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Secretary Hillary Clinton Discusses the House Committee on the Judiciary Impeachment Inquiry — Transcript

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0:00Hi, I'm Tim Naftali.
0:01I'm a clinical associate professor at NYU
0:04and I have the honor and privilege today, July 9,
0:072018 to be interviewing Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
0:11for the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
0:15Secretary Clinton, thank you for doing this.
0:16Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to participate.
0:20I always think it's important for people to get to know
0:25those that we're interviewing.
0:26And I'd like to start with a story
0:28that precedes Yale Law School,
0:30but I think it says a lot about you.
0:32Tell us a little bit about the salmon incident
0:35in Valdez, please.
0:37Well, I graduated from Wellesley in 1969.
0:45And a group of my friends
0:48and I decided we wanted to go spend our summer in Alaska.
0:52And there were two other young women
0:55and a guy who one of the young women knew.
0:59And we got together and we drove up the Alcan Highway,
1:03which at that point was not paved.
1:06It was quite an adventure. We camped out every night,
1:10fished for food, bought food, whatever we could
1:14and we ended up in Haines Point Junction around the 4th of July.
1:22And then we worked our way from Haines Point
1:26Junction up to Fairbanks and then down to Valdez.
1:33And when we were traveling,
1:36we were picking up odd jobs to maintain our --
1:40have some money in our pocket. And when we got to Valdez,
1:46I took a job at a salmon cannery
1:52which was on the end of one of the piers.
1:54And this was shortly after the terrible earthquake
1:58had hit Alaska and much of Valdez had been damaged.
2:04And so I went to work.
2:07My first day, they gave me a pair of hip boots and a spoon.
2:14And they had two Japanese gentlemen who were responsible
2:19for cutting the salmon open, taking out the caviar,
2:23and then throwing the salmon into a big pile.
2:26And my job was to take this spoon and clean out the carcass
2:30and then throw it in another pile.
2:31So I was diligently trying to clean out the carcasses
2:35and the Japanese gentlemen started screaming
2:37at me in Japanese.
2:38I had no idea what they were saying.
2:41So the plant manager came over and said,
2:42they're saying, hurry up, hurry up,
2:44you're getting too far behind.
2:45I said, well, I'm trying. I mean, you gave me a spoon.
2:47I'm doing the best I can; blood and fish guts
2:51and everything all over the place.
2:53So I lasted two days doing that job
2:56and then he basically kicked me upstairs to work on the packing.
3:01So there was a conveyor belt and the boxes would be
3:06put on the conveyor belt down from where I was,
3:08and then we'd pick up the salmon.
3:10And it would be a head-tail, head-to tail, head-tail.
3:13You'd get five or six salmon and depending upon their sizes.
3:17So after doing that for a few hours
3:20I said to this manager with whom I'd already had this one issue
3:24because I wasn't going fast enough with my teaspoon, I said,
3:27“Some of these fish don't look very healthy.
3:29They look kind of green and black.”
3:31And he said, “Shut up, just do your job.”
3:34So I did my job, came back the next day,
3:37which would've been the fourth day, would've been Thursday,
3:39and started back on the conveyor belt, packing the fish.
3:43And I went to him again. I said, “Really, I'm sorry,
3:46I don't know anything about salmon,
3:47but these don't look healthy.”
3:48And he goes, “Look, we have inspections. They get tested.
3:51And besides, what do you care? They're all going to Japan.”
3:54I said, “Well, we don't want to send bad salmon,
3:56whatever, to Japan.”
3:58And he just shook his head. So he fired me and I said,
4:04“Well, I want to get paid for the four days that I worked
4:06because that's how we're supporting ourselves.”
4:09He said, “Okay, come back tomorrow.”
4:11So I went back down the dock and the whole operation was gone.
4:15They had picked up in the night and moved somewhere else.
4:19So I don’t know what lessons to learn.
4:21I often say that sliming, that's what they called it,
4:24cleaning out the salmon.
4:25Sliming salmon was one of the best preparations
4:27I had for politics.
4:30Well you were a whistleblower.
4:31Well, I didn't even consider myself a whistleblower.
4:35I was just asking questions, which this gentleman
4:38clearly either couldn't or wouldn't answer.
4:41How many women were working with you there?
4:44None. I mean, this was set up for the salmon season
4:48and it would have been gone in a few weeks anyway
4:52after the salmon run had finished.
