Author: Senate Gop `Sold Out' On Impeachment
August 20, 2000 | Tribune News Services.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican leaders in the Senate succumbed to political pressure and "sold out" the House members who impeached President Clinton, ensuring the Senate would not remove him from office, the chief investigator contends in a new book.
"Before we ever appeared on the floor of the United States Senate, the House impeachment managers and I knew we didn't have a shot to win," writes David Schippers, top investigative counsel to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
"In the U.S. Senate, politics trumped principles, and polls trumped honor," Schippers, who has returned to private law practice in Chicago, says in a book to be published Monday.
Schippers said the House managers serving as prosecutors were hamstrung because the Republican-controlled Senate limited the trial to five weeks, refused to hear live witness testimony, and allowed depositions of only three prosecution witnesses.
Congressional Democrats argued at the time that Republicans were pushing a case based on private misconduct that never should have reached the level of impeachment.
Schippers says in "Sellout" that there were more than enough Republicans, if they had stuck together, to win the simple-majority votes needed to set rules and mandate "a full impeachment trial." There were 55 Republican and 45 Democratic senators. A two-thirds vote was needed to convict Clinton; he was acquitted.
It is very difficult to tell the Repubs from the Commies these days. They look like the same party from all angles.
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I remember a lot of people on here who were all excited about Fred Thompson running for president. He’s the one who sat in a meeting with the house leaders with his head in his hands and never said a word when another republican senator told Henry Hyde “You’re not putting this on us.”
This was way before we had reason to believe the NSA was blackmailing them. We haven’t had a good and honest man elected to the senate in years until Cruz. And I’m afraid he’s going to disappoint me before long. My faith just isn’t very strong.
Well documented at the time by house members. Good for Schippers for coming out with it again
Is there a single person on this forum that didn’t know we were letting in criminals? Seriously...
It was and continues to be a free for all.
The Clintons sold this nation out lock stock and barrel. Now Obama wants to gift it to Islam.
Makes you wonder what the next F-ing Democrat president will to do lower the bar even further?
Direct negotiations with Lucifer?