impeaching and removing our President? The next two chapters present the foundation and exposition of a new Constitutional theory: if a President is impeached by the House for alleged criminal violation of a Federal statute, both the Senate and the Judiciary can independently remove the President from office.
Copyright © 2000, Robert S. Carney Jr., 4232 Colfax Ave. So., Minneapolis, MN 55409. All rights reserved.