4:56So I went to work there.
4:58One of my other friends went to work washing dishes.
5:00We just worked our way across Alaska.
5:02We ended up in what's now Denali National Park,
5:06one of the most beautiful places on the continent.
5:09And I washed dishes and another one of my friends --
5:13two of my other friends waited tables.
5:14So it was just one of those great summer adventures.
5:18Let's move to Yale, there’s not a real segue here
5:21but I want to ask you about a Yale incident that --
5:25you were at Yale during the turmoil of the spring of 1970.
5:31In order to help future students
5:33and the interested public understand what Vietnam
5:37and the tensions Vietnam created,
5:39could you just put us in the time and place
5:42in New Haven, spring of 1970?
5:45Well, there were a number of events and forces
5:52that were all convening on one another in New Haven
5:56that spring. The continuing uproar
6:01over the Vietnam War did not abate.
6:06We were still living with the aftermath
6:08of the assassinations of Dr. King
6:11and Senator Bobby Kennedy.
6:15There was a Black Panther which was a group
6:20that was considered very radical at that time,
6:25a trial going on in New Haven.
6:29It was a tense, fraught place during that spring of 1970.
6:40'68 was fraught, '69 was fraught,
6:42but in 1970, a lot of it came to a head.
6:45So we had so many difficult experiences,
6:52the Kent State killings, the threats to the law school
7:01and other parts of the campus. It just was a really difficult,
7:06dangerous feeling that we confronted.
7:10Did you put out the fire in the law school?
7:13I was part of the group. We basically had a fire brigade
7:18because it was the international law library
7:20that somebody had set on fire.
7:23Obviously the fire department got there.
7:25But until the fire department did,
7:27we were passing water down a line to try to save the books.
7:32Why did you decide to go to law school?
7:35I decided to go to law school
7:36because I wanted to help make positive change in our country.
7:41I cared deeply about that.
7:44I cared about using the law and where it was not useful,
7:51changing the law because we needed to figure out
7:55how we're going to deal with poverty and race and war
7:59and all the things that were part of my time
8:03in college and law school.
8:04And I thought going to law school would give me tools
8:08and an opportunity to try to help fix what I saw as broken.
8:15I don't need to know.
8:17I mean, I'd be surprised if you knew exactly the number,
8:19but what percentage of the law school class were women?
8:25My memory is that it was about 27 women out of,
8:32I don't know, 235, something like that.
8:34So no more than 10%, probably slightly less.
8:40Did people try to discourage you from becoming a lawyer?
8:44Yes. I faced discouragement both when I went to Harvard
8:48to take the law school admissions test.
8:52I went with one of my friends from Wellesley
8:55who was also taking it.
8:57And this would have been probably in the late part
9:04of the first semester of my senior year or the second.
9:09And we were taking the test to apply to law school.
9:12And we were among the very few women
9:16in this large room at Harvard,
9:19and the boys and the men around us
9:22were taunting us the whole time. Like, "what are you doing here?
9:26If you get in, I'll get sent to Vietnam and I'll die."
9:30I mean, it was really
9:31a breathtaking amount of harassment
9:37to try to knock us off our stride,
9:40to try to just rattle us.
9:43And we just sat there very quietly.
9:45We put our heads down, we didn't say anything.
9:48And then the test started. We took the test.
9:50Then when I got admitted,
9:53trying to make up my mind between Yale and Harvard,
9:55I went to a cocktail reception at the law school
9:59for potentially incoming students.
10:03And I had a friend who was at the law school
10:07and he took me around to introduce me
10:09and he got me in front of one of the professors there,
10:12a very imposing guy, looked like the character in Paper Chase,
10:16that big burly look with a three piece suit
10:19and a watch chain across his stomach.
10:22So my friend says, “Professor so and so, this is Hillary Rodham.
10:25She's trying to make up her mind between us
10:27and our nearest competitor,” meaning Yale.
10:30So he looks down at me and he goes,
10:31“Well, first of all, we don't have a nearest competitor.
10:35And secondly, we don't need any more women.”
10:37And that was what decided me to go to Yale.
10:40I had no other option at that point.
10:44I wasn't really going to pick a place
10:46that didn't want more women.
10:48Who were your favorite professors at Yale?
10:52I had a group of professors,
10:56but probably someone who I really liked a lot
11:02was Charles Black, the great constitutional scholar.
11:08He was so down to earth and he would seek students out.
