(Blast from the past -- an honest Democrat) Jerome M. Zeifman: A Cancer on the Presidency

an impeachment website (orig. from WSJ) ^ | 1996 | Jerome Zeifman

[doug from upland]

A Cancer on the Presidency
by Jerome M. Zeifman

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From: Jerome M. Zeifman, a life-long Democrat and chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee at the time of the Nixon impeachment inquiry.

The following is an e-mail message that a group of Democrats are sending to any Democrat or Republican who will listen to reason. Please read this message and pass it on to anyone you have an e-mail address for, regardless of party affiliation.

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Sadly, as a life-long Democrat and chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee at the time of the Nixon impeachment inquiry, I cannot in good conscience vote to re-elect Bill Clinton. Having reached this decision, I am proud to be among those Democrats who have chosen principle over party. Defeating Mr. Clinton would help revive the traditional moral values of the Democratic Party -- as they existed under Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter.

Having long championed traditional Democratic causes, I simply cannot accept Mr. Clinton's shameless election-year surge to the right as his chosen means of winning a second term. And like most if not all traditional Democrats, I have grave reservations about the Clintons' morality and ethics. In my view there is now probable cause to consider our president and first lady as felons, who are likely to be indicted after the Nov. 5 election.

The misdeeds of the Clinton administration have fallen into a pattern of deceit and corruption that now clearly justifies denying Mr. Clinton a second term in office. To date more than 30 high administration officials have been investigated, fired or forced to resign, and the White House has illegally obtained more than 900 confidential FBI files. Four independent counsels have been appointed, three to investigate cabinet members and one to investigate the president himself.

The White House suppressed documents under subpoena. The Department of Justice, the FBI and the Treasury Department have been politicized and misused to prosecute or investigate innocent staffers of the White House Travel Office. The president's Health Care Task Force operated secretly in gross violation of federal disclosure laws, misled the federal courts and ignored conflict-of-interest laws.

The most recent scandal, involving former Commerce Department official and Democratic Party fund-raiser John Huang (who still has failed to answer a summons issued by District Judge Royce C. Lamberth), is but another hauntingly familiar throwback to my days as an investigator of Watergate crimes and a wide variety of other forms of presidential misconduct. The 1972 Republican Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was involved in many shady operations that mixed legitimate government funding operations with the illegitimate refunneling of money through backdoor corporate contributions into CREEP coffers.

Now it appears that Mr. Huang, and his former associates from the Indonesian Lippo financial conglomerate, were unlawfully funneling contributions from foreign sources (that had both corporate and political interests in U.S. policy) into Democratic Party coffers. This mixing of U.S. policy with partisan fund-raising -- not to mention the questionable background of some of the institutions and individuals given top clearance by the White House and the DNC -- has produced a cancer on the Clinton presidency painfully reminiscent of the cancer that brought down Nixon.

I am particularly saddened that the Clintons now believe that their unethical and unlawful acts in the pursuit of power will be condoned by all but a few Democrats in the name of party unity. During the Nixon impeachment inquiry it was my view that the core of Nixon's corruption was his belief that in politics his ends justified any means at all.

Ironically, it is now the Clinton administration that has given renewed intensity to the corrupt notion that immoral means can be legitimized in the pursuit of political ends. If Mr. Clinton is re-elected it will be testimony to his success in putting politics before principle. A second Clinton term would polarize the nation even more dangerously than did Richard Nixon's -- this time with Republicans as the new defenders of integrity in government and Democrats as the defenders of a corrupt administration. If Mr. Clinton is defeated, Democrats may find a new strength -- and long remember the folly of marching in lockstep in support of a corrupt president in the name of party unity.

By all accounts Robert Dole is a man of personal integrity. His principles are conservative, and I will continue to oppose them. Yet because I must remain true to my traditional Democratic moral values, I will vote for Mr. Dole.

Jerome M. Zeifman, The Wall Street Journal 10/25/96

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Mr. Zeifman was chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee at the time of the Nixon impeachment inquiry. He is author of Without Honor: The Impeachment of President Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1996).

[doug from upland]

As they are going hyper over Watergate, let's put things in perspective and examine the most dangerous presidency in this nation's history.

[doug from upland]

Zeifman, the lead Democratic counsel during Watergate, threated to quit if Hillary Clinton got her way and Nixon was not allowed to have counsel. Two attorneys on the impeachment team did not get recommendations from Zeifman --- Bernie Nussbaum and Satan's Daughter.

[bvw]

Bumpus Maximus!