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| REP. LINDSEY GRAHAM | |
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Lindsey Graham (R-SC) laid out the precedents for removing federal officials from office. He was also the first presenter not to work solely from prepared text. |
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This is an unbelievable occasion for all of us. I'm Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. And we'll talk a lot about civil rights. I'm a child of the South, and I will give you my views on civil rights and how we've progressed in this country. But I'm going to talk to you a bit about some decisions this body has made regarding the crime of perjury and obstruction of justice and the impeachment clause in the Constitution as it applies to federal judges, and I'm not so presumptuous to tell you I know more about what you did than you did. I'm going to try to highlight some of the things that you did I think have served this country well in this area. But before we get there, a couple of observations. As I was walking over through The Rotunda today, there were a group of Japanese tourists. And I stopped and talked. And my dad, who's now deceased, was a World War II veteran. And it struck me, 50 years plus, how resilient this world is. My dad's generation I don't thing would have even envisioned 50 years ago that his son, one, would be a congressman, which is a great a thing about this country, would be stopping and talking to Japanese tourists in the Capitol of the United States. So when we talk about the consequences of this case, no matter what you decide, in my opinion, this country will survive. If you acquit the president, we will survive. If you convict him, it will be traumatic, and if you remove him, it will be traumatic, but we will survive. And this has been billed as a constitutional drama, by some of the pundits, that's called a snoozer. And I can understand that a little bit. I'm the 12th lawyer you've had to listen to, and I think my colleagues have done a very good job, but it is a very long, tedious process in many ways. And it's hard to sit here and listen to 12 lawyers talk to you, but you've done a wonderful job I think. I'm very proud of the United States Senate. You've paid great attention. But the fact that people call this boring is not a bad thing to me. I think it shows the confidence we've achieved in 200 years as a republic that people can go on about their business -- and they're upset, I know my phone rings a lot and your phone is ringing a lot about what to do -- but there is a calmness in this country in the midst of something so important like this that tells me we've done it right for a long time. How many countries would love the chance to be bored when their government is in action? How many countries fear that the government won't work for them, that to get it right you've got to pick up a gun? That happens every day throughout this world, and the fact that we can come together and talk about something so important and the country can go on and people not be so anxious about their personal lives, and their freedoms, and their properties, and their jobs is a compliment to every generation who has ever served this republic. And Tom Brokaw has got a book out called "The Greatest Generation," and I recommend it to you to read because we will be talking about values in a moment. But let's talk about some of this country's imperfections. Mr. Buyer talked about -- very eloquently -- the rule of law and how it makes us so different and how it's something that people literally do die for and have died for. But let me tell you, as a lawyer, it is not a perfect legal system. If you are a poor person and you are charged with a crime, you'll likely get a public defender right out of law school. And hopefully that public defender will do the best he can or she can, but it's not a perfect system, don't ever think it is.
My father and mother owned a restaurant, a beer joint I guess is what we'd say in South Carolina. I can remember that if you were black, you came, and you had to buy the beer, and you had to go because you couldn't drink it there. "That's just the way it was" is what my dad said. I always never quite understood that. But my dad and mom were good people. But that's just the way it was. Well, that's not the way it is now, and we are better off for that. In sexual-harassment cases, it is always uncomfortable to listen to. That's just the way it is. It used to be in this country, not long ago, there was really no recourse if you were sexually harassed. We have changed things, for the better. The reason we are here today is not because somebody wanted to look into the personal life of the president for no good reason. We are here today because somebody accused him when he was governor, of picking them out of a crowd, asking her to come to a hotel room and, if you believe her, did something very crude and rude that you wouldn't want to happen to anybody in your family. Now only God knows what happened there. That case has been settled. The parties know, and God knows; we'll never know. But let me just say this. I am proud of my country, where you as a low-level employee, can sue the governor of your state. And if that governor becomes president, you can still sue. The Supreme Court said, 9-0, a shutout legally, "Mr. President, you will stand subject to this suit." And we are going to talk about, is