WASHINGTON (AP) — Some have regrets. A few can’t talk about it. Others would do it all again.
But
the Republicans who carried out President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in
1998 are unanimous in urging caution and restraint as Congress embarks
on yet another impeachment struggle, this time over accusations that
President Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son.
The
impeachment veterans of two decades ago were thrust into a seismic
political event that was sober and circus-like at the same time. It
opened a new, angry chapter of American politics that strained
Washington institutions that were stronger then than now. They urge a
pause in the tribalism of the Trump era.
“You’ve
got a race to judgment, people apparently have already made up their
minds, and I don’t think there’s a lot of openness about this. And I
think there should be,” said former Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., one of
14 House impeachment “managers” who presented the case against Clinton
to the Senate.
“People ought to wait before
they make judgment on whether or not there’s even an impeachable offense
out here to be considered until all the facts are on the table,” He
added. “That’s not been the case for a number of congressmen on both
sides of the aisle that I can see.”
The
managers during Clinton’s impeachment were all solidly conservative
white men. Most are out of politics. A few are judges. Some do some
lobbying, while others have simply retired. The chairman, Henry Hyde of
Illinois, died in 2007.
The best-known is
Lindsey Graham, a former Air Force prosecutor who was among those most
aggressively gunning for Clinton. In 1999, speaking from the well of the
Senate, the South Carolina congressman made the case: “Impeachment is
not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office.
Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
Now a senator, Graham seems to be part of the defense rather than the prosecution
“I have zero problems with this phone call” with Zelenskiy, Graham said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”
The
only Clinton prosecutor remaining in the House is Rep. Jim
Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, a 41-year veteran of Congress who is
retiring at the end of next year. He insists charges that Trump abused
his office are nowhere near being proven.
In
1998, independent counsel Ken Starr offered up two vanloads of
testimony and evidence, effectively dropping the full case for
impeachment in Congress’s lap.
“I
think that Starr’s report, which said that the president may have
committed impeachable offenses, obligated the Judiciary Committee and
the House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry to see if that was
the case,” Sensenbrenner said in an interview. Congress had removed
judges in comparable perjury cases, he said.
History is calling again, this time with accusations that Trump abused his power to help his political fortunes.
Sensenbrenner
in July aggressively questioned special counsel Robert Mueller, whose
report didn’t find criminal wrongdoing by the president in Russia’s 2016
election interference but spelled out 10 instances in which Trump may
have obstructed the probe. Mueller didn’t indict Trump, citing Justice
Department guidelines against charging a sitting president. Nor did he
say whether impeachment could be a remedy.
“You
didn’t use the words ‘impeachable conduct’ like Starr did,”
Sensenbrenner told Mueller. “Even the president is innocent until proven
guilty.” Mueller said his mandate didn’t include offering opinions on
other remedies like impeachment.
McCollum,
who left Congress to lose a 2000 Senate campaign but staged a political
comeback as Florida’s attorney general, cautions that lots of facts,
testimony and evidence have yet to surface. The investigation into
Trump’s festering scandal is in its opening stages.
“There
are really a lot more questions than there are answers,” McCollum said,
adding that so far he sees “just a really weak case.”
Democrats
say they already have their “smoking gun,” having obtained the
transcript of Trump’s call with Zelenskiy, and accuse Republicans of
downplaying a clear-cut abuse of presidential power.
Former
Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat who served in the House from 1965
to 1999 during both the Watergate scandal that brought down President
Richard Nixon and the impeachment of Clinton, has said he’d vote to both
indict and convict Trump if he were in Congress. Hamilton said he’s
“deeply concerned” that more Republicans have not publicly favored
impeachment proceedings against Trump or even spoken out against his
actions with Russia and Ukraine.
Trump’s call was “certainly egregious conduct” because it was for personal gain, Hamilton said.
“If
his conduct is acceptable, then we have lowered the bar on what the
office and public trust really means,” Hamilton said. “If we legitimize
the kind of behavior that he has exhibited, then our political system is
going to be greatly reduced.”
Aside from
Graham and Sensenbrenner, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison is the only one of
the 1998 impeachment managers remaining in political office. Hutchison
was re-elected by a landslide last year.
“The
facts have to be developed,” Hutchinson told the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette on Saturday, in little-noticed remarks that amount to apostasy
in today’s GOP. “The allegations raised should be taken seriously.”
Three
of the other former managers are now on the bench. Former Rep. Ed
Bryant, R-Tenn., is a federal district court judge, while Charles
Canady, R-Fla., and James Rogan, R-Calif., serve on state courts.
Rogan cheerfully responded to an email seeking an interview but said he couldn’t comment.
“I
would like to help you, but I fear I am rather hamstrung by our Canons
of ethics,” Rogan said. “Not only am I precluded from discussing
anything related to the current situation, I am precluded from saying
anything that might be interpreted that way (such as giving advice).”
Then
there’s former Rep. Bob Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina who
wasn’t an impeachment manager but forced a Judiciary Committee
discussion on easily the most vulgar accusation levied against Clinton
for his conduct. He seemed almost sheepish when encountered in the
Capitol recently.
“We made a mistake” impeaching Clinton, Inglis said, adding that the substance of the matter “wasn’t so very consequential.”
“I
can say that now, in retrospect — I didn’t think that at the time — but
I think that was because I was probably sort of blinded by my dislike
of President Clinton, you know, and wanting to stop him,” Inglis said.
“So there may be some similarities there in this scenario.”
“If
somebody’s the president of the United States and they do something
that’s bad enough, then even their own followers are generally going to
turn on them,” McCollum said. “And that’s not happened yet. It happened
with Nixon. That did not happen with Clinton and that does not appear to
me to be likely to be happening with Trump _ at least on the facts that
are out there right now.”
__
Associated Press writer Andrew Selsky contributed from Salem, Ore.
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