11:13He would be incredibly warm and gracious.
11:17I worked closely with Abe Goldstein,
11:20and Joe Goldstein who were involved
11:25in areas of my interest, particularly Joe Goldstein
11:27in terms of child development and children under the law.
11:31So it was a good experience.
11:35I really had a lot of great teachers.
11:40But it was, I think,
11:41fair to say more the interactions with our students,
11:44our fellow students that made the biggest difference to me.
11:48Before we move on to that,
11:50did you ever cross paths with Alexander Bickel?
11:53I did. I crossed hands with, with Professor Bickel,
11:57with Professor Bork, with Professor Calabresi,
12:01people who are pretty well known.
12:06Well, let's talk about your fellow students.
12:09Tell me how you met Mike Conway.
12:13I met Mike at law school. And we became friends.
12:20I mean, most of the friendships happened in the hallways,
12:24in the student lounge, in the dining hall and Mike
12:27was just somebody with a very wry sense of humor
12:33that I enjoyed spending time with.
12:35What was your favorite pizza place then?
12:39That's a question that can get you exiled,
12:41but probably Pepe’s.
12:43Not Sally's.
12:44Not Sally's, Pepe’s. Yeah.
12:48Please tell everyone what the barristers' union prize trial was.
12:53Well, the barristers' union was a student run organization
13:00that put on trials during the year
13:03and it was to give students trial experience.
13:06There was also a moot court program
13:09that was to give students
13:12the appellate argument experience.
13:15But I joined the barristers' union.
13:17I think I was the only woman on the board.
13:19We had a really great group
13:23that included Mike and my husband.
13:28And we had a lot of fun because as members of the board,
13:32we had to make up the cases
13:35and then students would be selected to try those cases.
13:38And we always worked to have a distinguished former lawyer,
13:43a distinguished lawyer or distinguished judge,
13:45even former serving actually hear the case.
13:51How is it that Abe Fortas was invited?
13:54I don't remember. This was for our prize trial
13:58where I was teamed with Bill Clinton and Mike Conway
14:01was on the other side.
14:03And Abe Fortas must've been asked
14:06by one of the faculty members
14:07because I don't think any of us knew him.
14:10He had just stepped down from the bench.
14:13Asked him if he would come to New Haven
14:15and preside over the barristers’ prize trial,
14:19which he said he would.
14:21And how did it happen that Mr. Doar was invited?
14:26John Doar had come earlier in the years,
14:30my memory, to preside over another trial.
14:33He didn't preside over our prize trial,
14:35but there was another event, either a moot court argument
14:39or another trial that he presided over.
14:42And Bill and I were asked if we would meet him
14:47and kind of be his support system
14:52while he was in New Haven, which of course we love doing
14:55because he was just a delightful person to be around.
15:01Could you share with people who wouldn't know this,
15:04and I’ll learn more about Mr. Doar shortly,
15:06but when you are in law school, who was John Doar?
15:10John Doar was a highly regarded civil rights lawyer
15:17from the Bobby Kennedy Justice Department
15:21who had been responsible for going to the South
15:28at difficult times and building cases,
15:33collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses.
15:36But he also found himself on at least one occasion
15:39that I recall, in the middle of a mob
15:42which he then had to try to disband.
15:47And all he had was his voice, his authority,
15:51but he was able to protect the black plaintiff’s witnesses
15:59that he was spending time with from a white mob
16:04that was in the early ’60s a very common occurrence
16:10because of the work to try to expand and protect civil rights.
16:15So you got to know him when he came for the aim
16:20for the moot court?
16:21I think it might've been a moot court.
16:23I don't remember for sure. I mean, we knew of him.
16:27It was just one of the reasons we asked him.
16:29He was also very close with Burke Marshall
16:32who probably asked him to come.
16:36We probably asked Burke for that help.
16:41So he spent probably the whole day at Yale,
16:47he spent time with Burke, maybe with Owen Fiss.
16:50I don't remember. He was another friend of his.
16:53And Bill and I kind of squired them around.
16:56Is this in ’73 or ’72?
16:59I don't remember.
17:01Was it your last year or the--?
17:03The prize trial was our last year,
17:05the one that Fortas presided over.
17:08I think that John came in probably the semester before.
17:15But that's all I can remember.
17:17Before we move to the impeachment committee,
17:22did you get to know Burke Marshall?
17:23I did.
