‘There Is No Such Danger to the State’

Excerpts from Monday’s arguments by members of the House prosecution team and Nicole Seligman, a private lawyer representing President Clinton, on the motion to dismiss the impeachment charges against Clinton.

CHARLES T. CANADY (R-Fla.)

The Senate has never, not once in the more than 200-year history of our Constitution, dismissed a proceeding against an official who remained in office after impeachment by the House. I humbly urge you not to depart from the Senate’s well-established practice of fully considering cases of impeachment and rendering a judgment of either conviction or acquittal . . . .

Consider the consequences for the system of justice of allowing the president’s dangerous example of lawlessness to stand. Consider the consequences for the presidency itself . . . .

Now, let me say that I, for one, believe in forgiveness. Without forgiveness, what hope would there be for any of us? But forgiveness requires repentance. It requires contrition. And so I must ask, where is the repentance [by Clinton]? Where is the contrition? It is true the president has expressed regret for his personal misconduct, but he has never, he has never accepted responsibility for breaking the law.

ASA HUTCHINSON (R-Ark.)

We all know that granting a motion to dismiss is a weapon that is rarely used in court. It is a severe remedy that cuts off an individual’s right to seek justice in court. For that reason, a motion [to] dismiss must fail if there is any substantial evidence to support the case . . . .

I would contend that you should decide this issue based upon the facts that you have before you in the record and not on any other criteria. A motion to dismiss should not be granted because you do not think there are presently enough votes for conviction.

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-S.C.)

Please don’t dismiss this case, for the good of this country, for the good of the law. Let us get to what happened here.

[White House aide] John Podesta talked to [Clinton] about what happened. [Clinton] said, “I had no relationship with [Monica S. Lewinsky] whatever.” Everybody that went into that grand jury that talked to Bill Clinton was lied to. And they passed those lies on to a federal grand jury. And you know what? In America, that’s a crime, even if you’re president. And you need to address whether that happened or not. Don’t dismiss this case . . . .

People are going to be confused if we don’t bring this case to a conclusion.

HENRY J. HYDE (R-Ill.)

I sort of feel that we have fallen short in the respect side because of the fact that we represent the House, the other body, kind of blue-collar people, and we’re over here trying to survive with our impeachment articles.

Now, a trial, as I understand it, is a search for truth, and it should not be trumped by a search for an exit strategy.

I hope in a bipartisan way, I would hope some Democrats would support a rejection of this motion, difficult as it is, because I don’t think this whole sad, sad drama will end; we will never get it behind us until you vote up or down on the articles.

ATTORNEY NICOLE SELIGMAN

We submit to you that the moment has arrived where the best interests of the nation, the wise prescription of the framers [of the Constitution] and the failure of the [House] managers’ proof all point to dismissal. You have listened, you have heard. The case cannot be made. It is time to end it.

The first ground is the core constitutional issue before you: the failure of the articles to charge impeachable offenses. They do not do so. They do not allege conduct that, if proven, violated the public trust in the manner the framers intended when they wrote the words “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” For absent an element of immediate danger to the state, a danger of such magnitude that it cannot await resolution by the electorate in the normal cycle, the framers intended restraint. There is no such danger to the state here.

The second and third grounds we offer to you relate to the deeply flawed drafting of the articles by the House of Representatives. They have left the House managers free to fill what [White House Counsel Charles F. C.] Ruff described as an “empty vessel,” to define for the House what it really had in mind when it impeached the president.

The articles also are unconstitutionally defective for yet another reason, because each article combines a menu of charges, and the managers invite the members of this body to convict on one or more of the charges they list. . . .

The presentations last week [by lawyers for Clinton] demonstrated that the record is full of exculpatory facts and deeply ambiguous circumstantial evidence that will make it impossible for the managers to meet this standard or in fact any standard that you might in good conscience choose to apply here.

The factual record is before you. We submit that it does not approach the kind of case that you would need to justify the conviction and removal of the president from office.

And calling witnesses is not the answer. All the evidence you need to make your decision is before you, documented in thousands of pages of testimony . . . .

We ask you to end this case now so that a sense of proportionality can be put back into a process that seems long ago to have lost all sense of proportionality. We also ask you to end the case now so those family members and others who did no wrong can be spared further public embarrassment.

And we also ask you to end this case now so that the poisonous arrows of partisanship can be buried and the will of the people can be done, allowing all of you to spend your full days on the most pressing issues of the country.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Trial Path

The Senate impeachment trial is at a crossroads. Both parties are seeking an end to the proceedings without a partisan struggle over witnesses. Here’s the situation now: