[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 125 (Friday, September 18, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H8073-H8075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTENTION TO OFFER RESOLUTION RAISING QUESTION OF 
                        PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, most respectfully I thank you 
for recognizing me and permitting me to act expeditiously in a matter 
that I wish to bring to the attention of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, pursuant to rule IX, I hereby give notice of my 
intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privilege of the 
House.
  The form of my resolution is as follows, and I shall try to be as 
expeditious as possible.
  Impeaching Kenneth W. Starr, an independent counsel of the United 
States appointed pursuant to 28 United States Code section 593(b), of 
high crimes and misdemeanors.
  Resolved that Kenneth W. Starr, an independent counsel of the United 
States of America, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and 
that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:
  Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in the name of itself and of all the 
people of the United States of America, against Kenneth W. Starr, an 
independent counsel of the United States of America, in maintenance and 
support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and 
misdemeanors.
  Article I. In his conduct of the office of independent counsel, 
Kenneth W. Starr has violated his oath and his statutory and 
constitutional duties as an officer of the United States and has acted 
in ways that were calculated to and that did usurp the sole power of 
impeachment that the Constitution of the United States vests 
exclusively in the House of Representatives and that were calculated to 
and did obstruct and impede the House of Representatives in the proper 
exercise of its sole power of impeachment. The acts by which 
Independent Counsel Starr violated his duties and attempted to and did 
usurp the sole power of impeachment and impede its proper exercise 
include.
  On September 9, 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr 
transmitted two copies of a ``Referral to the United States House of 
Representatives pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, section 
595(c).'' As part of that Referral, Mr. Starr submitted a 445-page 
report (the ``Starr Report'') that included an extended narration and 
analysis of evidence presented to a grand jury and of other material 
and that specified the grounds upon which Mr. Starr had concluded that 
a duly elected President of the United States should be impeached by 
the House of Representatives. By submitting the Starr report, Mr. Starr 
usurped the sole power of impeachment and impeded the House in the 
proper exercise of that power in various ways, including the following.

                              {time}  1230


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, may I make a parliamentary 
inquiry?
  The SPEAKER. The gentleman may state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if I may, this is a lengthy 
document, and unless the rules require all of it to be read into the 
Record, this Member has no great need to read it all, if that is 
permitted, and, if I would be permitted under leave, I would place it 
on the Record.
  The SPEAKER. The form of a question of privilege should be read into 
the Record so all Members are notified.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. (a) In preparing the Starr Report, Mr. Starr 
misused the powers granted and violated the duties assigned independent 
counsel under the provisions of Title 28 of the United States Code. 
Section 595(c) does not authorize or require independent counsel to 
submit a report narrating and analyzing the evidence and identifying 
the specific grounds on which independent counsel believes the House of 
Representatives should impeach the President of the United States. By 
submitting the Starr Report in the form he did, Mr. Starr misused his 
powers and preempted the proper exercise of the sole power of 
impeachment that the Constitution assigned to the House of 
Representatives. Mr. Starr thereby committed a high crime and 
misdemeanor against the Constitution and the people of the United 
States of America.
  (b) In his preparation and submission of the Starr Report, Mr. Starr 
further misused his powers and violated his duties as independent 
counsel and arrogated onto himself and effectively preempted and 
undermined the proper exercise of power of impeachment that the 
Constitution allocated exclusively to the House of Representatives. Mr. 
Starr knew or should have known, and he acted to assure, that the House 
of Representatives would promptly release to the public any report that 
he transmitted to the House of Representatives under the authority of 
Section 595(c). With that knowledge, Mr. Starr prepared and transmitted 
a needlessly pornographic report calculated to inflame public opinion 
and to preclude the House of Representatives from following the 
procedures and observing the precedents it had established for the 
conduct of a bipartisan inquiry to

