Holtzman 9 the irony was i got my Campaign Office was broken into. Is a very ugly incident. What kind of training did they have for new congresspeople . Rep. Holtzman nine. Nine . None . Rep. Holtzman none. What were your assignments . Rep. Holtzman i set around with my advisors. In just to give you a 90 a of how remote the idea of impeachment was not only. Emote nonexistence. We try to figure out the best committee to beyond. Since the agreed that president had been on the House Judiciary Committee for 50 years, 50, it would probably be good to break new ground and try to get on another committee. To lobby washington know to be on the judiciary committee. In those days, freshmen members of congress i remember coming down, and i remember the ways and Means Committee made the decision. The democrats, the republican members of the committee for the newly elected members of congress. I went down to the ways and Means Committee and it did not to me any good. He vacated the seat. The seat was empty. I was a lawyer. They were putting me on it no matter what. In myquite crestfallen First Venture down to washington. I thought, this is not an auspicious beginning and i was very disappointed. Who suffer s you served with my predecessor, i thought would be hostile to me. That conduct not to be true. You thought it was going to be a backwater . Certainly did i not think it was going of biafra water, put it that way. And they never would have me on the House Judiciary Committee if thed any inkling members were very important, very senior. They never would have put me on the House Judiciary Committee if they had any idea that impeachment would be taking place. We talking already after the nixon landslide in the november election. This is for the end of november, of beginning of december 1972. It just shows you how remote not even remote. At how nonexistent the idea of impeachment was and how successful the coverup had been. Watergate start to come onto your raters screen . Windows watergate start to come onto radar screen when does what it is such come onto your radar screen . Rep. Holtzman january. There was this little wheretemps in the court it was quite clear that judges a rico smelled a rat, some that something was bizarre about these guilty pleas. And imposed very tough sentences and record indicated there were higherups involved and things unravel. I became involved i would not say in watergate, but in some of n a efforts to coverup whe bill i should not say bill. Let me restate that. I became involved directly in what i thought were efforts to cover up when the Supreme Court sent to the congress rules of evidence, proposed rules of evidence. It seemed to be very dry, eyes glazing over, terrible. And i looked at it and i saw there were some pretty drastic provisions for preserving state secrets. Ultimately it turned out they had been put in by the nixon preciselypartment for the purpose of allowing an expanding and strengthening executive privilege, so my first had to doy first law with preventing these rules from going into effect, and preventing the Supreme Court through its rulemaking power from legislating about privileges. Timothy did the committee have any hint about the wiretapping . Rep. Holtzman when . Timothy in early 73. Rep. Holtzman no. I think the committee did nothing about impeachment, until october. There were some members of the forittee who were pressing us to begin to look into what was going on in the white house, but that didnt happen until after the revelations about the cambodia bombing. The wiretapping was not something i recall in any case having prompted the committee to act. Who were your colleagues pushing to look into this . Rep. Holtzman after the revelation about cambodia, that president nixon had ordered the bombing even though congress had opposed it and it was conducted in secret. Mcauley took the floor and said Richard Nixon should be impeached. That produce no response from the powers that be. But some of us by that time were quite concerned about the other revelations about watergate, so it was not just cambodia. It was also the revelations of john dean that had come out, the theme watergate hearings come out and i would say some of the other people who are were talking to the chair about this or talking among ourselves, i can remember Donna Edwards i was one of them. I believe there were some others. It produced no results. I think the interesting thing as you look back was even though you had the revelations of the , even Watergate Committee though you had the stuff about though you hadn the revelations about the unlawful bombing of cambodia, there was no serious effort to move toward impeachment. The leadership was not moving there. Other members of congress were not moving there. Handway, it was the heavy of the johnson impeachment. It was not out of peoples minds. Timothy do you remember rodino saying anything about the impeachment . Rep. Holtzman not until after the saturday night master when it was plain that congress had to act, had to do something. At that point, we as a committee geared up for impeachment. Timothy where were you for the saturday night massacre . Rep. Holtzman i was in new york city. I was having dinner with some shocking andt was horrifying and i think the. Ation reacted the same way thats the fact that the fact that the president and archibald parks was not given along was our secret. What were shocking . That thezman president would put himself above the laws and say i cannot be investigated. Were not a banana republic. The special prosecutor was asked to look into criminality and the president had no power to stop it in my view. And i think that is still the generally accepted view today. Timothy so what happened in the next day . Rep. Holtzman the next day was sunday. [laughter] i think im trying to remember. Ill think we generally got to washington on monday. I think it was generally tuesday we got there. I dont remember exactly what