this private or public conduct? does this go to the heart of being president, or is this just some private matter he could prosecuted after he gets out of office? Is this really a big deal about being president? I would contend to you, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, it became a big deal about being president when he raised the defense: "You can't sue me now because I am the president. I'm a busy man. I got a lot going on." He used his office, or tried to, to avoid the day in court. But the Supreme Court said, "No, sir. You will stand subject to suit under some reasonable accommodations." And we're here today. If I had been on the Supreme Court, I don't know if I would have ruled that way. There's not much chance of that happening any time soon, if you're worried about that. I don't think that's going to be in my future, but -- (laughter) -- I may not have ruled that way. And we in Congress, if we don't the way all this has come out, we can change that law. We can change that ruling by law. But it's the law of the land because the chief justice and his colleagues said so. What did our president do? He tried to say, "You can sue me because I'm president." Well, he participated in that lawsuit because he was told to, and I would argue, ladies and gentlemen, that we all assumed he would play fair. Now, isn't there a lot of doubt about that? Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, what if he had not shown up? What if he had refused to answer any court order? What if he had said, "I'm not going to play. That's it. I'm not going to listen to you, judicial branch." You know the remedy we have to resolve problems like that, when presidential conduct gets out of bounds? You know where that remedy lies? It lies with us, the United States Congress. When a president gets out of bounds and doesn't do as he or she should do constitutionally, and I would argue that every president and every citizen has a constitutional duty not to cheat another citizen, especially the president, and they get out of bounds, it's up to us to put them back in bounds or to declare it illegal. And how do we do that? How do we regulate presidential misconduct when it's done in a presidential fashion? Through the laws and powers of impeachment. That is why we're here today.
What's a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It's not very scholarly, but I think it's the truth. I think that's what they meant by high crimes. Doesn't even have to be a crime. It's just when you start using your office and you're acting in a way that hurts people, you've committed a high crime. When you decide that a course of conduct meets the high crimes standard under our Constitution for the president, what are we doing to the presidency? I think we're putting a burden on the presidency and you should consider it that way, that if you determine that the conduct and the crimes in this case are high crimes, you need to do so knowing that you're placing a burden on every future occupant of that office and the office itself, so do so cautiously, because one branch of the government should never put a burden on another branch of the government that's not fair and they can't bear. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, if you decided from the conduct of this president that henceforth, any officeholder who occupies the office of president will have this burden to bear, let me tell you what it is. You don't lie under oath to a federal grand jury when many in the country are begging you not to. Can the occupant bear that burden? I voted against Article II in the House, which was the deposition perjury allegations against the president, standing alone. I think many of us may have thought that he didn't know about the tapes, that he and Miss Lewinsky thought they had a story that was going to work, and he got caught off guard and he started telling a bunch of lies that maybe I would have lied about -- maybe you would have lied about -- because it is personal, to have to talk about intimate things, and our human nature is to protect ourselves, our family. That's just human nature. But ladies and gentlemen, what he stands charged of in this Senate happened eight months later after some members of this body said, "Mr. President, square yourself for the law. Mr. President, if you go into that federal grand jury and you lie again, you're risking your presidency." People in this body said that, legal commentators said that. Professor Dershowitz and I probably don't agree on a lot. I think he'd probably agree with that statement, that would be one think we'd agree on. He said -- and he's a very smart, passionate man, and I like passionate people even if I don't agree with them -- even he said that if you go to the grand jury and you lie as president, that ought to be a high crime. So the context in which you are going to decide this case has to understand human failings because if you don't do that, you're not being fair and I know you want to be fair. Human failings exist in all of us. Only when it gets to be so premeditated and so calculated, so much "my interest over anybody else" or "the public be damned," should you really, really start getting serious about what to do. That happened in August, in my opinion, ladies and gentlemen. After being begged not to lie to a grand jury, and in this matter he chose to lie. That's the burden you'd be placing on the next president -- don't do that.
