The CHAIRMAN. And not Sunday. Mr. DENNIS. Not Sunday? The CHAIRMAN. Not Sunday. Mr. DENNIS. So there would be no voting before Saturday at the earliest? The CHAIRMAN. It would not appear to be, no. I don't see how we could do it. Mr. DENNIS. For instance, I have a problem of Thursday night at home. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, no. Mr. DENNIS. Voting by that time? The CHAIRMAN. No. Mr. DENNIS. All right. The CHAIRMAN. This is a live quorum, so the committee will recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. [Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the committee was recessed, to reconvene on Friday, July 19, 1974, at 10 a.m.] IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY Executive Session FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1974 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 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, Flowers, Mann, Sarbanes, Seilbering, Danielson, Drinan, Rangel, Jordan, Thornton, Holtzman, Owens, Mezvinsky, Hutchinson, McClory, Smith, Sandman, Railsback, Wiggins, Dennis, Fish, Mayne, Hogan, Butler, Cohen, Lott, Froehlich, Moorhead, Maraziti 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; Richard Cates, senior associate special counsel; Bernard W. Nussbaum, senior associate special counsel; Evan A. Davis, counsel; and Richard H. Gill counsel. Committee staff present: Jerome M. Zeifman, general counsel; Garner J. Cline, associate general counsel, Alan A. Parker, counsel; Daniel L. Cohen, counsel; William P. Dixon, counsel; Arden B. Schell, assistant counsel; Franklin G. Polk, associate counsel; Thomas E. Mooney, associate counsel; Michael W. Blommer, associate counsel. The CHAIRMAN. The committee members will please take their seats. We are going to allow the cameras to take one picture of the committee. OK, thank you gentlemen. John, are those documents being distributed? Mr. DOAR. We thought we would wait until the press was through. The CHAIRMAN. Let's have them distributed now. Mr. DOAR. Could you distribute the materials? The CHAIRMAN. I would like to advise the committee that these documents that are being distributed will be made public in order to assure that they won't just be released piecemeal, and I have assured Mr. Hutchinson that the document that will be presented by Mr. Garrison will also be made public as such. So, I would advise Mr. Doar that as soon as possible after this morning's presentation that these documents be released to the press. Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, has Mr. Garrison been established for the record? I know that you referred to him several times as making a presentation. The CHAIRMAN. I have been advised by Mr. Hutchinson that Mr. Garrison has been requested to present a memorandum. Mr. Garrison has been requested to prepare a presentation of arguments which he will make, and I don't know whether they are going to be ready until tomorrow some time; is that correct, Mr. Hutchinson? Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, they probably will not be ready until Sunday night. Is that right, Mr. Garrison? Mr. GARRISON. Yes, Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen of the committee. After taking an inventory of the rate of progress of the staff members working on that memorandum, I recommended to Mr. Hutchinson that we not attempt to have the memorandum ready for distribution before Sunday night or Monday morning, rather than doing it piecemeal, because as the members are aware, this project was only instituted in the past few days, and accordingly, any presentation that I might make to the committee today and tomorrow would be strictly oral. And frankly, I wouldn't anticipate that it would be very extensive at that. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Doar, will you kindly proceed? And before you do, would you kindly, first of all, advise us as to which documents contain what so that the members may be able to follow you? And, as we have done in the past, it is my hope that the committee will follow the procedure of permitting Mr. Doar to make this presentation, which I believe he has established would take about an hour. Mr. Doar, an hour? Mr. DOAR. Perhaps a little longer. The CHAIRMAN. A little longer. And then Mr. Jenner will join you. is that correct? Mr. DOAR. That is correct. Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, what is to be released to the press? The CHAIRMAN. These draft Articles of Impeachment, together with another notebook which contains the actual detailed material which supports the Articles of Impeachment on which the proposed articles are based. Mr. SMITH. They will be released to the press? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. SMITH. Has Mr. St. Clair's argument yesterday been released to the press yet, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. That hasn't been. That's a part of the transcript. Mr. SMITH. Isn't this going to be a part of the transcript? The CHAIRMAN. No; this, as you will recall, Mr. Smith, is the committee staff's presentation. Mr. St. Clair's argument or response that he made is going to be made a part of the total hearings when released accordingly. Mr. DENNIS. Mr. Chairman, is it fair to release draft articles before we adopt them? The CHAIRMAN. Well, they are designated as proposed articles. They are not anything that anyone will say is the product of the committee, of what the committee accepts or doesn't accept, and it's not unlike any other docunient or resolution that is considered for purposes of debate before the House. Mr. DENNIS. I would respectfully submit, Mr. Chairman, that it is quite all right to have that here in the committee and to debate it, but it is prejudicial to the case to put it in the papers as an unadopted draft more or less of the committee. I don't think you ought to do that. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Doar. Mr. DOAR. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, two books have been distributed to you this morning. One is a small book titled, Draft Articles of Impeachment. This is for your study and examination and consideration. There are five sets of proposed articles. They differ in form to some extent, they differ in substance, but they largely overlap with respect to theories of impeachment. The purpose of distributing the draft articles was to give the committee the opportunity to consider various forms of articles and various substantive provisions so that the committee would have today and tomorrow the opportunity to examine a wide range of possibilities in connection with their deliberation. It was our thought, Mr. Jenner's and mine, that over the weekend we would, in an attempt to reflect members' views, try to work through these various articles to see if there were certain draft articles that met, in our judgment, the best reflected judgment and wisdom of the committee. I would say to you that you should mark up your books on the draft articles, and that it is very easy to take one article out of one of the sections, there are five different sections, another article out of another section, strike language from one section, and it is designed to serve you, to be helpful for you, and at the same time to reserve for you the opportunity to consider various choices of words and various manners of presenting articles of impeachment. The other book that we have distributed to you is called a Summary of Information, which is briefly in four parts, and not all of the parts are in the book yet, it will be by noon, or when you get back. We will ask you to leave your books at your desk, or just before the noon recess. That is the section on abuse of power, and a section dealing with criminal statutes, which some members indicated that they would like to have to consider so that they could see how criminal statutes relate to the overall picture. And it would be our thought, Mr. Jenner's and mine, that in the next few days out of this summary of the evidence we would produce for you a far shorter document that sets forth our judgment, the law, and the ultimate facts and conclusions that would support whatever position the committee desired to take or to consider when they went into public session next Wednesday. Now, I would like to speak to you briefly about a kind of a broad overview of the case. Mr. SEIBERLING. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry before we begin. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Seiberling, I would hope that we would just permit Mr. Doar to go on. Any parliamentary inquiry Mr. SEIBERLING. This does not relate to his presentation, but to the matter which was discussed before. Has the question of releasing the draft articles been decided? I thought Mr. Dennis raised the question of substance which the committee The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Seiberling, that was decided. |