happened. It was quite clear the committee would be given a role. The first effort was to hire hire counsel, which took forever. We were getting very impatient. Why havent we started . Why are we moving forward . Why is the council appointed already . This is october 23 that the saturday night life saturday night massacre took place. I dont think our counsel was in place until december, maybe the middle of december. I think peter rodino made the choice, because he picked john doerr, who was a republicansand picked a republican counsel, so here we were, having an impeachment inquiry headed by two republican lawyers. But it was rodinos insight, that led him to understand this could never be seen by the American People as an effort by democrats to railroad and republican president. Otherwise the impeachment would never have happened. Rodino, and ultimately the other members of the committee realized, certainly all the democrats realized that what was at stake was preserving the constitution. Bend over backwards to do the right thing, even if we wanted to move more quickly. We will have to that question. There was a thing. You were saying that with the hiring, the fact that regina chose a republican, he understood that rodino chose republican, he understood you would have to bend over backwards. Rep. Holtzman if we were going to succeed and breathe bring the country with us, the only way it would be successful would be if the country thought this was totally fair and honorable and not a partisan hatchet job designed to remove, by democrats in congress, designed to remove republican president. Remember, Richard Nixon had been elected by one of the biggest in American History what was it, a level months before . The American People turned around and said we cannot allow a president to stop criminal investigation. This is unacceptable in this country. The rule of law is more important and we had to proceed in that spirit. Some of us, i think, were impatient. I wasnt brandnew member of progress, i was not a land a longstanding public figure. I was temping at the bit to move more quickly. But Regina Rodino really wanted to do it the right way. I think that notion of doing it in a way that was not only fair, but perceived to be fair is one of the reasons the impeachment succeeded. President nixon was given the right to have counsel, to make heard, toint of you question witnesses. In the end, nobody questioned the receiving the fear to set dinoproceedings because ro made it quite clear the proceedings would be so fair no one could ask those questions. Timothy can you recall what will in colleagues were saying right after these that are not let right after the saturday nights massacre . Rep. Holtzman i dont know. Do you know if any were beginning to doubt the present . Rep. Holtzman i did not have that kind of conduct of the president. They were in as, tough political spot. They were very uncomfortable. On one hand, i think they understood the gravity of what happened. But members of congress are elected every two to be years in district members voted overwhelmingly for nixon, so it took a lot of guts on their part, really a lot of bets on their part to vote for his impeachment. There were a number of southerners on our committee. We had jim man from south alabama, flowers from , think thats it. More moderate, but extremely conservative democrats. Timothy tell us a bit about Barbara Jordan. What was she like . Rep. Holtzman she was very she was a very experienced she hadl figure and been, i believe, in state government. She had been a protege of lyndon johnson. We talked. On this team of newcomers on the house judiciary. Imposing person. And one thing that is not generally thought of in terms of how the impeachment was handled, and that was the decision by the house leadership to allow the House Judiciary Committee to act on the impeachment. Aey could have empowered select committee to do that. Theres nothing in the rules that says it has to go to the House Judiciary Committee and in the way you are taking a big risk. You had a brandnew chair, peter ina, five new members robert jordan, me, may thorton, two others three. So, it was a big risk. If the special committee had been selected to vote for , then thet republicans or the president could have said you have step to the deck against me. And this way, by taking the House Judiciary Committee, whose members had been a pointed totally without knowing there would be any impeachment, to i cant speak for Barbara Jordan or the others. I think that was a critical decision and showed how very smart the leadership was. Odino was so smart r no extraneous questions would arrive and it would all be focused on the substance of what the president did and what judgment should be made about that. How did the revelation affect the perceiving . The revelation of the tapes affect the proceedings . The tapes became the focus of the special prosecutor and the change in the dynamics of the debate in the country. What role did the tapes play in your proceedings . Of course, the tapes played an incredibly important role. They help to validate john deans claim there was a coverup in the white house. But they also presented an enormous trap for the president because he was involved, as the in presentingd transcripts of the tape that tried to dr. The tapes and change the meaning. One of the articles of impeachment charged Richard Nixon that tried to doctor t he tapes and change the meaning. One of the articles of impeachment charged Richard Nixon by trying to stymie the false by providing transference of the tapes. But the tapes, when you sat down to listen to them but the big your phones him. Extremely scratchy. We had transcripts provided, but in the end they were very persuasive. Certainly to me. Timothy how did the committee choose which tapes to listen to . We listened to the text that we had which were given to us by the watergate grand jury. We received evidence from the watergate grand