Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974 (2/2)
[01.15.38] MR. McCLORY. I recall. when the President came before the joint session Of the Congress in January he said words to the effect that he wanted to provide full cooperation with the Judiciary Committee consistent only -with the operation of his office. Now, I suppose that qualification was more significant than it seemed to be at that time because the words that came across to us were full cooperation with the House Judiciary Committee. Now, -where is that full cooperation with the House Judiciary Committee? Well, -we have had some tapes and we have had some transcripts, The transcripts we got, of course, were transcripts that were issued to the public, not issued in response to this committee, but publicized, the edited transcripts as they are called, or the White House transcripts. And the tapes, -where did they come from? Well, they did not come from the White House, they came from the grand jury and they came from the Special Prosecutor's office. As a matter of fact, of the 147 tapes that we requested, we did not receive a single one from the White House. Now, if you ever saw an example of stonewalling, the prime example of stonewalling is right there, and now that is an expression that comes out of the White House, but where is the stonewalling occurring? It is occurring with regard to the Congress of the United States and with regard to this committee. Now if we do have the sole power of impeachment, and if we do have the authority to investigate, then it is important of course, that we do receive the kind of cooperation that I thought would be forthcoming. I have done everything I could to try to impress upon the White House the importance of this cooperation. Now) the President has raised the question of confidentiality of the taped material, and so we suggested that this material would be received not only under our rules of strict confidentiality, but that the President himself, or the President's counsel could participate with our counsel in screening out national security information. But, the President's position has been that he should be the sole arbiter of what he should turn over, and what he should not turn over. Well, if he is the sole arbiter, then how in the world could we conduct a thorough and a complete and fair investigation? Well, we just could not, Now, since we began this inquiry, of course, the President has been involved in litigation, and the case went to the Supreme Court. And, he made the same kind of a plea to the district court that he has made to us, that he should have the sole right, that there was an absolute executive privilege -which prevailed, and that he had the absolute right to determine what he would turn over and what he would not, turn over. Now, that doctrine was knocked down. That was knocked down effectively insofar as the court was concerned. Now, it is true that -were not involved in that proceeding. Some people thought we should have been, and perhaps we should have been. But, anyway, the doctrine was knocked down and the doctrine of absolute executive privilege has fallen. As a matter of fact, I have felt, and a number of my colleagues here on the committee have felt that the, doctrine of executive has no application whatsoever in an impeachment inquiry, because it would be impossible for the President or any other person being investigated to have the right and privilege to determine what was to be submitted in the course of the investigation and what was not to be submitted. In other words, we would be falling foul of the maxim enunciated by Lord Coke that person cannot be the judge of his own cause, and consequently, that doctrine cannot possibly prevail. Otherwise our authority would be frustrated completely. Now, I say this is fundamental and basic to our inquiry and I mean precisely that. I mean that if we are going to set a standard and a guide for future Congresses, for future impeachment inquiries, there is no more, important standard and guide than the one that we will determine with respect to article III, because if -we refuse to recommend impeachment of the President on the basis of this article TIT, if we refuse to recommend that the President should be impeached because of his defiance of the Congress with respect to the subpenas that we have issued, the future respondents will be in the position where they can determine themselves what they are going to provide in an impeachment inquiry and what they are not going to provide, and this would be particularly so in the case of an inquiry directed toward the President of the United States. So, it not only affects this President but future Presidents. And it might be that a Republican Congress would be investigating in an impeachment inquiry a Democratic President in a future instance. I hope we do not have any more impeachments, but in the case we did, the precedent that we might establish here would be, effective then. So, it seems to me that there is no greater responsibility which befalls us at this time than that to determine this question of the President's responsibility with respect to our subpenas. Now, earlier I had the thought and I set it forth publicly that I felt that when the President did not respond to our subpenas that we should take action to hold the President in contempt, or that we should censure the President, or we should have a resolution of inquiry, to get some action on the part of the House. I was discouraged in that respect. I was discouraged from leaders on both sides of the aisle, I might say, and I emphasized at that time that while I was withholding the action that I intended to take then, that I would face, a very serious dilemma at this stage, and so while we did not take action under the, contempt authority that we had, which in a Sense is quite difficult to enforce and to apply. [01.22.09]