Rehnquist Says Senate Stint Was ‘Culture Shock’

Presiding over the Senate trial was a bit of a “culture shock,” William H. Rehnquist said Friday as he completed his duties as only the second chief justice to oversee a presidential impeachment trial.

“I leave you now a wiser, but not a sadder, man,” Rehnquist told senators shortly after pronouncing President Clinton “not guilty as charged” on both impeachment articles.

For each article of impeachment, a clerk read the charges aloud, then Rehnquist said: “Senators, how say you? Is the respondent, William Jefferson Clinton, guilty or not guilty?”

After the vote, the chief justice said: “The chair directs judgment to be entered in accordance with the judgment of the Senate as follows:

“ ‘The Senate, having tried William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, upon two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be and he hereby is acquitted of the charges in the said articles.’ ”

The Senate gave Rehnquist a standing ovation and a golden gavel on a plaque. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) thanked him for lending the proceedings “a gentle dignity and an unfailing sense of purpose and sometimes a sense of humor.”

“Y’all come back soon, but I hope that’s not taken the wrong way and not for an occasion like this one,” said Lott.

Rehnquist, who is used to presiding over the Supreme Court’s untelevised proceedings, noted: “I was a stranger to the great majority of you” when he came to the Senate last month.

“I underwent the sort of culture shock that naturally occurs when one moves from the very structured [environment] of the Supreme Court to what I shall call, for want of a better phrase, the more free-form environment of the Senate,” he said, causing the senators to break into laughter.

“I have been impressed by the quality of the debate in closed session on the entire question of impeachment, as provided for in the Constitution,” he said.

“Agreed-upon procedures for airing substantive divisions must be the hallmark of any great deliberative body,” Rehnquist added.

“Our work as a court of impeachment is now done,” Rehnquist said. “I leave you with the hope that our several paths may cross again, under happier circumstances.”