Tea Party/ GOP-

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

There was a previous impeachment attempt that had direct bearing on the "polarization." During the inquiry into the impeachment of Richard Nixon, a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham was appointed to the staff of Jerome Zeifman, the House Judiciary Committee Chief Counsel for the proceedings. She was recommended by Ted Kennedy. She played a significant, albeit nasty role, in the inquiry. She, along with others, tried to create a scheme to deny Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation. She endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. Zeifman told her that whe was wrong, that there was precedent for such counsel in the impeachment attempt of S.C. Justice William O. Douglas. And he told her that all documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary committee's public file. So, she then removed those files to her offices which were secured and inaccesible to the public. Then she wrote a legal brief arguing that THERE WAS NO PRECEDENT FOR RIGHT TO COUNSEL DURING AN IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDING! The brief, of course, was fraudulent and ridiculous, and Zeifman believes she would have been disbarred if it had been submitted to a judge. He believes the attempt to deny Nixon counsel was to block any attempt to cross-examine Howard Hunt (the Watergate break-in mastermind), who had the goods on nefarious activities of the Kennedy administration that would have made Watergate look "like a day at the beach." There were a couple of other illegal or dirty actions by Rodham during the proceedings. As a result, Zeifman, a life-long Democrat, refused to give her a letter of recommendation "Because she was a liar. She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the constitution, the rules of the house, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality."

Much of the "polarization" that may have surfaced during Clinton's impeachment, certainly was inspired by the actions, not only of the hounding of Nixon for what was no worse than what had gone on in previous administrations (perhaps, less worse than covering up someone else's petty crime in comparison to Clinton covering up his own,) but the fact that Clinton was married to the woman who was instrumental in bringing Nixon down. And she was now "standing by her man" who was, essentialy, guilty of what she had opposed. A lot of payback, political and personal, was involved in the "polarization."

She certainly showed that propensity to cover things up and move documents after that early foray into politics and the law. Rather than learning to be better, she learned how to do it better.

You forgot the part about Hillary pulling the trigger on Vince Foster.

-spence

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

You forgot the part about Hillary pulling the trigger on Vince Foster.

-spence

There sure were alot of dead people around those two...tragic

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

You forgot the part about Hillary pulling the trigger on Vince Foster.

-spence

Ah . . . good point. But that would not have contributed to the "polarization."

Anyway, Zeifman didn't speak about that.

Is your non sequitur supposed to discredit what he says? He was there. You were not. He was the House Judiciary Committee Chief Counsel. He was her boss, and was speaking of first, hands on, experience. Are you accusing him of, as JohnnyD would say, fabrication?