What I have described to you as the conduct of the president being a high crime I think is just his job description. We're asking no more of him than to be the chief law enforcement officer of the land. Follow your job description. A determination that this conduct is a high crime is no burden that can't be beared in a reasonable fashion by future occupants. Now, what did I talk about constitutional teamwork? I am a child of the South. The civil rights litigation in matters that came about in the '60s were threefold. There was legislation passed in Congress, there were judicial decisions that were rendered, and the executive branch came in to help out. Remember when Governor Wallace was standing in the doors of the University of Alabama? Remember how he was told to get aside? What went on? It was a constitutional dance of magnificent proportions. You had litigation that was resolved for the individual citizen so they could go in and acquire the rights and full benefits of a citizen of that state. You had legislation coming out of this body and you had defiance against the federal government from the state level. And you had the president and executive branch federalizing the National Guard. And Governor Wallace stepped aside. When it was nine to nothing that Bill Clinton had to be a participant in a lawsuit, and he chose to cheat in every manner you could cheat in a lawsuit, his conduct needs to be regulated and it needs to be brought to bear under the Constitution. And if you put him in jail after his office, that would not solve the constitutional problem he created. The constitutional conduct exhibited by the executive when he was told by the judicial branch, "You've got to participate in a lawsuit," was so far afield of what's fair, what's decent, that it became a high crime. And it happened to be against a little person. The Senate has spoken before about perjury and obstruction of justice and how it applies to high government officials, and those government officials were judges. Before we start this analysis, it's important to know -- and some of you know this better than I'll ever hope to know -- the history of the Senate, the history of this body, and how it works and why it works; that when a judge is impeached in the United States of America, the same legal standard -- "treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors" -- is applied to that judge's conduct, as it is to any high official just like the president. So we are comparing apples to apples. Our president is two terms. A judge is for life, conditioned on good behavior. What gets you out of office is whether or not you violate the constitutional standard for impeachment, which is "treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors." So as I talk to you about these cases and what you as a body did, understand we are using the same legal standard, not because I said so, but because you said so. Judge Claiborne. Convicted and removed from office by the Senate 90-7, for what? Filing a false income-tax return "under penalties of perjury." One thing they said in that case was: "Well, I am a judge. And filing false income-tax returns has nothing to do with me being a judge. And I ought not lose my job unless you can show me, or prove, that I did something wrong as a judge." They were saying, "Cheating on your taxes has nothing to do with being a judge." Do you know what the Senate said? "It has everything to do with being a judge." And the reason you said that is because you didn't buy into this idea that the only way you can lose your job as a high government official under the Constitution, is to engage in some type of public conduct directly related to what you do every day. You took a little broader view -- next chart, please -- you took a little broader view, and I'm certainly glad you did because this is not a country of high officials who are technicians. This is a country based on character, this is a country based on having to set a standard that others will follow willingly. This is Manager Fish. "Judge Claiborne's actions raise fundamental questions about public confidence in and the public's perception of the federal court system. They serve to undermine the confidence of the American people in our judicial system. Judge Claiborne is more than a mere embarrassment; he is a disgrace, an affront to the judicial office, and to the judicial branch he was appointed to serve." That's very strong language. Apparently you agreed with that concept because 90 of you voted to throw him out. And what did he do? Cheated on his taxes by making false statements under oath. And we'll talk more about public versus private. Senator Mathias about this idea of public versus private: "It is my opinion that the impeachment power is not as narrow as Judge Claiborne suggests. There is neither historical nor logical reason to believe that the framers of the Constitution sought to prohibit the House from impeaching an officer of the United States who had committed treason or bribery or any other high crime or misdemeanor, which is a serious offense against the government of the United States and which indicates that the official is unfit to exercise public responsibility, but which is an offense which is technically unrelated to the officer's particular job responsibilities." This hits it head on. "Impeachable conduct does not have to occur in the course of the performance of an officer's official duties. Evidence of misconduct, misbehavior, high crimes and misdemeanors can be justified upon one's private dealings as well as one's exercise of public office. That, of course, is the situation in this case." Next chart. "It would be absurd to conclude that a judge who committed murder, mayhem, rape or perhaps espionage in his private life could not be removed from office by the U.S. Senate." The point you made so well was that we're not buying this. If you're a federal judge, and you cheat on your taxes and you lie under oath, it's true that it had nothing to do with your courtroom in a technical sense, but you're going to be judging others, and they're going to come before you with their fate in your hands, and we don't want somebody like you running our courtroom, because people won't trust the results.
