Mr. DOAR. No, I am not saying that. I am saying that with respect to that, in the first instance, you take what you receive on the representation of counsel that this is all of the material that you have asked for.

Mr. RANGEL. Well, I hope that you know that we are good on this committee, but we are not good enough to make a judgment on material which the White House says is not relevant.

Mr. COHEN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOAR. Congressman Rangel, we made that clear in the letter, that the committee has the final authority to decide that it wants all of those recorded conversations. We have not backed off of that one bit. Mr. RANGEL. My last question before I yield: Has staff considered the effect, if any, on the speed with which this inquiry is going to move if the President removes himself from the jurisdiction for a trip to Russia, or any place else?

Mr. DOAR. No, we have not considered that.

Mr. RANGEL. Do you believe that it would be an important consideration as to whether or not the President was available to consult with his counsel, who now may become a member of the committee, if he is not in the country?

Mr. DOAR. Well, I do not really believe-I think that the President can continue to meet his responsibilities, and it would not interfere with the way this committee would conduct this business. I cannot foresee that, no.

Mr. RANGEL. Well, then, you do not believe that it is possible that the committee might ask the President of the United States to come before us?

Mr. DOAR. Well, I think that that would be up to the committee in its judgment. If it happened to do that, I am sure that could be done at a time when the President was available.

Ms. HOLTZMAN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. RANGEL. I vield, I promised to yield to Congresswoman Jordan. Ms. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I recognize our time is short, and I will not take long. But, I do not want us to be misled now. At the last time when we met, you, the chairman directed the staff to prepare this memorandum coming to no conclusion about the extent of the participation of the President's counsel. And the staff did that. Then this morning we are confronted with another memorandum by minority members of this committee, coming to a conclusion, an advocate's document. If any bipartisanship has been destroyed it has not been destroyed by you, the chairman, who has continually asserted that you want to be fair and exercise good judgment and be judicious in the kinds of decisions which are reached. And I hope that the 38 of us who are on this committee do not become the victims of partisanism, partisan devisiveness when we really did not intend to become a part of it at the beginning of this inquiry, and when we wanted it to be open and aboveboard. We ought to have the good judgment to understand when we are being pushed into a confrontation with each other, at the expense of this inquiry.

Ms. HOLTZMAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COHEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Maine.

Mr. COHEN. Thank you for yielding.

I have just one question, Mr. Doar. As I understand it, the ranking minority leader, Mr. Rhodes, has made a proposal whereby you and Mr. Jenner and the chairman and the ranking member, Mr. Hutchinson, would listen in conjunction, listen to those documents and tapes, rather in conjunction with Mr. St. Clair, and would subject it to a majority vote. In other words, the committee could overrule, if Mr. St. Clair's judgment is that he says it is irrelevant and not material to our inquiry, you could overrule that. But, it would seem to me the position you are taking is giving him the absolute authority in the initial instance, and which works to the detriment of this committee.

Mr. DOAR. No, it is not giving him the absolute authority in the initial instance. We have preserved that but we have not said that it would be the judgment of myself or Mr. Jenner or Mr. Hutchinson and the chairman. It would be the committee and if the committee delegated that to us, we have made it clear that the

Mr. COHEN. It seems to me that Mr. Rhodes' proposition of letting you all listen to it, and decide what is relevant and not relevant, and put it to a vote by the majority would be a much preferable way of handling it.

Mr. DOAR. I agree.

The CHAIRMAN. The second bell of the quorum has rung and the briefing session will adjourn. And the Chair will announce when a further briefing session will take place early next week.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the briefing was adjourned to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]

IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

Impeachment Briefing

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1974

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45 a.m., in room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Peter W. Rodino, Jr. (chairman) presiding.

Present: Representatives Rodino (presiding), Donohue, Brooks, Kastenmeier, Edwards, Hungate, Conyers, Eilberg, Waldie, Mann, Sarbanes, Drinan, Rangel, Jordan, Thornton, Holtzman, Mezvinsky, Hutchinson, McClory, Sandman, Railsback, Dennis, Fish, Mayne, Hogan, Butler, Moorhead and Latta.

Impeachment inquiry staff present: John Doar, special counsel; Albert E. Jenner, Jr., special counsel to the minority; Samuel Garrison III, deputy minority counsel; Joseph A. Woods, Jr., senior associate special counsel; and Hillary D. Rodham, counsel.

Committee staff present: Jerome M. Zeifman, general counsel; Garner J. Cline, associate general counsel; and Franklin G. Polk, associate counsel.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

The Chair would like to make a statement. I know that all of the members have before them a letter that has been received from Mr. St. Clair. The press also has that letter. It is a reply to our letter of April 4. Well, the letter should be, a copy of the letter should have been distributed and I am sorry if it is not before the press. But, I had instructed the staff to distribute such a letter and have it in the hands of the press.

On April 4, Mr. Doar received a letter that is before you from Mr. St. Clair. Mr. St. Clair has promised to respond to Mr. Doar's letter by Tuesday, April 9.