17:24Please tell us.
17:26Well, Burke Marshall was another
17:30really admired inspirational professor
17:34from the civil rights years at the Justice Department.
17:40He was close to the Kennedys.
17:43He was obviously close to John Doar.
17:47He was a very quiet man. He didn't assert himself,
17:51but he had the kind of authority and quiet force.
17:58They don't look anything alike,
18:00but I think of Gary Cooper in High Noon.
18:02I mean, somebody who could walk into a room
18:05and just sit there and listen
18:08and then give people his assessment
18:13of whatever the decision they were making would be.
18:17And he always just carried so much weight.
18:23Tell us how you met Rufus Cormier.
18:26Rufus and his wife Yvonne became good friends of Bill's and mine.
18:31So I had known Rufus and when Bill came a year
18:38after me to the law school, he got to know him well.
18:42And so we would have dinner with Rufus and Yvonne.
18:45Yvonne was getting a PhD in biochemistry,
18:48Rufus was at the law school. They were fun.
18:51They were just a terrific couple to spend time with,
18:55and they've remained friends all these years later.
18:58When you graduate in 1973,
19:01what do you expect to be doing in 1974?
19:05Well, I expected to be doing
19:07what I started out doing when I graduated,
19:09which was to go to work for the Children's Defense Fund
19:11for Marian Edelman. I had interned for her,
19:18I think after my first year maybe.
19:22And again, I think that's right. I wanted to go to work with her
19:27so I moved to Cambridge and began working,
19:32doing investigations and litigation around issues
19:37like the incarceration of juveniles with adults
19:41in adult prisons or the efforts to give tax exempt status
19:47to private segregated academies
19:50so that they didn't have to pay taxes.
19:53I mean, issues like that, expanding childcare,
19:59getting better conditions for migrant workers.
20:01I mean, that's the kind of work we were doing.
20:04And that's what I started doing when I graduated
20:07and went right to, to Cambridge to work for her.
20:12Please tell us about the call from John Doar.
20:15Well, this is a very funny series of actions.
20:24I was down visiting Bill in Arkansas,
20:28I think it was right after Christmas,
20:32if I remember, either right before or after.
20:35And Bill's phone rang and he got a call from John Doar.
20:39And John Doar said, “I've been asked to put together
20:44a team of lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee
20:50to investigate whether there are grounds
20:53for impeachment of President Nixon.
20:55And I have a list of people
20:57that I'm going over with Burke Marshall.
20:59And you're at the top of the list
21:02if you would like to come to work.”
21:04And Bill said, “Well, actually I'm going to run for Congress
21:07so I can't.”
21:08And then Bill said, “Well, who else is on your list?”
21:10And John said, “Well, Mike Conway,
21:14Rufus Cormier and Hillary Rodham.”
21:17So Bill says, “Well, Hillary Rodham is standing right here.
21:19And so he passed me the phone and John Doar asked me
21:24if I wanted to go to work in Washington
21:26for the impeachment inquiry staff.
21:32I said, “Yes, I'm very honored to be asked.”
21:37And so shortly, sometime after the first of the year,
21:42I left my job at the children's Defense Fund
21:44and moved to Washington and went to work for John Doar.
21:47How long did you think this was going to last?
21:50When you said yes, because you had to say to
21:52Marian Edelman how long you were going to be.
21:54Yes. I don't know that I thought like that, Tim.
21:58I think when you're really young and you're just starting out,
22:05how long does a job take?
22:06I didn't even know what the job was at that point.
22:09I had no time timetable at all.
22:13Was there any concern on the future
22:18President Clinton's part that your doing this might
22:22somehow affect his ability to run?
22:25No, no. I mean, first of all, he was running for Congress,
22:28a race which he lost by the way.
22:31So if he had not been running for Congress,
22:36I believe it's very likely he would've said yes.
22:40Because a chance to work with John Doar
22:43on such a historic assignment like this
22:47and you're just a really young out of law school lawyer,
22:50hard to say no to that.
22:52And Bill never gave it a second thought about my doing it.
22:56Did he talk to Ray Thornton about this?
23:02He's as important as—
23:04I have no idea. I don't know.
23:06Okay. So in January you arrived.
23:12Joe Woods thinks that it was January 19.
23:15It doesn't matter which day it was.
23:16When you arrived, you were among the first, right?
23:19I think that's right. Yes. Yes.
