A. I expressed my "strong personal concern that the emerging revelations of campaign-related scandals of this Administration had reached a point where our Committee’s jurisdiction pursuant to the impeachment power of the House of Representatives cannot be ignored." In other words, I believed it was time for a thorough investigation of the possibility that the two highest officials of this government be removed from office via the process of impeachment.

Q. What specific reasons did you have when you wrote that letter in March?

A. I called attention to President Clinton’s improper use of his high office to amass his campaign war chest and to the distinct possibility that he even compromised this nation’s foreign policy vis-a-vis China for private financial advantage. Also, I pointed to the revelations about "pervasive, serious, and patently unlawful violations of Section 607(A) of the Federal Criminal Code" by Vice President Al Gore, who raised money for campaign purposes using federal phones and federal facilities. And I noted that when Mr. Clinton was given an opportunity to assure the American people that he did not similarly violate that same statute, he could not do so. In summary, I believe there exists systematic subversion of this nation’s lawful political process.

Q. How does the Constitution specify that impeachment is to be carried out?

A. The first thing that must be understood is that impeachment is not conviction; it is the act of bringing a government official before the appropriate congressional body to decide if his or her acts merit conviction and expulsion from office. Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants the House of Representatives the "sole power of impeachment," meaning that the House alone shall decide by majority vote if "the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" [Article II] have conducted themselves in a manner worthy of possible removal from office. Once the House has voted impeachment, Article I Section 3 states that the "Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." It further states that when the President is tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, and it specifies that a two-thirds vote of the members of the Senate present is needed for a conviction. Impeachment, therefore, is neither conviction nor expulsion from office, only the first step that may lead to those conclusions.

Q. There are some members of Congress calling for the appointment of an independent counsel to examine the charges you have raised as well as other related matters. You maintain that there is a significant difference between the duties of an independent counsel and the responsibilities of the House regarding impeachment. What are those differences?

A. The role of an independent counsel, as a prosecutorial office, is to look at possible violations of criminal law. It is certainly true that violation of criminal law would provide a clear basis on which to proceed with the impeachment process, but violation of law is not required for impeachment. Quite the contrary, it was explicitly noted by our Founding Fathers that the process is unique, that it does not necessarily presuppose a violation of law.

A lengthy discussion of the topic appears in The Federalist, No. 65, authored by Alexander Hamilton. Of impeachment, Hamilton stated: "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust." He specifically termed such offenses "of a nature ... political."

Q. How do you respond to the charge that calling for impeachment is a rather drastic step?

A. The process of impeachment was not placed in our Constitution to be avoided at all costs. It’s certainly something very serious, but it’s the only mechanism in our Constitution that allows the people of this country, through their elected representatives, to remove someone from office who is abusing that office. There is no other mechanism we have to do that. I have simply raised this issue and will continue to raise it because I think there are abuses by this Administration that rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry.

Q. Are other members of Congress supporting your effort?

A. A number of members have individually and quietly lent their support, but I haven’t polled the [Judiciary] Committee members or the members of the full House. I have had meetings with some members but it is still not something that Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, whom I respect and admire greatly, is ready to proceed with. He believes and has stated publicly that although he understands the issue here and understands what I’m trying to do in raising it and talking about it publicly, he does not yet believe that the threshold which must be overcome before the Judiciary Committee takes up this issue has been met.

Q. What do you mean by the term "threshold"?

A. It is when enough evidence makes Chairman Hyde feel comfortable in saying that the Constitution now should kick in and we ought to begin looking at the abuses with a mind toward possible impeachment. I think we have reached that threshold. But my opinion notwithstanding, the next phase of this whole operation is to let the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, on which I also serve, proceed with its investigation.

Q. Is the work of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee proceeding?

A. Yes, this committee has begun to do its legitimate work despite the very deliberate and comprehensive efforts of the Clinton Administration to block our efforts. Nevertheless, we are starting to get information. We should be in a position relatively soon to move forward with that investigation. I believe that the investigation I am seeking will provide evidence that will cause other members of Congress to realize that there really are abuses of office of the sort contemplated by our Founding Fathers as grounds for possible impeachment.