[[Page H8074]]

determine whether a President of the United States had committed a high 
crime or misdemeanor in office meriting impeachment. Mr. Starr thereby 
committed a high crime and misdemeanor against the Constitution and the 
people of the United States.
  (2) Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr further usurped and 
arrogated onto himself the powers that belong solely to the House of 
Representatives by using and threatening to use the subpoena powers of 
a federal grand jury to compel an incumbent President of the United 
States to testify before a federal grand jury as part of an 
investigation whose primary purpose had become and was the development 
of exercise that the President had committed high crimes and 
misdemeanors justifying his impeachment and removal from office. With 
respect to the President of the United States, the only means by which 
the whole of that office may be called to account for his conduct in 
office is through the exercise by the House of Representatives of the 
investigative powers that the constitutional assignment of the sole 
power of impeachment conferred upon it. Mr. Starr improperly used and 
manipulated the powers of the grand jury and his office to effectively 
impeach the President of the United States of America and to force the 
House of Representatives to ratify his decision. Mr. Starr thereby 
committed a high crime and misdemeanor against the Constitution and the 
people of the United States.
  In all of this, Kenneth W. Starr has acted in a manner contrary to 
his trust as an independent counsel of the United States and subversive 
of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law 
and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
States.
  Wherefore Kenneth W. Starr by such conduct warrants impeachment and 
trial and removal from office.
  Article II:
  In his conduct of the office of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr 
violated the oath he took to support and defend the Constitution of the 
United States and his duties as an officer of the United States and 
acted in ways that were calculated to and did unconstitutionally 
undermine the office of the President of the United States and 
obstruct, impede and impair the ability of an incumbent President of 
the United States to fully and effectively discharge the duties and 
responsibilities of his office on behalf and for the benefit of the 
United States of America by whom he had been duly elected. The acts by 
which Mr. Starr violated his oath and his duties and undermined the 
office of the President and obstructed, impeded and impaired the 
ability of the incumbent President to fully and effectively discharge 
the duties of that office include:
  (1) Mr. Starr unlawfully and improperly disclosed and authorized 
disclosures of grand jury material for the purpose of embarrassing and 
humiliating the President of the United States and distracting him from 
and impairing his ability to execute the duties of the office to which 
the people of the United States had elected him. Mr. Starr has thereby 
committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution and the 
people of the United States.
  (2) Mr. Starr engaged in a willful and persistent course of conduct 
that was calculated to and did wrongfully demean, embarrass and defame 
an incumbent President of the United States and thereby undermine and 
impaired the President's ability to properly execute the duties of the 
office to which the people of the United States had elected him 
including not only Mr. Starr's wrongful disclosures of grand jury 
material, but also other improper conduct such as his actions and 
conduct calculated to suggest without foundation that the incumbent 
President had participated in preparing a so-called, quote, talking 
points, unquote, outline to improperly influence the testimony of one 
or more persons scheduled to be deposed in a civil action. By his 
willful and persistent conduct and misrepresenting as well as 
improperly disclosing evidence that he had gathered, Mr. Starr 
committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States and 
the people of the United States of America.
  (3) Mr. Starr intentionally, willfully and improperly embarrassed the 
people and the President of the United States by including in the Starr 
Report an unnecessary and improper and extended detailed salacious and 
pornographic narrative account of the consensual sexual encounters that 
a grand jury witness testified she had with an incumbent President of 
the United States. By including that unnecessary and improper 
pornographic narrative, Mr. Starr intended to and did undermine and 
imperil the ability of the President to conduct the foreign relations 
of the United States of America and otherwise to execute the duties of 
the office to which the people of the United States had elected him, 
and he knowingly and improperly embarrassed the United States as a 
Nation. By including that narrative knowing and intending that it would 
be published and disseminated, Mr. Starr committed a high crime and 
misdemeanor against the Constitution and the people of the United 
States of America.
  Article III:
  In his conduct of the office of independent counsel, Kenneth Starr 
violated the oath he took to support and defend the Constitution of the 
United States of America and the duties he had assumed as a officer of 
the United States and acted in ways that were calculated to and that 
did unconstitutionally arrogate onto himself powers that the 
Constitution of the United States assigned to the federal courts that 
were calculated to and did undermine the institution of the grand jury 
established by the Constitution of the United States of America and 
that were calculated to and did undermine and bring into disrepute the 
office of independent counsel and offices of all those charged with 
investigating and prosecuting crimes against the United States. The 
acts by which Mr. Starr violated his oath and duties and by which he 
undermined the federal courts and the grand jury and undermined and 
demeaned the office and role of all federal prosecutors include:

