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Judiciary Committee hears from judges and convicted perjurers, Republicans look to expand inquiry
Updated December 1, 1998
6:20 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV) — After hearing from two women prosecuted for lying in civil cases involving sex, House Republicans announced plans to subpoena memos urging the attorney general to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the president's 1996 campaign.
Republicans want to subpoena FBI Director Louis Freeh and federal prosecutor Charles LaBella and gain access to their secret memos laying out Clinton's alleged fund-raising irregularities.
Republicans also want a subpoena that would direct Starr to hand over evidence and testimony that his investigators gathered from John Huang, a key figure in the fund-raising controversy. The panel's senior Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, used his opening statement and closing remarks to decry Republican attempts to expand the investigation.
"Now the committee has flown to another unrelated area," Conyers said. The committee seeks to "transform itself into the discredited burden committee," he added.
"This is an impeachment inquiry in search of a high crime," Conyers said after Bill McCollum, R-Fla., announced subpoena plans to the full committee.
The ranking member said one week before a vote is "no time to commence" a new probe into Clinton's campaign finances. "Campaign finance has no relationship" to the sex-and-lies report submitted to Congress by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, he said.
Court TV's selection of highlights.
Barney Frank, D-Mass., called the expansion into alleged campaign violations, the "wild goose chase of the week." He said it was the "last desperate grasp" of a group who wants to impeachment the president and can't seem to pull it off.
Committee chairman Henry Hyde defended the decision and pointed out that questions remained since many witness claimed fifth amendment privilege and ninety fled the country.
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Witnesses at Tuesday's hearings:
Hon. Gerald B. Tjoflat
United States Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Jacksonville, Florida
Hon. Charles E. Wiggins
United States Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Las Vegas, Nevada
Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, Washington, D.C.
Hon. Elliot Richardson
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, Washington, D.C.
Admiral Leon A. Edney, U.S.N. (Ret.)
Distinguished Leadership Chair, U.S. Naval Academy
Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Carney, U.S.A. (Ret.)
Professor Alan Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Professor Stephen Saltzburg
Howrey Professor of Trial Advocacy, Litigation and Professional Responsibility, George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.
Professor Jeffrey Rosen
Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C.
Pam Parsons
Former women's basketball coach, University of South Carolina; pleaded guilty in 1984 to civil perjury related to testimony about a sexual relationship
Dr. Barbara Battalino
Doctor of osteopathic medicine, board-certified psychiatrist and lawyer; pleaded guilty in 1998 to having given false testimony about a sexual relationship in a civil case
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The Hearing
Hyde said the purpose of Tuesday's hearing was to explore whether Clinton should be treated the same as other citizens convicted of perjury and suggested Democrats may have a "double standard."
"It is particularly disturbing that many who generally claim to represent the weak now argue that the powerful should be allowed a pass when they break the rules," Hyde said.
"Because a president is not a king, he or she must abide by the same laws as the rest of us," Barbara Battalino told the committee. The former Veterans Affairs hospital psychiatrist is serving a home detention sentence after pleading guilty in a medical malpractice case in which she lied about a sexual relationship with a patient.
"If indeed there is no reason for anything ... more than
censure, then certainly I would hope that the administration would
consider leniency for me," she said under questioning by Rep.
James Rogan, R-Calif.
The committee also heard from Pam Parsons of Atlanta, a former
University of South Carolina women's basketball coach who pled
guilty to a federal perjury charge in the mid-1980s for giving
false testimony in a libel case about a sexual relationship she had
with a player.
The punishment for lying under oath should be the same for
everyone, Parsons said.
A federal judge, Charles Wiggins, and a retired federal judge, Leon Higginbotham, testified that President Clinton should not be impeached.
Wiggins, who sat on the Judiciary Committee during
the Watergate hearings, says perjury and obstruction of justice are
impeachable offenses. But Wiggins says in "the public interest"
he recommends against impeachment in this case.
Retired Judge Leon Higginbotham told the committee there are
gradations of perjury -- and that "some are serious and some
are less." Higginbotham doesn't believe the charges against the president
are serious enough to warrant impeachment.
Retired Navy Adm. Leon A. Edney testified that military forces
are weakened when their ethical guidelines are flouted by a
commander-in-chief.
"The leadership of our armed forces must be based on principle,
not litigious double-talk," Edney told the panel. "Military
readiness and mission accomplishment depends on trust and
confidence in the integrity of the leader."
Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School blasted the committee for focusing on perjury committed by a political opponent while ignoring egregious cases of police perjury, which he argues is pervasive and often rewarded rather than punished.