Q. Are there other charges beyond the ones you have already mentioned that you believe should also be investigated?

A. Yes, and the list is fairly extensive in addition to those already mentioned. We have what appears to be co-mingling of campaign data with official data, the so-called White House database problem, any number of issues regarding campaign finances, and the incident known as "file" which, whether it did or did not constitute a violation of any criminal statute, is clearly an abuse of office.

Q. What is "filegate"?

A. This incident involves the acquisition by the White House of information collected by the FBI about private citizens, not about Cabinet secretaries or other high officials of government. This data was made available to political operatives at the White House with no regard whatsoever for the security of the information or for its accountability. It was, I think, a gross violation of the rights of American citizens to have information accumulated by our law enforcement agencies given to anyone for political use.

Q. What about the discredit to the office of the President that has resulted from Bill Clinton’s reputation of casting aside traditional sexual mores?

A. I don’t see that rising to the same level as these other things we’re looking at. While the lawsuit filed against the President by Paula Jones, and other similar instances of offensive personal conduct, certainly are part and parcel of this whole equation of denigrating the office of the President, I don’t put all of that in the same category as these other abuses that really are related to the survival of this country as we know it. These other matters involve protecting the integrity of our electoral system, including what may very well be the most serious abuse here: foreign influence in the decision-making process of our country. These matters are much more serious.

Q. The President has been involved in usurpation of the powers of Congress and has exceeded the constitutionally defined powers of his office. For instance, he has issued Presidential Decision Directives governing the military, even though the Constitution clearly grants to Congress alone the power to "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." After issuing Presidential Decision Directive 25 to the military, he even classified it secret and no member of Congress has ever seen it. Yet Congress allows this type of abuse. Could something like this be added to the charges against the President, or would Congress not bring up such a self-indicting matter?

A. Because of the unwillingness of members of Congress to stop the usurpation of power by the President, they are acquiescing in it and they are part of that overall problem. But I think the greater problem is that the members of Congress don’t understand what impeachment is and don’t really understand what abuse of power is. Just as many average citizens have no real concept of what impeachment is, I’m finding out through having worked on this issue and studied it over the last few months that there is a surprising lack of understanding among the members of Congress about it. There is also a lack of understanding of what our government ought to be and what it was intended to be. It’s difficult enough to get members of Congress to focus on some of the specific concrete examples that are readily understandable, such as some we’ve already touched on. As a practical matter, it may be impossible to get them to focus on some of these more fundamental, yet more difficult to understand, concepts. That they are difficult to understand, of course, is an indication of how far we’ve drifted from basic constitutional principles.

Q. You wrote to independent counsel Kenneth Starr in May after his staff announced their uncovering of "obstruction of the administration of justice" by the Administration relative to the Whitewater investigation. In your letter, you reminded Mr. Starr that he is required by law to advise the House of Representatives regarding any information he gathers "that may constitute grounds for impeachment." Did he comply with the law requiring him to furnish that information?

A. He has written back to me and told me that he intends to comply with the pertinent provision of that law. But he reminded me in his letter that he was not required to do so in a timely manner, so it may be some period of time before we see that information.

Q. You also pointed out that the President seems to want his attorneys to hide behind a claim of attorney-client confidentiality. What do you say to that?

A. It’s not only wrong, they know it’s wrong. The issue here is not one of claiming the type of attorney-client privilege that exists between a citizen and his own attorney. This situation is very clear and the principle was established a generation ago during the Watergate investigation. It says that a government lawyer involved in a meeting with a government official such as the President cannot claim attorney-client privilege of remaining silent simply because that lawyer is paid by the people and represents them and the country. He is not a private attorney. The Clinton lawyers certainly must also know that when you have a private attorney dealing with his client and a claim of executive or attorney-client privilege might be considered, as soon as you invite into that meeting a government attorney, you automatically waive the privilege. So even if there were instances, and I do not believe there are any based on all of the facts that we’ve seen, where there might be some basis for a claim of attorney-client privilege, they waived it.

