[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 2345-2346]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                STATEMENT ON THE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROBERT A. BRADY

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 11, 1999

  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I don't think I need to say 
anything about the facts of this case. The thousands of pages from the 
Independent Counsel say it all, and anyone who still thinks there's 
enough in there to convict the President on Perjury or Obstruction of 
Justice charges should read them again. I can't add anything to the 
case the White House Counsel presented, so I won't try. I'm not going 
to talk about Constitutional Law, except to say that I don't see how 
the President can be removed from office in this case even if the 
charges could be proven. While President Clinton is guilty of bad 
behavior and lack of moral judgment in this issue, he didn't put the 
country in jeopardy. Instead, I'll tell you about the political 
lynching that's been going on, how we got here, and why we can't seem 
to get back to the issues of the people of America.
  Ever since I can remember, I have regarded the United States Congress 
with a kind of awe. Throughout my political career I've been impressed 
by the Representatives on both sides of the aisle and held them in very 
high regard. That is, until I was elected as a Member of the House, 
walked through it's doors for the first time, and became witness to the 
most hateful and vicious attack on our Democracy that this country has 
ever seen, the hijacking of the American Government. The conservative 
Republicans wanted nothing less than the total destruction of their 
political enemy, the nationally elected President of our United States. 
Maybe this sounds partisan, but I'm not here to make friends or win any 
popularity contests with my fellow Congressmen, I'm here to do what my 
people asked me to do--represent them. I won't pretend that I am not a 
staunch Democratic supporter of the President. I'll just give you a 
little history, tell you what I've seen and, you can be the judge.
  It started in 1992, when a Southern, pro-choice, environmentally 
minded moderate won the Presidency. The Republican minority in Congress 
was stunned. This Democratic President did not attempt to win their 
approval by advocating their issues. In fact, he made hard and fast 
enemies while he picked apart their proposals and vetoed them. They 
shouldn't have taken it so personally because the reality is, he didn't 
make friends with the Democrats either! But it was back then that they 
decided they had to get rid of him.
  In 1994, the Republicans succeeded in taking over the Congress with 
huge amounts of soft money from large corporations, rich special 
interest groups, and other ultra-conservative organizations. Even with 
this new Majority in the House, the President continued to win the 
political fights and continued to gain favor in the hearts and minds of 
the voters. While the new majority tried to shut down the government, 
the President stood for issues of national concern such as education 
and Social Security. In effect, even though they had the House, they 
still lost. Now, they decided, it was time to make a move for the 
political assassination of their enemy.
  With the right wing organization behind them, the House conservatives 
tried a variety of tactics, each one unsuccessful. They sought to 
indict him as a criminal. They proceeded to dredge up and spin 
allegations of illegal involvement by either President or First Lady, 
(Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, etc. . . .) They knew that with the 
right amount of pressure and enough fuel, they could get the Attorney 
General to grant their request for a Special Prosecutor (a Republicans 
zealot of their choice) to ``get him''. With the help of the media, 
(there's no news like bad news involving the President), they 
succeeded.

  Just short of four years and forty million tax dollars later, not a 
single shred of indictable evidence was uncovered. This is incredible 
when you consider that EVERY stone had been unturned. This was also a 
serious problem for the Republicans since they spent all that time and 
money with nothing to show for it and, in spite of the media storm they 
produced, the President's job approval rating was still climbing! Then 
BINGO! They got lucky.
  In walks that paragon of American virtue, Ms. Linda Tripp, with juicy 
tales of her illegally taped conversations with the now famous Monica. 
Although this wasn't exactly the stuff that ``High Crimes and 
Misdemeanors'' are made of, it's still all they had, so they had to 
make it work. The new leader of the effort to destroy the President, 
the so-called ``independent'' counsel, devised a plan to work with the 
lawyers on the Jones civil case and use the illegally obtained 
information to set a trap for the President! By now, you know the rest 
of the story, so I won't get into the details except to say that no 
other citizen of this country would ever be subject to such an 
outrageous and illegal bastardization of the American system of 
justice. It is only the right wing conspiracy, in justification of 
their destructive pursuit, who would have you believe this is simply 
``equal justice under the law''.

[[Page 2346]]

  From almost the minute the case was placed in the hands of the 
Congress it became clear to me that I was no longer part of a 
``Representative'' body. The American people, the people who voted and 
sent us here, were left completely out of the process. Their 
``Representatives'' decided to pursue their OWN agenda instead and, 
with the approval of their counterparts in the Senate, used their 
majority muscle and pushed it through the House. No debate, no opposing 
arguments considered, no witnesses needed. Don't be fooled by the 
political theater you saw on C-Span. That was just a show to have you 
think we were doing our constitutional duty. In fact, leadership even 
told you at one point that we shouldn't be concerned with the 
President's ``removal from office''. He said that's not what 
impeachment means, and that a vote in favor of the Articles didn't mean 
that we thought the President should be removed from office. Did you 
believe that? Well it may be true. They don't have to actually remove 
him to destroy his presidency, and that IS their primary goal.
  To be fair, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were 
interested in doing the right thing and giving this issue the level of 
consideration it warranted. You might have heard about this ``secret 
evidence'' that was ``shown'' to those undecided voters that 
``convinced'' them to vote in favor of the Impeachment Articles. We 
should all question those events.
  Into the other well of the body marched the 13 Conservative Managers, 
with their own special ``rule of law'' and their own version of ``truth 
and justice'', as self proclaimed ``Representatives of the People''. 
What people? Certainly not the majority of the American people. They 
continued to support the President. They don't want him removed from 
office. They know his character is flawed, and while the scandal is fun 
to watch on TV, they trust him to do his job because they know he has 
the best interests in his heart. In spite of the very best efforts to 
ruin him, the conservative Republicans have failed.
  This brings us to our current dilemma. The conservatives have a 
problem. We need to end this and gain back the respect of the American 
people but how can THEY get out of this gracefully? How can the 
conservative Senators save face for their Congressional counterparts? 
It seems that the Republicans finally have their exit strategy. They 
will refuse to exit. They will take their chances and keep this going 
as long as they possibly can with the hope that they will publicly 
destroy the President and the Democratic party. Even now, knowing that 
the President will not be removed from office by the required two-
thirds margin, they will attempt to use their 55 percent majority to 
continue beating their dead horse, allowing the House managers to run 
the show. If this goes on long enough, it doesn't matter if the final 
vote is not enough to remove Clinton. Before they are finished, they 
will have gone as far as they can by any means possible (witnesses, 
furthering the independent investigation into any other areas they can 
find and lots and lots of press) to publicly destroy and defame 
Clinton.
  The Republicans worked so hard at making war that they forgot how to 
make peace. They drew their line in the sand and it can't even be 
washed away by the tide of public outrage. The longer this goes on, the 
more ground we all lose, and still the President's approval ratings 
continue to rise. I say, NOW is the time to get over it and get back to 
doing our jobs. We have wasted too much time already in not 
representing the interests of our public. We must make peace among the 
parties and the branches of our government and get back to work on the 
PEOPLE'S agenda of education, Social Security reform, Medicare, the 
Patient's Bill of Rights, housing, crime, and other issues that are 
important to the people who put us here to serve them.

                          ____________________