jury. They turned evidence to us. Some of the evidence included the tapes. Did these senate Watergate Committee provide any evidence . Depositionsn yes, and transcripts. We were, what you would call, the dumping ground to rid not quite. I dont mean to make light of it. The important thing is we got the benefit of the investigations that have already been done. We did very little original investigation of her long, but we put together the evidence that had been accumulated by the senate sought committee, by the grand jury, and also we had to do our own research and make a run conclusions. President president nixon, for example, took the position that you could have impeachment only for a violation of the federal criminal code. Narrowing obviously the scope of any impeachment. Well, thats what the republicans argued for. And so, we had to do our research. A high crime and misdemeanor mean . Did it mean following the criminal code . Was it Something Else . We ultimately came to the conclusion, and i did myself after reading a lot, not only staff, memos prepared by but also other books on impeachment and so forth, that impeachment did not need to be limited to the commission of a crime but could entail a grave abuse of power such as giving a list of people to the i. R. S. To be audited because they disagreed with the president s policies on vietnam. Timothy who were some of the key players on the staff you that recall, since you wrote the memo . Rep. Holtzman well, we only i only recall dealing with on the impeachment staff. We also had staff for the House Judiciary Committee. But the impeachment staff, the person i interacted with was john doerr, and also his deputy, who was renard nussbaum, later counsel to president nix president clinton. Who also is a good friend of mine. I knew him. We talked from time to time. But i didnt interact with other members of the impeachment staff. Timothy did you see sort of evolution in the thinking of your colleagues . What were the high i mean, people who were on the fence. There must have been people on the fence in the beginning, on the democratic side certainly. Rep. Holtzman well, i think in a way everybody was on the fence. None of us i believe had ever studied what impeachment meant in law school. And by the way, i think when i was on the House Judiciary Committee, all the members of the committee were lawyers. We didnt study the impeachment clause. Nobody knew what a high crime and misdemeanor was. Nobody had studied the standards. So while we might disagree with certain policies of the president , disagreeing with policies, is that enough to warrant impeachment . I dont think so. But that was something we had to understand. So i dont know that you can say that people came to this believing that president nixon should be impeached. I know father dryden offered the resolution with regard to cambodia. The facts were pretty clear with regard to cambodia. Although future investigation should have been done, it never was done by the committee. But basically, we all had to immerse ourselves in the evidence. We didnt know all the details. Of what happened with Richard Kleindienst and the president. The details about the payment of hush money. All the details about other aspects of the obstruction. So this was a huge stunning studying process and the committee was very staff and rodino were very clever about how they got us to absorb this material because they didnt trust us to do our homework on our own. What they did was staff prepared big black books called statements of evidence, and theyd have a statement of evidence and then theyd have all the backup for it in that book. And these books had to be locked in our safes at night. They could not be you couldnt give them to anybody. They were top secret. And in fact, none of this stuff leaked, which is pretty amazing. And we would have these statements of evidence read to us. Rodino had these are all secret proceedings. The public was not allowed in. The press was not allowed in. It was an opportunity for the members to take the statement of evidence and give it right back to the staff if they disagreed. Well, how do you know this . And how do you know that . Well, look at this backup page, and it shows you whatever. So all the statements of evidence were read aloud to the whole committee. So no member of the committee could ever say i never heard that, i didnt know that. This was something that was put over on me. So actually, the process was a very clever process to make sure everybody on the Committee Heard all the statements of evidence, had full opportunity to challenge them. And so, it was a fair process from the point of view of educating the committee. But it was a huge amount for us to learn. The backup, it wasnt just each statement of evidence which was pretty detailed, but it was all the backup with all the detail, and then you could go back to the Committee Room if you wanted to and read more material. So it was really a huge amount of work. You had the basic legal work to do, whats a high crime and misdemeanor, whats a standard, is the president right. I mean, that was a lot of work, just trying to get your arms around that issue. And then all of the evidence, trying to absorb it and understand it. And i felt at some point, i felt after hearing a lot of evidence, it was like being in quicksand. You kept going down and down and down. There was no bottom. There was no bottom. No matter where you looked, there was no bottom. You were just into muck all the way down. And i said that in my remarks, that at no point in the tapes, no point in any of our proceedings, did we ever hear the president saying, when confronted with any of these materials about the coverup or other abuses, whats the right thing to do, whats a good thing to do for the country. Timothy where talking about several months. Rep. Holtzman oh, yes. Many months. And what happened was just as well, we went through the statements of evidence. And