First Lady Not New to Impeachment
By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In 1974, Hillary Rodham, a
26-year-old lawyer fresh from Yale, researched impeachment
and pored over the Constitution to see if there were grounds
to force Richard Nixon from office.
Today, as first lady, she's defending her husband from the
very presidential impeachment procedures she helped to craft.
Mrs. Clinton was one of 43 lawyers on the House Judiciary
Committee's special impeachment inquiry staff. Boyfriend Bill
Clinton, her schoolmate at Yale, turned down a chance to join
the team and headed home to Arkansas to run for Congress.
One of Mrs. Clinton's first assignments: researching American
impeachment cases.
There had been only one presidential impeachment --
Andrew Johnson in 1868 -- so most of her research, outlined
in an unsigned chapter of an early staff report, involved the
impeachment of judges. In a reflection of the murky, legal
questions being explored in Congress today, the report
cautioned that past impeachments did not ''fit neatly and
logically into categories.''
Impeachments fall into three broad areas of conduct, the
report concluded: ''1) Exceeding the constitutional bounds of
the powers of the office ... 2) Behaving in a manner grossly
incompatible with the proper function and purpose of the
office; and 3) Employing the power of the office for an
improper purpose, or for personal gain.''
The report stressed that the House had placed less emphasis
on criminal conduct than on instances in which an official
''violated his duties or his oath or seriously undermined public
confidence in his ability to perform his official functions.''
Rodham worked 12- to 18-hour days holed up at the stuffy
former Congressional Hotel, where rooms had been
remodeled into offices. Security was tight. There were motion
detectors and check-in systems. Document disposal was
monitored. Window blinds were kept drawn.
''I was just a fresh, young law school graduate, and I got to
work with these people, and it was such an historic
experience,'' Mrs. Clinton told The Associated Press in 1992.
Looking back, her colleagues from 1974 find irony in the fact
that her work then helped created the gears of machinery that
now may be used against her husband. They remember her as
''bright,'' ''totally straight,'' ''hard-working,'' and ''clearly a
dynamo.''
''Everyone was pretty deeply involved. There were no
peripheral, or minor players,'' said James Reum, a staff lawyer
now practicing in Chicago. ''I would be naive to think that
certain people didn't have agendas, but I think that with
something of this magnitude, people exhibited a higher degree
of professionalism and less partisanship than usual.''
While one of the youngest on the staff, Rodham was in the
kitchen cabinet of John Doar, the majority special counsel for
the inquiry staff, which was separate from the permanent staff
of the House Judiciary Committee. Where others recall being
intimidated by Doar and his deep voice, Mrs. Clinton is
remembered as being unafraid to engage him in discussion.
Mrs. Clinton was assigned to the inquiry's constitutional and
legal research staff, which supplied legal support for the
office. The rest of the lawyers were divided into six task
forces working on issues ranging from the Watergate break-in
to allegations that the White House used the executive branch
for political purposes.
Mrs. Clinton was in charge of drafting procedures, such as
who could attend committee hearings, former staff members
said. She worked on deciding what kind of subpoena power
would be enforced and what rules of evidence would apply.
''Everyone considered the constitutional and legal research
staff the brightest and the smartest -- the academic
superstars,'' said William Paul Bishop, a former staff attorney
now working in Europe. ''They were researching the
impeachment clauses of the Constitution -- the meaning the
framers gave for what were grounds for voting articles of
impeachment -- all the way through to what would be
required for conviction in the Senate.''
While Mrs. Clinton worked long hours on Capitol Hill -- one
lawyer said the only way they knew it was the weekend was
that staffers wore jeans instead of ties -- Bill Clinton was
1,000 miles away in Arkansas, running for Congress and
urging Nixon to resign.
''I think it's plain that the president should resign and spare
the country the agony of this impeachment and removal
proceeding,'' Clinton told the Arkansas Gazette in August
1974, just before Nixon stepped down. ''I think the country
could be spared a lot of agony and the government could
worry about inflation and a lot of other problems if he'd go on
and resign.''
A year later, the Clintons attended an impeachment inquiry
staff reunion in upstate New York.
''Hillary was one of the gang,'' Bishop said. ''We were all
satisfied with the work that we had done. What everybody
realized is that the result (Nixon's resignation) was in the best
interest of the country.''
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