  (1) Mr. Starr disclosed and authorized and approved the disclosure 
and misuse of grand jury materials in violation of Rule 6(e)(2) of the 
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and with contempt for the federal 
courts and for the rights of those who appear before grand juries of 
the United States and of those who are subjects of grand jury 
investigations.
  (2) Throughout his investigations Mr. Starr abused the powers of his 
office and condoned the abuse of those powers to improperly intimidate 
and manipulate citizens of the United States who were interviewed or 
called to testify before a grand jury or who were actual or potential 
targets of his investigation and to deprive them of rights guaranteed 
to all citizens of the United States. Mr. Starr and subordinates for 
whose conduct he is responsible further abused and misused the powers 
of the office of independent counsel and the powers of the grand jury 
to improperly evade and needlessly intrude upon the privacy of 
individuals and to demean the rights guaranteed to all by the first and 
fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
  (3) Throughout his investigations, Mr. Starr has abused and misused 
and has authorized and approved the abuse and misuse of the powers of 
his office in ways that have demeaned the prosecutorial office and that 
have undermined and will undermine the ability of other prosecutorial 
offices of the United States to discharge their duty to take care that 
the laws of the United States be faithfully executed.
  (4) In his conduct of the office of independent counsel, Mr. Starr 
has needlessly and unjustifiably expended and wasted funds of the 
United States. Over the past 4 years Mr. Starr has expended more than 
$40 million in a relentless pursuit of investigations and prosecutions 
that he knew or should have known did not merit and could not justify 
such extraordinary expenditures.
  By the conduct described in Article III of these Articles of 
Impeachment, Kenneth Starr committed high crimes and misdemeanors 
against the Constitution and the people of the United States.
  In all of this, Kenneth Starr has acted in a manner contrary to his 
trust as an independent counsel of the United States and subversive of 
constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law 
and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
States.

[[Page H8075]]

  Wherefore Kenneth W. Starr by such conduct warrants impeachment and 
trial and removal from office.
  Final article, Mr. Speaker, Article IV:
  By his conduct as an officer of the United States of America, 
including the conduct described in Articles I through III of these 
articles of impeachment, Kenneth W. Starr has violated the oath he took 
to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. 
He has acted and persisted in acting in ways that were calculated to 
and did embarrass the United States and the people of the United States 
before the international community and that were calculated to and did 
undermine the ability of the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, 
and the Judicial Branch to effectively exercise the powers and 
discharge the duties assigned to each by the Constitution of the United 
States of America. He has unconstitutionally and improperly exercised 
powers that were not his to exercise and has acted in ways that were 
calculated to and did improperly demean a President of the United 
States and diminished the capacity of the President to effectively 
discharge the duties that the people of the United States elected him 
to perform. He has unconstitutionally and improperly exercised his 
powers and has acted in ways that were calculated to and did demean the 
House of Representatives and that have effectively deprived the House 
of Representatives of it is right to exercise its sole power of 
impeachment in a deliberate and bipartisan manner that was consistent 
with the procedures and precedents it had established in prior 
proceedings and inquiries to determine whether the President of the 
United States or any officer should be impeached. He has unlawfully and 
improperly exercised his powers in ways that demeaned the institution 
of the federal grand jury, that demonstrated contempt of the courts of 
the United States and the rules that govern their proceedings, and that 
demeaned the office of independent counsel and offices of all those 
charged with responsibility for seeing that the laws of the United 
States are faithfully executed. By his conduct as an independent 
counsel, Kenneth W. Starr has committed high crimes and misdemeanors 
against the Constitution and the people of the United States.
  In all of this, Kenneth W. Starr has acted in a manner contrary to 
his trust as an independent counsel of the United States and subversive 
of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of 
law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United 
States.

                              {time}  1300

  Wherefore, Kenneth W. Starr, by such conduct, warrants impeachment 
and trial and removal from office.
  Mr. Speaker, most respectfully, I gratefully thank my fellow 
colleagues for their patience in the House of Representatives. That 
concludes my noticing of the privileged resolution that I most 
respectfully put before the body.
  The SPEAKER. Under Rule XI, a resolution offered from the floor by a 
Member other than the majority leader or the minority leader as a 
question of the privileges of the House has immediate precedence only 
at a time designated by the Chair within 2 legislative days after the 
resolution is properly noticed.
  Pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the 
gentleman from Florida will appear in the Record at this point. The 
Chair will not at this point determine whether the resolution 
constitutes a question of privilege. That determination will be made at 
the time designated for consideration of the resolution.

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