then we heard witnesses. People came before us. Dean. I believe mitchell. Im not sure any longer who the witnesses were. But we heard witnesses. We got the chance to ask the question to the witnesses. Sel had thents counci chance to ask questions of the witnesses. So we went through that. That was also behind closed doors. So that members wouldnt feel constrained to pose before the press or they could ask the questions that were on their mind. So it took a long time. And the irony is just as we were concluding the process, the press started to attack us for delaying, deliberately delaying. Which obviously wasnt the case. It was a very deliberate process. I shouldnt say deliberate. Careful. Careful, meticulous process to make sure the members understood the evidence, to present us with all the evidence, to make sure every member had a chance to challenge the evidence. To allow the president to challenge the evidence. All that was designed to have a process that could withstand historical attack and be the right thing. You cant remove a president. You should never remove a president. Lightly for trivial reasons. You have to have substantive reasons, and you have to have the evidence. So just at the moment we were concluding, the press started these big attacks, why are you taking so long and youre just dragging your feet. They had no idea what was going on because it was all behind closed doors. So they assumed it was dillydallying. Meanwhile, were sitting there for hours every day, having somebody read to us the testimony, trying to i mean the evidence, trying to understand it, listening to witnesses testimony. Hearing them questioned. It was a lot of work. And then on top of that, of course, we had our normal everyday work we had to do as members of the house of representatives. Constituents who had problems. We had to vote on the agricultural appropriations bill and figure out what was in that. You had Foreign Affairs issues of importance. So it was a huge amount of work. But i think the important thing is to understand the care of the process that was used in carrying out the process from the point of view of the committee. Timothy lets fastforward to the summer of 1974, the spring and summer of 1974. Rodino has not taken a account yet. How are the votes to impeach nixon . Rep. Holtzman it is clear the overwhelming majority of democrats favor impeachment. Understood, and i think by that time, most of us understood, that impeachment was never going to happen unless republicans participated and southern democrats participated. A majority vote on the committee was not going to work. Structurean effort to , and i was not part of that, there was an effort. Ofino and a small number democrats participated and a few republicans participated in shaping articles of impeachment they could have broad bipartisan support. The southern democrats participated because you had to bring as many people as possible along. Ultimately, all the democrats supported this, the articles of impeachment, the first few articles, i think. Seven or eight republicans supported it. I think that is the correct number. Timothy what were the turning points . Rep. Holtzman the tapes return of the turning point. Overwhelmingly, the evidence. You felt you were falling into quicksand. Everywhere you turned, there was misconduct. The coverup was just enormous and never ending and so broad in scope. That was not the only thing. Listyou had the enemies and the misuse of the i. R. S. , the illegal wiretapping. Where did it end . We felt there was nothing. I cannot speak for what was happening in other peoples minds but i think you sort of felt from the questions people are asking when witnesses when the statements of evidence were read to us, you could get a good sense of where people are coming from. Sure, there were defenders of the president until virtually the last moment on the committee. But rodino understood he could not get every republican. They shake the articles of the they shaped the articles of impeachment, two articles. It did not include the illegal wiretapping. It did not include the break into the psychiatrists office. It did not include the enemies list. That was a separate article of impeachment which got more republican votes than the first article which was based on the criminal code. It did not actually refer to the, quote to the criminal code, but it was founded in obstruction of justice and suborning perjury. The second article of impeachment was the misuse of power and Government Agencies which included wiretapping, which was very serious. List. Pping, the enemies the breakin. At least those. I have not reread those articles recently, so i cannot tell you all the nuances of them. Timothy tell us about the day of the vote. Well, before the vote, the important thing is the proceedings were televised. The final hearing of the committee where the vote was taken was televised. That was a big debate within the committee. Rodino had not planned to have the proceedings televised at all. He was very worried people with grandstand. But one of the new members of the committee from utah was a strong advocate of televising proceedings. He said this is the way of letting the American People know what our work is. We have to have their support. How else can we get it . It needs to be televised. There was a big debate in the caucus about this. Ultimately, rodino gave in. The word enough votes to allow it to be televised. I think that was critical because the public could see how most of the members were being really sincere in their views and that there was evidence and the process was a fair process. The vote on the first articles of impeachment to place in the evening after lengthy debate. The proceeding was such that each one of us got to make an opening statement. Jordancourse, barbara going very electric one back to the constitution and the fact she was not allowed to be in the constitution. Women, not only blacks, were not