The question becomes if a federal judge can be thrown out of office for lying and trying to fix a friend's son's case, can the president of the United States be removed from office for trying to fix his case? That's not a scholarly word, but that's what happened. He tried to fix his case. He turned the judicial system upside-down, every way but loose. He sent his friends to lie for him. He lied for himself. Any time any relevant question come up, instead of taking the honorable route, he just lied, and he dug a hole, and we're all here today because of that. And I'm not going to go over the facts again, because you have been bombarded with the facts. But if you believe he committed perjury, and you believe he obstructed justice, the reason he did it was to fix his case. And you got some records which can rely upon to see what you ought to do with somebody like that. Judge Hastings. This federal judge was convicted and removed from office by the United States Senate. But you know what's interesting about this case to me? He was acquitted before he got. Thank God you did that, because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. The remedy of prosecuting William Jefferson Clinton has no effect on the problem you are facing here today, in my opinion. Now, every case was tried before it got here, with different results. Two of them were convicted, one of them was acquitted. You had a factual record to go upon. I urge you, ladies and gentlemen of the United States Senate, that that cannot happen in this case unless we have a trial in its true sense of the word. The evidence is compelling and overwhelming, but it's only been half-told. The learned counsel for the president will have their chance and they are excellent lawyers. If this is a football game, we're almost to halftime. Please, please wait; because I have sat where they have sat, dying to say something. I know there are things they want to tell you about what we've said that may put this in a different light, and that's coming and it ought to come. But there's another thing that you'll have to decide: Has the factual record been developed enough that I can acquit with good conscience -- that I can convict and remove with good conscience? In these judge cases, there was a full-blown trial before it ever got here. Because we can't prosecute the president criminally, because we can't do the things that happened in the judges' cases, we don't have that record. So I would just commit that to you for your wisdom. None of this matters unless you believe he committed the offense and I'm not going to go over that again. You know the facts pretty well and if there's any doubt, call witnesses and let's develop them fully and let's leave no doubt on the table and let's make sure that history would judge us well, and that everybody -- the House and the president -- had a fair shot at proving their case that these things occurred, they're high crimes, and the hard question now. Because I don't believe, ladies and gentlemen, that when you look at the totality of what the president did, the prior precedents of the Senate, the fact that he was told by the Supreme Court to go into this litigation matter and he cheated so badly, that you would consider these not to be high crimes, because you're not placing a burden on this office that the office can't bear. I think that will be resolved, I hope and pray, in a bipartisan fashion. If we can do nothing else for this country, let us say clearly, "This conduct is unacceptable by any president." These are in fact "high crimes." They go to the core of why we are all here as a nation, the rule of law. And he is told to abide by the rules of litigation; and he cheated, and you have got to put him back in bounds. Remove him. Determining that it's a "high crime" puts it back in bounds. This is a hard question. I am not going to tell you it is not. I do not want to be where you are sitting. I think the evidence will be persuasive that he is guilty. The logic of your past rulings, and just fundamental fairness and decency, and helping the Supreme Court enforce their rulings if nothing else, will lead you to a "high crime" determination.
The question you must ask, "If every American were required to do what I have done -- sit silently, listen to the evidence -- would it be different?" You are their representatives. They will trust you. This is a cynical age, but I am an optimist; that no matter what you do, this country will get up and go to work the next day, and they will feel good no matter what it is. To set aside an election is a very scary thought in a democracy. I do not agree with this president on most major policy initiatives. I did not vote for this president. But he won; he won twice. To undo that election is tough. Let me give you some of my thoughts. How many times have you had to go to a child, a grandchild, somebody who works for you, and give them a lecture that goes along the lines, "Don't do as I do. Do as I say"? What effect will that have? I think it will be devastating. This case is the butt of a thousand jokes. This case is requiring parents and teachers to sit down and explain what lying is all about. This case has created confusion. This case has hit America far harder than America knows it's been hit. And it is tempting to let the clock tick. But I would suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, that if you believe he's a perjurer, that he obstructed justice in a civil rights lawsuit, the question is not should he stay, what if he stays. If you believe this president committed perjury before a grand jury when he was begged not to, and people in this body telling him don't do it because your political career is at stake, if you believe he obstructed justice in a civil rights lawsuit, don't move the bar any more. We have moved the bar for this case a thousand times. Remember how you felt when you knew you had a perjurer as a judge, when you knew you had somebody who had fundamentally ran over the law that he was forced to uphold -- or responsible for upholding? Remember how you felt when you knew that judge had gotten so out of bounds that you couldn't put him back in court, even though it was unrelated to his court, because you would be doing a disservice to the citizens that would come before him? A judge has a duty to take care of the individuals fairly that come before their court. The president, ladies and gentleman of the Senate, has a duty to see that the law applies to everyone fairly -- a higher duty, a higher duty in the Constitution. You couldn't live with yourself knowing that you were going to leave a perjuring judge on the bench. Ladies and gentlemen, as hard as it may be, for the same reasons, cleanse this office. The vice president will be waiting outside the doors of this chamber. Our constitutional system is simple and it's genius all at the same time. If that vice president is asked to come in and assume the mantle of chief executive officer of the land, chief law enforcement officer of the land, it will be tough, it will be painful, but we will survive and we will be better for it. Thank you. |
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Thank
you, Mr. Chief Justice. I think I broke the code there. When I hear
stomachs growling, I know it will be time to wrap this up. 