23:21I think those of us from Yale
23:27who were going to be the youngest lawyers on the team,
23:33my memory is we all got there about the same time.
23:35But that's just what I remember.
23:39And it was a startup law firm. It had to be put together.
23:45There were a group of senior lawyers
23:49that John either knew or knew of that he had recruited.
23:55And then there were us, I mean, there weren't very many lawyers
24:00in the middle of between people like John Doar and Joe Woods
24:04and Bernie Nussbaum and Richard Gill,
24:07people like that,
24:08who had a lot of experience already in the law,
24:12some of them in government,
24:14and then us newly minted lawyers.
24:20This may surprise people who watch this,
24:22but there was an effort to make this a single committee.
24:27Although there were people chosen by the minority staff,
24:30and one of those that met you right off the bat was Bill Weld.
24:34Yes, that's right.
24:36Could you tell us what you remember of him?
24:37Well, I think there was a very serious effort
24:42which I think mostly succeeded
24:45because Peter Rodino in the majority hired John Doar
24:50and the minority hired Burt Jenner
24:54who had started this massive law firm, Jenner & Block.
24:59And both Jenner and Doar were experienced lawyers,
25:07had really done complicated cases,
25:12either civil rights or business
25:14or any other of the challenges lawyers face.
25:19So Bill Weld was there very early.
25:23He was one of the first people that I met
25:26and I got to know and I worked with.
25:30And it was a great team.
25:33And I think we all felt like we were on the same team.
25:36I never had the feeling that there was the majority
25:39and the minority staff.
25:41Obviously they were hired by different members,
25:47but we worked very hard
25:49to overcome any sense of separation.
25:55People looking back on that era will think there was
25:57a certain inevitability about what happened.
26:00Historians don't treat it that way. But when you started out,
26:06you were supposed to look for grounds for impeachment,
26:08but John Doar wasn't asking you for a prosecutorial case.
26:13That's right. I think there are several aspects of this
26:18that I hope historians and citizens,
26:25particularly young people understand.
26:29There were three big challenges that Doar wanted us to meet.
26:34One was, well, what are the grounds for impeachment?
26:39There had been Andrew Johnson,
26:41there had been a number of judges who had been impeached.
26:48But the team looking at that,
26:51and I was a very small part of that doing the research,
26:56that team was looking all the way back
26:59to early English precedents
27:02since the founders took the idea obviously from the common law.
27:07There was the issue of how do you proceed?
27:12How do you actually set up an appropriate process
27:16to consider all of these issues?
27:20And then the third was, what are the facts
27:23and how do we understand the facts?
27:26So there was a team working on grounds for impeachment,
27:32how you described what high crimes and misdemeanors were,
27:37how it needed to relate to abuse of office and power,
27:41if it were, in keeping with the precedents such as they were.
27:48And then there was the process standards
27:51that I worked on a lot about, okay,
27:55what do we do and how do we do it
27:56and what is our role compared to the role of the committee?
28:02And then finally, the facts.
28:04And this was a method that Doar had used
28:10in the Justice Department
28:12and probably in his law practice in Wisconsin.
28:15And they were statements of information.
28:17They were not characterized as evidence because we concluded
28:22that it wasn't our job to make a prosecutorial case
28:27and present the evidence that supported that case
28:33but rather to present the facts to the committee
28:36and then the committee would form their own conclusions.
28:40So I often laugh thinking about it,
28:42but we had these little note cards
28:44and we were supposed to put one fact on a note card.
28:47So for example, I remember we were working on this
28:54and Doar said, “Go right back to the beginning.
28:56Who is Richard Nixon? How did he get where he is?”
28:59So a fact would be Richard Milhous Nixon was born on,
29:04you'd have his date of birth
29:05and then you might say in Whittier, California.
29:07And Doar would say, “Nope, those are two pieces of information.”
29:11So you have one card for the year he was born
29:14and one card for where he was born
29:16because apparently in John's practice
29:20he would use these cards to find patterns.
29:25And if he didn't have enough of the facts,
29:27he couldn't deduce the patterns.
29:30So we learned, I mean that's why we had these little cards
29:34and they attempted, as I recall,
29:36some method in the library to organize and sort them.
29:40But really computers were not in common use.
29:46And I think John preferred his system anyway.
29:50So we spent a lot of time doing these cards
29:52and looking for anything that could be a piece of information
29:57that might go into the presentation
30:01we would make to the committee.