While his letter suggests that there will be a delay of a day or two because the President attended the funeral of President Pompidou, Mr. St. Clair has since advised Mr. Doar that we would have his reply by tomorrow. This was as the result of a telephone call I instructed Mr. Doar to make to Mr. St. Clair that we would be expecting a reply by tomorrow.

Accordingly, I propose to hold a meeting of the Judiciary Committee later this week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, to decide what we should do in the light of Mr. St. Clair's reply, which we cannot speculate upon at this time. And it may be, and I know that Mr. Hutchinson and I would want to discuss this and the members of the com

mittee will have an opportunity to discuss this this morning, as to whether or not the committee might want to delegate authority for the issuance of a subpena during the recess if, in the judgment of the committee, that is what is required. I would not want to call the committee back during the recess, but it is important to have the authority from the committee to issue the subpena during the recess if, in the judgment of the committee, that is the appropriate course to be taken.

I hope that this will not be the case. But, as I have mentioned before, there is a contradiction in efforts to determine whether the Office of the President is being faithfully executed is met with the claim that the faithful execution of the Office precludes the disclosure of the relevant facts. And if such be the claim, then, in my judgment, we would have to subpena the material necessary to meet our constitutional responsibility.

I discussed with Mr. Hutchinson last week a possible schedule, and I think this would be an appropriate matter for us to talk about this morning. The Chairman intends to schedule a meeting or meetings during the first week after the recess to decide on whether and how the issues before the committee can be narrowed. I think this is an important matter for discussion, and Mr. Hutchinson agreed. And I am sure that this is a matter that is high in the minds of the members of the committee that we do resolve that issue as best we can. And I have instructed the special counsel to prepare a memorandum on those matters which the staff thinks should be brought to the attention of the committee during that week, with full explanation, factual and legal, of the basis for the recommendations.

I know that the committee will have to adopt the rules to govern its procedures during the evidentiary hearings, and I would hope that those could be considered during the second week after the Easter recess. The adoption of rules of procedure is not a simple matter. I think we have got to recognize that once we adopt these rules of procedure, they become inflexible and may tie us down to rules which we may find do not comport with the situation.

Mr. RAILSBACK. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, can I just ask a question?

The CHAIRMAN. Let me conclude my statement, if you will.

Mr. RAILSBACK. OK.

The CHAIRMAN. I am concerned about two things:

First, the question of confidentiality during the evidentiary hearings. And I think this is a matter and a subject that should engage the attention of each of us. I am concerned with preserving the integrity of the committee, and adhering to the rules of confidentiality which were adopted with the express purpose that we would be able to not interfere with ongoing trials and not prejudice the rights of individuals. I know that it is going to be difficult to be able to comply with those rules of confidentiality unless we adopt some stringent procedures, and unless we know where we are going during the presentation of the evidentiary material and how we present that evidentiary material. And I would hope that we consider that if it becomes necessary, and we find we are not able to comply with those rules of confidentiality, I would rather prefer that we consider the question of gɔ

ing into open hearings and opening up everything that we have got. I think that that is a matter that the committee, however, has to consider and consider seriously.

Second, it is my conviction that we should not be bound to inflexible. procedures unless we have had the benefit of the initial evidentiary presentation by the staff. And I called this briefing session this morning so that we could further discuss this matter.

And I know that Mr. Hutchinson would like to make some comments regarding this.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that the Chair has announced that immediately following the recess the committee will meet in a business session to narrow the issues before this Committee. That is something that a good many members of the committee have been thinking a matter of priority for some time.

With regard to a subpena, Mr. Chairman, I sincerely hope that it would not be necessary to issue any subpena during the recess. I announced at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that I would not join you in issuing a subpena to the President of the United States, but that that matter would be something that would have to be decided by the full committee, so far as I was concerned. I think it would be unfortunate for this full committee to be asked to decide whether such a subpena should be issued in advance of the circumstances, which might warrant its issuance. I do not feel, however, Mr. Chairman, in view of the public statements that I have made, including statements made on the floor of the House by me, I do not feel that I would be at all comfortable in having the committee direct just you and me to issue a subpena to the President of the United States during the recess, because I, as I say, have rather committed myself in my own conscience, at least, that I would not join you in such a procedure.

With regards to the rule of confidentiality during the evidentiary hearings, Mr. Chairman, I feel very strongly that we must find a way to maintain those rules of confidentiality. I think it would be extremely unfortunate if we decided that we could not do so, and so would simply open the thing up. I think that if we did so, we would not be keeping faith with the grand jury and Judge Sirica who turned the material from the grand jury over to us. While I recognize that the judge and the grand jury certainly realize that once those materials were turned over to us, in our hands, they lost control of them. I think that there was I think we have a very strong moral obligation, Mr. Chairman, to maintain that confidentiality for the protection of purposes who are being subjected to trial and so I would not happily go along with your alternative, Mr. Chairman, that if we cannot find a way to preserve the doctrine of confidentiality, we throw it overboard. I think we must find a way to preserve it.

Mr. CONYERS. Would the gentleman from Michigan allow a question?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan. Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. Do I understand you are saying that you have determined in your own mind that you are not going to join on a subpena under literally any circumstances?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am talking about a subpena to the President of the United States. And if the gentleman will read my statement on the