Civil
rights have been advanced a lot in my lifetime, but we've got a long
way to go in South Carolina. I think we've got a long way to go in
this nation. In my lifetime, I started school with no black person
in my class, and by the sixth grade -- I think it was the sixth grade,
integration hit in my area, and I can remember my mom and dad being
scared to death about what it would do and what it would mean. But
we made it, and we're better off as a country. So we are here to judge
our president. We are here to say whether or not he is guilty, to
begin with, of some serious offenses that are colored by sex, and
there is absolutely no way to get around that. And I know it's uncomfortable
to listen to. 
It's
going to take teamwork on our part to get this right, because I will
argue to you in a moment that the president of the United States,
through his conduct, flouted judicial authority and decision-making
over him. Is that out of bounds? That's what we're going to be talking
about today, and we got some guidance as to what really is in or out
of bounds for high government officials. 
Don't
lie under oath when you are a defendant in a lawsuit against an average
citizen. Have the courage to apply the law in a fair manner to yourself.
Mr. Buyer talked about values and courage. Let me say something about
President Clinton that I believe. I believe he does embrace civil
rights for our citizens. I believe he has been an articulate spokesman
for civil rights for our citizens. I believe that may be one of the
hallmarks of his presidency, and I'm not here to tell you that he
doesn't. I'm here to tell that when it was his case, when those rights
had to be applied to him, he failed miserably. It's always easy to
talk about what other people ought to do. The test of character is
the way you judge people you disagree with. Don't cheat in a lawsuit
by manipulating the testimony of others. Don't send public officials
and friends to tell your lies before a federal grand jury to avoid
your legal responsibilities. Don't put your legal and politic interest
ahead of the rule of law and common decency. If you find that these
are high crimes, that is the burden you are placing on the next office
holder. If they can't meet that burden, this country has a serious
problem. I don't want my country to be the country of great equivocators
and compartmentalizers for the next century. And that's what this
case is about, equivocation and compartmentalizing. 
Now,
in Judge Claiborne's trial, they seized upon the language, "Judges
shall hold their office during good behavior." And the defense was
trying to say, "Unlike the president and other high government officials,
the impeachment standard for judges is 'good behavior.' That's the
term; it's a different impeachment standard." You know these cases
better than I know these cases. And you said: "Wrong. The 'good behavior'
standard doesn't apply to why you will be removed; it's just a reference
to how long you will have your job." 
Let's
go to Judge Nixon, try to get you out so we can all have some lunch
here. Judge Nixon. Judge Walter Nixon, convicted and removed from
office for what? Perjury before a grand jury. What was that about?
He tried to fix a case for a business partner's son in state court.
He went to the prosecutor, who was in state court, and tried to fix
the case. When they investigated the matter, he lied about meeting
with the prosecutor. He lied about doing anything related to trying
to manipulate the results. He was convicted. And he was thrown out
of office by the United States Senate. I guess you could say, "What's
that got to do with being a federal judge? It wasn't even in his court."
It's got everything to do with being a high public official, because
if he stays in office, what signal are you sending anybody else that
you send to his courtroom or anybody else's courtroom? 
But
we are asking you to remove a popular president. I don't know why
all this occurred and we have a popular president. I know this, that
the American people are fundamentally fair. And they have an impression
about this case from just tons and tons and tons and tons of talk,
tons and tons and tons of spin, and that one in five, they tell me,
are paying close attention to this.