30:03Is it true that they used knitting needles
30:05as a way of sorting these cards?
30:06Well, I think that was a short lived experiment.
30:10I don't remember because I wasn't really doing it.
30:14But yeah, you took the fact,
30:17which was predominantly handwritten,
30:19at least the ones I did were hand written.
30:22Then it was like transferred onto a punch card
30:25and then the punch cards had certain holes in them.
30:28And the idea was, it was so primitive
30:31that if you took a knitting needle
30:33and there you at a stack of these cards
30:35and you were looking for his childhood experiences
30:39or the committee to reelect the president,
30:41whatever it might be, you would take a knitting needle
30:43and you'd go through and you'd pick up the cards
30:44that would have the whole in a certain place.
30:48I think it was a lot easier if you just kept the cards
30:52in front of you and you shuffled them around.
30:54And I would see John
30:55and some of the senior lawyers talking about that
30:58and what's the significance of this piece of information
31:02and how does it fit and what does it tell us.
31:05Governor Weld told a story about when you arrived,
31:09when both of you arrived,
31:11John Doar said to you on a Friday,
31:13“Would you please produce a memo like grounds
31:15for impeachment by Tuesday? I won't ask for Monday
31:17because I want you to have a good weekend.”
31:20Now, it would actually take the lawyers
31:22a long time to figure this out.
31:23But how did you approach this problem?
31:26I'm sure you didn't study this in law school.
31:28No. But Bill Weld is absolutely right.
31:32I mean, we never had a weekend. We worked 16, 18 hour days.
31:40We sometimes would leave the building to go to dinner
31:43but then go right back.
31:45So this first assignment was just the beginning
31:49of what would be the most intense effort
31:53that one could imagine.
31:56And the grounds for impeachment
32:00was part of the research that I contributed to.
32:04The procedures, okay, what does this mean?
32:08How are we going to do this? Is this a trial?
32:10Well, the trial is really in the Senate.
32:12So what is it that the House does
32:14and how do we set ourselves up to serve the House?
32:19And so I worked closely with Joe Woods
32:21on what the procedures are.
32:23In fact, there is a picture of me
32:26sitting at the table with Doar and Woods
32:30appearing before, if I remember rightly,
32:33one of the subcommittees of the Judiciary Committee
32:35to present ideas about process.
32:38Maybe Congressman Kastenmeier?
32:41That sounds about right. Yes.
32:43And Hungate. Mm-hmm. That sounds about right.
32:45Yeah.
32:48Help people understand what the difference
32:51between the committee and a grand jury was.
32:54Oh, yeah. Well, the grand jury is first and foremost part
33:00of the executive branch of our government.
33:04A grand jury in a federal matter is convened by a U.S. attorney
33:09or by the Justice Department
33:12for the purpose of presenting evidence
33:16to determine whether the grand jury
33:18will bring an information or indictment
33:20against whoever the target
33:25of the potential prosecution might be.
33:29Its proceedings are supposed to be absolutely secret.
33:33The person being questioned does not go in with a lawyer.
33:37You go in all by yourself
33:39and you're there with whoever the prosecutor has,
33:42investigators, FBI, whoever it might be.
33:46And then there's a grand jury
33:47made up of citizens from the area.
33:51The Judiciary Committee is part of the Congress,
33:56and the Congress has the sole authority
34:00for determining impeachment.
34:03The House brings the articles of impeachment.
34:06If they so decide, the Senate conducts the trial.
34:11And for us, we were asked by Doar,
34:18and I think this probably came from Rodino
34:20and others on the committee,
34:23to recognize that they were the authority.
34:27It wasn't our job to present an article of impeachment.
34:33It was our job to present information,
34:36to present the legal standards
34:40in whatever process we agreed upon.
34:42And then it was up to the committee
34:45to determine whether it would move forward.
34:49To what extent were you involved in the debate
34:52over whether James St. Clair, the president's lawyer,
34:55should be in the proceedings?
35:00I was not involved in that. I knew about it.
35:02That was really among the senior lawyers
35:07led by Doar and the House members.
35:10And my memory is that they were very expansive
35:15in permitting St. Clair
35:19to be privy to information to be part of the process.
35:28But I don't know any more details.
35:30Did you have to do any research on subpoenas?
35:35I don't recall doing that
35:38because we were in a position to negotiate.
35:40Remember, the Watergate Committee had already subpoenaed
35:45and obtained a wealth of information.
