[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 26 (Friday, February 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S1639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        PRESIDENT CLINTON SHOULD FEEL THE DISDAIN OF THE SENATE

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, the Senate has been held in the grip of 
the impeachment trial for the past six weeks. The House has been 
involved in the impeachment process for the past six months, and the 
Nation has been divided over the actions and fate of the President for 
more than a year. We were not compelled to undertake this nearly 
unprecedented Constitutional remedy by partisanship, as some at the 
White House have suggested. We were driven to this point by Bill 
Clinton and Bill Clinton alone.
  Although I voted to acquit the President on the charges, I have no 
doubt that if I served in the House, I would have voted to impeach him.
  Chairman Hyde offered the White House every opportunity to defend the 
President, but the White House chose a different course. They chose to 
belittle the charges against the President by suggesting that everyone 
lies about sex. They chose to accuse their accusers by attacking the 
motives and integrity of the Judiciary Committee Republicans and by 
insinuating that Judge Starr is a sex-obsessed prosecutor run amok. 
They did not question the evidence on which the impeachment vote was 
based.
  With that evidence, the House Managers presented a powerful case 
against the President. As a result of their presentations, I am 
convinced that the President acted to circumvent the law. The notion 
that the President of the United States, the number one citizen of our 
nation, the man in whom the trust and respect of the country is meant 
to rest would deliberately maneuver around the laws of the land is 
reprehensible and should be condemned.
  Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Papers No. 65, said:

       The delicacy and magnitude of a trust, which so deeply 
     concerns the political reputation and resistance of every man 
     engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for 
     themselves.

President Clinton betrayed that delicate trust. The House Managers 
tried to restore it. In the end, the witnesses, all of whom were 
sympathetic to or allies of the President, provided direct evidence 
that failed to corroborate the House Managers' case. Removing the 
President from office in the face of a conflict between direct and 
circumstantial evidence, in my view, would be mistaken. On that basis, 
I voted to acquit the President. Nevertheless, the House Managers and 
all of the evidence left me convinced that the President acted in a way 
that is abominable. By voting for the censure resolution proposed by 
Senator Feinstein, the Senate makes clear that it does not exonerate 
the President.

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