Dershowitz and Hyde got into a heated exchange over how best to defend "the rule of law." Hyde has consistently said that the purpose of the impeachment hearings is to uphold the rule of law, and that justifies the time and resources dedicated.
Dershowitz argued that "history will not be kind to the committee," and that their politically motivated prosecution of the president was undermining the rule of law.
Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., also touched a nerve when he said legalistic justifications for perjury do not reflect the views of "real Americans." Dershowitz said that term was racist. Higginbotham also objected to the term. Barr responded that Dershowitz was being silly.
George Washington University Law School Professor Stephen Saltzburg warned the committee that impeachment would "paralyze the country for months." Committee members should question whether the nature of the charges against the president and the quality of evidence merit such paralysis, Saltzburg said.
Democrats predictably aired several complaints at the hearing. "The American people and the president still don't know what the charges are," Conyers complained, demanding that Clinton and his colleagues be told what the specific articles of impeachment will be.
Frank said Republicans had staged today's hearing to rally support for impeachment articles. "This is an effort to increase votes on the floor because they're in a little bit of trouble," Frank said.
"I'm convinced this committee needs help," said Charles Schumer, who called on the new Speaker, Bob Livingston, to stop this "runaway train before it goes off a cliff." Schumer said Livingston should put an end to this hearing and allow the House to vote on censure.
Paul McHale, D-Penn., last week floated a censure resolution among the committee and sent it to the outgoing speaker Newt Gingrich, asking him to authorize a floor vote on the matter.
Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., a strong defender of the president, began by blasting the committee for not calling any witnesses "whatsoever" against the president.
Nadler also said that the function of the house in impeachment is not analogous to the function of a grand jury. A grand jury indicts, but Nadler argued that the House should be held to a higher standard.
"Any good prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich," said Nadler, reiterating a much repeated statement made by former judge Sol Wachtler. Nadler argued that the House should present "clear and convincing" evidence that the President committed impeachable offenses before sending the matter off to the Senate. If "probable cause" is the standard, then Nadler said the House would simply be a "rubber stamp for the special prosecutor."
Hyde shot back at Nadler. "We accuse," said Hyde, "and the Senate adjudicates."
Republicans argued that the negative affect on the American citizenry — particularly young people and members of the armed forces — of allowing the president to get away with lying would be significant.
"This case is about perjury," argued Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "Perjury undermines the American system of justice," he said. "...It's a cancer that must be removed before society can heal itself."
In responses to statements made by witnesses about the consequence of impeachment, McCollum responded, "What are the consequences of not impeaching the president?" He said that ultimately "parties to lawsuits will not get justice."
Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said that "military morality was dangerously low." When the commander in chief of the armed forces lies — and gets away with it — the services suffer, he said.
Inglis said he has trouble explaining the president's behavior to members of the military and to his eight-year old daughter. "Daddy the president is lying," Inglis said she tells him. And Inglis added he must tell her, yes he did.
Lindsey Graham, a republican from South Carolina, called on the president to "come before the American people and do as these ladies have done," referring to Battalino and Parsons. Graham said he can't just sit back and let perjury go unpunished, but he and the American people have a tremendous capacity for forgiveness.
The two women perjured themselves and were convicted, said Graham, and yet now, some colleagues had even referred to them as American heroes. "If you own up to your mistakes," he said, "people will go out of their way to forgive the sins."
White House Responds
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart today attacked the decision to explore fund-raising allegations, claiming Hyde "is not being entirely straight with the president" about the confines of the inquiry. Lockhart suggested "the committee has been hijacked by the extremists."
The subpoena decision opens up a new avenue of investigation for the impeachment panel, just as Hyde is pressing to wrap up work in time for a vote by Christmas on possible articles of impeachment against the president.
Hyde and other Republicans planned to seek subpoenas in closed session after today's hearing. The subpoenas would compel Freeh and LaBella to answer questions about their recommendation that an independent counsel be named to investigate Clinton fund raising, committee officials said.
They will seek separate subpoenas demanding that Attorney General Janet Reno turn over memos that Freeh and LaBella wrote laying out their arguments, and demanding that Clinton order Reno to turn over the memos, according to committee officials. No request is being contemplated to force Clinton to answer questions.
Neither McNulty nor other committee officials would say what specific allegations against the president they believed the memos contained.
The choreographed hearing masked a swirl of behind-the-scenes maneuvering on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers scrambled to gauge support for articles of impeachment in the full House.
House Democrats have conducted an initial survey, and found that fewer than 10 of their members contacted since the Nov. 3 elections would vote for an article of impeachment against the president, according to one congressional source familiar with the informal tally.
Court TV's Aldina Vazao and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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