Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment

Human Events, Mar 5, 2001 by Roberts, James C

Sellout

The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment

By DAvID P. SCHIPPERs

Regnery, 338 pages, $27.95 The drama of the Clinton impeachment effort in the Congress is described vividly by David Schippers, the chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in Sellout.

The title is Schipper's description of the Senate Republican leadership's subversion of the House Republican efforts to hold a full-fledged impeachment trial of President Clinton on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Schippers writes that he knew the fix was in at the first meeting the Judiciary committee Republicans had with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.).

Lott opened the meeting by bluntly telling Congressman Henry Hyde, "Henry you're not going to dump this garbage on us."

Schippers, a Democrat, was shocked. The "garbage" that Lott referred to was the evidence developed by the Judiciary Committee that was so compelling that, despite all odds and against the effort of the Clinton PR machine, it had persuaded a majority of the Judiciary Committee and then a majority of the House of Representatives to vote articles of impeachment against a President for the first time in 135 years. Sellout lays out this evidence in compelling detail, making it an excellent reference source on the whole impeachment controversy.

Schippers and the House managers were convinced that, if they could present their case before the Senate, they would prevail there as well.

But, alas, they were not given that opportunity. Sen. Lott's first proposal called for giving the House managers a single day to present their evidence and the Senate Democrats one day for rebuttal, with a final day scheduled for debate and a vote. No witnesses were to be called.

The House managers had wanted five weeks for the trial and the authority to call a full range of witnesses. The meeting erupted in an explosion of anger and a shaken Lott retreated slightly.

But in the end the House managers were given only a few days to present their case and were permitted to depose only three witnesses-Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal-and those on-- video tape rather than on the Senate floor.

The House managers were stiffed, the "trial" conducted was a sham, and the squeamish Senate Republicans got their quick vote.

But the House Republicans exhibited real courage, and did their duty-in the face of dire political consequences. But as time passes and the squalid nature of the Clinton legacy becomes more apparent to the American people, the House Republicans look more and more to be who they are: real heroes.

Mr Roberts is founder and president of Radio America.