[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 2 (Thursday, January 7, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E56-E57]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT CLINTON

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN F. TIERNEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 6, 1999

  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I shall be voting against each of the 
articles of impeachment. I am convinced that impeachment is not in the 
best interest of the country and its citizens. President Clinton's 
conduct--inappropriate and wrong as it was--does not reach the 
threshold necessary to constitute the kind of high crimes and 
misdemeanors envisioned by the founding fathers and subsequent 
interpreters of the Constitution.
  I have reached this decision after reviewing applicable law and 
precedence, after considering the views of academics, and after 
weighing the comments of constituents. A vote for impeachment ought to 
be a matter of conscience, but it should also not be unmindful of the 
strong opinion of the governed. Impeachment in this case would 
essentially undo the results of two popular elections.
  As my colleague Howard Berman has stated, ``That the President's 
conduct is not impeachable does not mean that society condones his 
conduct. Rather, it means that the popular vote of the people should 
not be abrogated for this conduct--when the people clearly do not wish 
for this conduct to cause the abrogation. * * * Conduct that may not be 
impeachable for the President * * * is not necessarily conduct that is 
acceptable in the larger society.''
  Indeed the President is not blameless for the sorry state of affairs 
now before us. His actions were, as he admitted, indefensible, and his 
obfuscation of facts has been ``maddening.'' It would be entirely 
appropriate, I believe, for either or both bodies of Congress to 
strongly rebuke the President for his conduct and his lack of judgment.
  It is regrettable that the leadership of the majority party, in the 
face of overwhelming public sentiment not to impeach--and in defiance 
of a fair number of its own party who have said that impeachment is not 
the appropriate course--has seemingly chosen to politicize this most 
serious matter. There is reason to believe that enormous pressure has 
been exerted on rank and file members of the majority party to support 
impeachment. The Republican leadership has compounded the situation by 
refusing to allow for a vote on the motion to censure the President--
something that again its own members have said should be permitted. 
Leading members of the majority would have us believe they are acting 
out of conscience. Yet they would deny other members that same right. 
This sets the stage for bitter and needlessly divisive recriminations 
in the months ahead as the 106th Congress begins to confront the issues 
on our national agenda.

[[Page E57]]

  This country and its citizens will pay the price for such a course. 
While the President must bear responsibility for his role in allowing 
this scenario to develop, we cannot undo the past, and the Republican 
party must bear responsibility for prolonging a situation that most 
American rightfully want to be brought to a close.
  The accusations against the President are serious. So too are the 
consequences of subjecting the nation to a Senate tribunal. To those 
who argue that the President should not be treated differently than 
others accused of similar misdeeds, let them be reminded that the 
President would still be subject to prosecution once out of office. It 
should be noted there is a large body of opinion that the statements in 
question made under oath by the President are not generally pursued 
criminally given the context in which they were made. However, the 
history of Ken Starr's relentless pursuit of William Clinton suggest 
that the President might stand little chance of receiving an objective 
analysis on the question of whether or not to prosecute.

  The world may ask--how did it come to this? The answer may well rest 
in a combination of factors--blatant partisanship, unreasonably strong 
personal animosity toward the President, a righteousness by those who 
appear to have lost any capacity for forgiveness, and a total disregard 
for the larger issues at stake.
  There are those who may truly believe that the facts do, in fact, 
require impeachment. However the process by which any such 
determination might have been made was deeply flawed and strained 
credulity. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said at the 
outset that successful impeachment would require bipartisanship. By 
that standard alone, the results are a failure. Unfortunately, the 
House Judiciary Committee chose to follow the lead of so-called 
Independent Counsel Ken Starr, and utterly failed to develop any facts 
of its own that would bear on the allegations. The Committee made a 
mockery of the responsibilities that come with consideration of 
impeachment and debased the Constitutional criteria by which 
impeachment is justified.
  From the outset, I opposed the process pursued by the Committee. As 
members of the Committee noted, the majority proceeded from allegations 
to a conclusion, ignoring fact-finding or rational inquiry. In short, 
the process was unfair. By denying the House the opportunity to vote on 
censure, and by introducing raw partisanship into a vote of conscience, 
the majority has compounded that unfairness. Attempts to inflict the 
maximum amount of pain on the President by insisting on impeachment--
the ultimate ``scarlet letter'' as Mr. McCollum put it--risks putting 
this country through an experience it need not endure. In view of the 
strong reasons not to impeach, and the strong public sentiments against 
such action, the partisan march toward impeachment is truly regretful.

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