included, including the right to vote. Itself took place just as all the votes in the committee take place. Read, andoll is members vote yes or no. The chair votes last. When it came to me, i remember feeling it was very hard to vote. As much as i disagreed with president nixons policies, and is much as i knew how justifiable a yes vote for impeachment was, still, it was kind of an awful feeling to think you were sitting in judgment and you had to be sitting in judgment of a president of the United States that committed acts of the seriousness and awfulness. It was a very unpleasant moment. Think any member of the committee took any pleasure whatsoever in voting for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Peter rodino went back to his office and cried after that vote. He was the chair that shepherded the committee through the process, and it certainly gave him no pleasure. No one ever wanted to see this happen. Timothy were you surprised president nixon resigned rather than press forward with the case in congress . Rep. Holtzman yes. I was not sure what he would do. It was clear by the time the Supreme Court ruled and all the members, republican members of the House Committee who had not supported impeachment before supported it, because the Supreme Court said additional take had to be released in those tapes had the smoking gun. It was clear the Impeachment Vote in the house would be overwhelming. Maybe there would be five or 10 people supporting Richard Nixon but not more than that. The vote in the senate would be overwhelming, too. Wherewith the support come from . The evidence was overwhelming. Every democrat and republican on the Committee Said he had to be impeached. This could not be lightly ignored. I did not know accepting what would happen. I guess the Republican Leaders gothe house and Senate Concerned because you had elections scheduled for november. This was early august. In thee had been a trial house and senate, it would have come up against november elections. Republicans lost a huge number of seats. It was called the watergate class in november of 1974. It would have been far, far trialif nixon had stood running up to the election. I think there was a lot of pressure put on president nixon. Im assuming that, i dont really know, to resign. In any case, he knew there was no hope. The impeachment process he was going to be removed from office. There was no question about that. There was no question in anybodys mind, given the fairness of the process, even without the smoking gun tape, you had huge public support for the outcome of the judiciary committee. A fair process that they could see on television. Republicans joining with democrats in substantial numbers. It was not going to be easy to overcome that. But when you had all the republicans decide to join the democrats, there was no hope that he could beat this. Timothy where were you the day he resigned . Rep. Holtzman i was in washington, in my office. I cannot remember exactly what was happening, but we all ran to television and watched his resignation and getting on the plane and the bravado. It was sad. It was also said he did not acknowledge, i dont know if he ever really acknowledged, when he had done to the country and what he had done that was wrong. Timothy tell us about the experience of questioning president ford about the pardon. Well, aszman surprising as the resignation camethe ford pardon really as a very sad surprise to me. I was very upset by it because i thought, here we were on the House Judiciary Committee tried to establish the rule of law was the most important thing, and that the president could not take the law into his own hands. And here we are in early september, that decision had been made in july. President nixon resigned, in essence acknowledging that is how the country in congress felt. And then, you had president ford issuing a full and fair pardon under highly questionable circumstances. The question on everybodys lips was, was there some sort of deal . Was the pardon part of the deal to get nixon to resign, which would have raised serious constitutional questions and might have been an impeachable offense. I discovered to my chagrin the House Judiciary Committee had no real interest in investigating this. As soon as the pardon was issued, several members of the house introduced what was known as the resolutions of inquiry. Those are special privilege resolutions. You can call for a vote on the house floor. If the committee does not act on the resolution of inquiry. The resolution called for information about what happened leading up to the pardon. Ink one of the authors cannot remember the other, but she was not the only one. I was on the subcommittee to which these articles of inquiry were referred. We met. Democrats met. I said we should conduct an investigation. We should request the documents from the white house pertaining to the pardon. We should interview the people who participated in the pardon. We had a young lawyer who was the gobetween here. You also had members of the president staff president s staff it should have been interviewed. The president s press secretary resigned in protest. That was the normal process. Entereder before i congress, i have been practicing law at major law firms. This is what you would do when you started a case. You would get the documents, interview the witnesses, you would find out what was going on. It seemed so natural and logical to do that. The subCommittee Said to me, well, sure, that is a great idea, that is a terrific idea, but it never happened. They never asked for one document. They never asked for one witness. A fair amount of time had gone by and i said, what are you doing about this . The answer is, we are going to do it. They never did it. The president i guess realizing there was no investigation said i will testify in tell you exactly what happened. I said we should not be hearing from the president. We cannot ask intelligent questions unless