Q. Aren’t the President and even Mrs. Clinton trying to claim that executive privilege gives them the right to avoid questioning?

A. Yes, these are among other specious claims that are being made, even by Mrs. Clinton. She has no right to claim executive privilege in the first place, yet she is trying to claim it as well as attorney-client privilege. The more fundamental claim of executive privilege was also dealt with in the Watergate era: It cannot be appealed to and will not be allowed as a reason to avoid furnishing information pursuant to a legislative investigation involving violations of law and abuse of .

Q. Executive privilege is a claim by a member of the Executive Branch that he does not have any obligation to cooperate with an investigation conducted by the Legislative Branch, such as the investigation you are involved in. Doesn’t that amount to overturning the system of checks and balances?

A. The way it has been used, it certainly does. The way they are asserting it, it is something that supersedes the Constitution and negates the laws of our country on disclosure in criminal prosecutions. They are saying that the people have no right to know what is being done by the President and the attorneys the people are paying for. The Supreme Court and other federal courts were forced to confront some of these issues very expressly during the Watergate era. They did so in a way that clearly establishes that these privileges are not allowable for what the Clinton Administration is now claiming. Yet they persist in making these claims.

Q. The claim is being made by some that using the White House and selling the Lincoln Bedroom to gain campaign funds is not unique to President Clinton — his Republican predecessors had done the same. Could you comment?

A. From everything I’ve seen, and from knowing officials from several prior administrations, I have never seen any evidence that abuses of our laws and the electoral process have taken place at a level anywhere approaching the magnitude of what appears to have taken place on a routine basis over the last couple of years by the Clinton Administration. Certainly, any Administration official is going to make mistakes and errors in judgment, and sometimes some of these individuals are deliberately going to violate our laws. They ought to be prosecuted for such violations and they have been in every instance I’m aware of where these things have risen to a serious level. But I have never in my life seen the amounts and the kinds of abuses that this Administration has been engaging in.

Q. What do you expect will happen now? Is there any time schedule for resolving this matter?

A. I’m very optimistic that the process is going to move forward, that the work of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee will be very revealing. From the hearings of this committee, we will get a lot of the evidence that will make it very clear to people that there has been abuse of office of a very serious nature by this Administration that simply cannot be ignored. In terms of a specific timetable, it is going to take a while before this committee conducts hearings. What we have to do is very similar to putting together a prosecution in a complex case. No prosecutor would make up his case as he goes along; he has to have everything organized before the judge gavels the court to order. In this case, everything must be organized and prepared before the chairman of the Committee, Representative Dan Burton (R-IN), gavels the hearings to order.

Q. Is the White House attempting to impede the Committee’s work?

A. Yes, we have a difficult task because the Administration is fighting every effort of those of us in Congress who are seeking to gain information. We’ll continue to do what has to be done, however, and Dan Burton has been absolutely stalwart in maintaining the integrity of the process and insisting that it be carried to a proper conclusion. So I think that over the next several months we’re going to, first of all, gather evidence behind the scenes in what could be termed the preparatory work. Then, later into this year we will move into a very public phase of hearings that I think will accelerate the public’s understanding of the impeachment process as it applies to this Administration.

Q. Are you saying that the work of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee can force the hand of the Judiciary Committee to begin the formal impeachment process?

A. The whole process is very unscientific. The Constitution doesn’t provide a mathematical formula whereby pieces of evidence are given certain weight so that when you reach a certain threshold a light goes off and everybody agrees that a conclusion has been reached. The process is very vague. The vagueness is made worse by the fact that in order for this process to move forward, there has to be a great deal of public understanding and support for it, which is not yet there.

The American public has a role to play in what we are seeking, and that’s one of the main reasons why I have been very vocal in talking about these issues publicly because public understanding and involvement are essential. That’s what is necessary before some members will be willing to move forward formally.

Note: This copyrighted article orginally appeared in the August 4, 1997 issue of The New American magazine.