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Incoming Speaker plans to admit to extramarital affairs, impeachment debate begins Friday
Updated December 17, 1998
8:08 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV) — Only hours after affirming his decision to continue with impeachment proceedings despite military action in Iraq, incoming House Speaker Bob Livingston confessed to adulterous affairs and offered to resign, according to reports Thursday.
Livingston addressed the Republican Conference Thursday evening, but a spokesman said Livingston has no plans to resign.
In a statement issued on the eve of a historic impeachment
debate involving the sexual conduct of President Clinton, Livingston said, "These indiscretions were not with employees on my staff, and I have never been asked to testify under oath about them."
Read Livingston's statement.
Members of the Republican rank-and-file emerged grim-faced from
a closed-door caucus. One lawmaker said Livingston had received a
round of applause from members. Livingston spokesman Mark Corallo
said, "There has been no talk of resignation. The Republican
Conference is solidly behind" the Louisiana Republican.
Livingston's statement says he decided to tell the Republican caucus that "I have on occasion strayed from my marriage and doing so nearly cost me my marriage and my family."
"Because these were personal relationships, I have no intention or desire to reveal any specifics in order to avoid harm to others," Livingston said in the text released by his office. "I offer this statement today to let these facts be known to my constituents and my colleagues. This will be the only statement I will make on this subject."
Livingston's infidelities were originally reported early Thursday evening by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.
Republicans were quick to contrast Livingston's behavior with that of the president. "He is genuinely honest with us. He's telling the truth and the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue couldn't tell the truth if he had a gun to his head," said Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio.
Republican leaders decided Thursday to begin the impeachment debate Friday on the House floor and finish action on the four articles against the president by Saturday even if U.S. attacks against Iraq continue, congressional sources said.
Livingston announced a final schedule later Wednesday that would allow 16 hours of debate on the impeachment articles. The debate could stretch into the wee hours Saturday, according to congressional sources in both parties who spoke only on condition of anonymity. Lawmakers would return during the day Saturday to finish the work, the sources said.
Livingston said the House could not "close down" because it had a constitutional duty to proceed, even with such a "terribly unpopular measure."
"Virtually all" members, Livingston said, had voiced a wish to end the investigation by year's end.
Livingston added that an impeachment investigation continued while former President Richard Nixon struggled with the Vietnam war, and this Congress must continue with its mission despite airstrikes in Iraq.
The historic debate was originally set for Thursday, and was expected to last 24 hours until early Friday morning, but Republicans grudgingly agreed Wednesday to a postponement after Clinton ordered airstrikes against Iraq.
Many House Democrats wanted impeachment proceedings halted until the air campaign is over in Iraq in a few days.
Rep. Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, objected to Livingston's remarks. Gephardt asked members to consider how a debate to remove the commander in chief of the armed forces would be perceived by Saddam Hussein.
House Speaker-Elect Robert Livingston urges action.
(4:37)
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Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., a member of the National Security Committee, angrily warned that Republican actions would "invite our enemies to take advantage of this situation."
House Majority Leader Dick Armey countered Kennedy's statement by arguing that continuation of debate would rather energize soldiers in Iraq by reaffirming their belief in the power of American democracy. As we engage in conflict, Armey said, soldiers abroad would know "democracy does not stop in America."
Gephardt told a rally earlier Thursday that to begin debating impeachment "while our young men and women in our armed forces...our sons and daughters, are in harm's way," was "wrong, wrong, wrong."
The president told reporters today it was up to Republican leaders to "decide how to do their job" in bringing the impeachment debate to the floor. But he sternly dismissed suggestions by Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, Armey and other GOP lawmakers that he had ordered the Iraqi attack to divert attention from his impeachment woes.
"I don't think any serious person would believe that any president would do such a thing," Clinton said.
Clinton is the second president in history to face impeachment proceedings on the floor of the House, and the first since Andrew Johnson in 1868. Even Democratic supporters concede he is likely to be impeached on at least one of four articles, sending his case to a trial in the Senate. The most damaging article, the first one, accuses the president of perjury before a federal grand jury.
After weeks of intense activity around impeachment, the subject briefly took a back seat today as lawmakers debated and approved legislation expressing support for the troops engaged in the air strikes in Iraq.
One of a dwindling band of uncommitted lawmakers, Rep. Paul McHale, D-Pa., told reporters he had decided how to vote on impeachment, but would defer an announcement, in view of the ongoing hostilities.
The White House continued to lose moderate Republicans it had hoped to lure to the president's defense. Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., who had traveled to the Middle East with Clinton last week, announced today he would vote to approve articles of impeachment against Clinton. Republican Reps. Jim Nussle of Iowa, Steve Horn of California and Heather Wilson of New Mexico also announced they would vote for impeachment.
Lazio wrote in a Newsday column published Thursday that he made the decision to "hammer home as best I can that we must continue to insist that no one is above the law, and that the truth must be told."
Two lawmakers who had indicated their intention to vote against impeachment, Reps. Christopher Shays on Connecticut and Mark Souder of Indiana, on Wednesday reviewed additional information on the case kept by the House Judiciary Committee, according to several Republican officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I would think the votes are pretty much in place," said Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who favors censure over impeachment. "Right now it certainly looks like the president will be impeached."
Outside the Capitol, 2,000 protesters organized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson rallied against impeachment today. "They should all get off his back," said Caldwell Jones, 71, a retired postal worker from New York. "Knock on any of these doors of the House and the Senate and you'll find they're all doing the same thing."
Presidential press secretary Joe Lockhart said today that given the attacks underway in Iraq, "I don't expect there to be a real outreach effort (on impeachment) ... we're going to concentrate on some other things." Though Clinton aides had furiously worked the phones earlier this week, they made scant progress as moderate Republicans they had targeted steadily announced in favor of impeachment.
Lockhart said, however, he wasn't ready to concede defeat. "I take the view of the great philosopher Yogi Berra. 'It's not over 'til it's over," he said. He added that Clinton might still make good on an earlier promise to meet with Shays, one of the few Republicans leaning toward voting against impeachment.
Livingston contended that Republicans "have left the issue of impeachment to the conscience of the men and women in the Congress," while the White House waged its major lobbying campaign.
"And ironically, in the last few days, there have been many, many members who have, left to their own devices, decided that they were prepared to vote in favor of impeachment," Livingston said.
An Associated Press telephone survey of House members found 190 lawmakers said they would support impeachment, 184 said they would oppose it, 40 remained undecided, and 21 wouldn't answer or didn't return phone calls. The totals include members who said they were leaning toward a position. The undecided and those not responding included 24 Democrats and 37 Republicans.
The four impeachment articles accuse Clinton of perjury in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit, perjury before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power, all dealing with the president's efforts to conceal his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Thirty percent of Americans who were polled after the Iraqi military action started said they thought the president timed the action to try to delay the impeachment vote Fifty-eight percent said Clinton should not be impeached, compared to 40 percent who said he should be.
Court TV's Aldina Vazao Kennedy and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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