we have done our homework on what happened and so forth. They were not going to do it. The president came. I asked for more time for each one of us to question the president. We did not get any more time to question the president. Nobody asked him any tough questions. How nice was saying you have come down to congress to talk to us and tell us what you think. I did not want to have to do this because it was not nice to sk tough questions of the president. I did not see how i could avoid that. I was the last person to ask questions, so i was hoping desperately somebody would ask one of these questions before he got to me it got to meet. There were four other democrats on the committee. Not to mention republicans. Nobody asked any tough questions about the pardon. I have prepared thinking this might happen. I also thought he could filibuster. I did not want to ask one question and get an answer have my five minutes taken up. I prepared a list of question. I said im sure there are others that need to be answered, but would you please answer these . They included why he had done this in such haste, why he went outside the normal process, why he did not get a confession to from Richard Nixon from Richard Nixon that he had done something wrong, was there a deal, what were the conversations that have taken place with haig, and so forth. So i asked my questions. The president said there was no deal. I think to this day the answer is not clear. Has never been questioned under oath about this. He was one of the people involved as a former staff member of Richard Nixon. Things about secret meetings came out about after testimony. Unsatisfactory conclusion because it showed the committee was not willing to make a proper investigation. And that they were basically allowing a double standard of justice to take place. One for the president and another for everybody else. Just months after having reasserted basic Constitutional Authority and the rule of law, which means nobody gets preferential treatment. And the nixon pardon has had terrible ramifications. Fromve had other pardons topflight government officials who clearly engaged in and were permitted to go free. It happened with president bush i. Questions have been raised about whether president bush ii was issued a pardon. It the watergate proceedings ended with a bad taste in my mouth and i think it established a bad precedent in the future where highlevel government officials can expect a pardon if they do something wrong and criminal. Timothy there has been some talk the pardon did provide for healing. Rep. Holtzman i think that is nonsense. I think the healing already took place once the Committee First of all, there was no healing. We are grownups in this country. They said we could not survive impeachment. You cannot have impeachment proceedings, the country could not withstand it. Guess what, we could withstand it no problem. In my mind, the impeachment process brought the country together. Forher you voted for nixon, the were a republican, independent, democrat, unaffiliated, you felt the rule of law had been carried out. That congress acted responsibly. Ty the courts have done their job. Our system of government worked. And people renewed their commitment to the idea that the rule of law was more important than party for any single person. That is what came out of it. We rediscovered this about ourselves as a nation. We discovered it initially when the constitution was written, but we did not have a chance to rediscover it, and i think we did rediscover it. I think we were healed by this process. We reconnected to our commitment to the rule of law. And then you had president ford shattering that commitment to the rule of law. I dont think there was a healing. I dont agree with that at all. The interesting thing to me is initially the judge who was a hero to me in the process said the pardon was the correct thing to do. Then when he wrote his book, he said i was wrong and it was not the right thing to do and it did set a double standard. Timothy did you talk to any republicans about this . Did you have conversations with your republican colleagues . Rep. Holtzman im sure we did. But i dont recall. I just dont recall. [indiscernible] rep. Holtzman there were not Many Democrats that shared my view. [laughter] timothy most of your colleagues thought the pardon was necessary . Rep. Holtzman they may not have liked the pardon but they were not willing to challenge president ford. Timothy what steps rep. Holtzman but the pardon was very unpopular with the American People. And that goes again to the question of healing. Americans were angry about the pardon. President ford paid a huge political price. So i dont see how you can say it was healing when americans remained angry enough to take it out on him in the next election. Timothy what effect do you think this experience had on the Democratic Party . That is a good question. I dont know that you could i have never really looked at it from that point of view. I have looked at it from the point of view of what he has done to the country. But i never looked at it from the point of view of what it did to the party. Timothy what did it do to the country . Watergateman well, showed president s could abuse their power and despite the hope that people would obey the law that president s of the United States would not. You had a gross example of illegality with regard to president nixon. You also saw the institutions of government, given the chance, could do the right thing. I think that was important. Maybe the most important was the American People supported the rule of law and the constitutional process. And that was more important than president nixons political survival. Most of them had just voted for him. I think it showed real political smarts were part of the American People. Next, republican trent lott of mississippi talks about his time as a new member of the house during the impeachment inquiry of richard