35:49And part of the process that Doar had to go through
35:56is to work out an agreement with the Watergate committee,
36:00Senator Ervin to share what they'd already
36:05gotten either voluntarily or through subpoena.
36:08That included the tapes to a great extent.
36:12So, I don't recall us,
36:19but I don't have perfect knowledge of this either.
36:23I don't recall us having to subpoena,
36:27we had to work out agreements and maybe as part of that,
36:31there was a subpoena that had to be either issued or quashed.
36:35I don't recall.
36:36I know this is a long time ago.
36:39But you, you’re in your 20s, and you're part of a group
36:44that's trying to figure out an issue
36:46that this country hadn't looked at for a century.
36:51Some people like Bill Weld for example
36:52started out thinking that an impeachable offense is a crime
36:56and then he changed his mind.
36:59I know it's a long time ago, but can you remember
37:01how the research affected the way you thought about this?
37:04Well, I think similar to Bill Weld once
37:08I had done the research it seemed clear to me
37:13that the president was not above the law.
37:18The president did have certain authorities, certain standing.
37:26So it didn't require that there be a crime
37:29charged in order for there to be an impeachable offense.
37:34But what that impeachable offense was often keyed
37:39to what we think of as criminal behavior.
37:42So obstruction of justice is a crime.
37:45And whether a president is ever charged
37:49with obstruction of justice
37:50or not, the obstruction of an investigation
37:55can represent abuse of power
37:58that rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors
38:01and therefore be the basis of an article of impeachment.
38:08Do you remember thinking about standards of evidence,
38:13probable cause,
38:15appearing convincing beyond reasonable doubt?
38:19The constitution didn't say anything about that.
38:23Right. But that's why I think Doar was very careful
38:29in what he eventually presented to the committee.
38:36I think he believed that the whole enterprise
38:43really turned on there being sufficient evidence,
38:48not necessarily to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt
38:52for a criminal matter,
38:57but certainly enough to be persuasive,
39:02clear and convincing,
39:05because this was in effect the charging mechanism.
39:10If there had been a trial then I think Doar would have had
39:17to pivot toward a more explicit reliance
39:24on beyond a reasonable doubt
39:25because that would be how the public would perceive it.
39:30But there was no real guidelines for that
39:34because what did it mean and who got to determine it?
39:39Well, in the end of the day, the articles were passed.
39:42If some came out by the House, the trial was held by the Senate
39:48and they had the right under the constitution
39:52to impose their own understanding
39:55of what an impeachable offense was.
39:58So one of the debates that some of the fence sitters had was,
40:04should you vote for an article of impeachment
40:06if you don't think that the Senate will vote to remove.
40:12So they were actually already thinking about the trial.
40:15Right. Well, I think that that's one way of looking at it
40:19and it certainly is defensible.
40:21But I think another way of looking at it is
40:24that if you are persuaded that the president has abused power,
40:31committed a high crime or misdemeanor
40:34then it's up to the proof that has to be presented in a trial
40:40to determine whether two thirds of the Senate agrees with that.
40:45And remember the senators could bring whatever assessment
40:50they wanted to this determination.
40:55And you couldn't second guess that, you couldn't preempt that.
40:59It had to be left to them.
41:00As you were doing this research, what were the surprises for you?
41:04Well, I mean, it hadn't happened in a presidential setting
41:14for over a hundred years.
41:16And there was a lot wrong with what was done to Andrew Johnson.
41:21He was hardly a paragon of political rectitude,
41:27but it was more than it should have been in our assessment,
41:34a proceeding based on politics,
41:37not on evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors,
41:41however one to find that.
41:42So a hundred years later you have a crime,
41:48the break in of Watergate,
41:52you have a very vigorous investigation
41:54going on through the Congress already,
41:56through the Watergate Committee.
41:59And so we were trying to impose an understanding of the law
42:05and the history combined with a process
42:08that would be viewed as fair,
42:11providing due process to the president
42:15if articles of impeachment were decided.
42:19So we trying to rely on precedents as much as we could,
42:24but we were kind of making it up
42:25based on our best understanding of the law
42:29as we researched it.
42:31Secrecy was important.
42:33Totally.
42:34And how did Mr. Doar enforce secrecy?
42:40I think that, first of all, there are no cell phones,
42:42that makes a big difference.
42:44But I think he, by just force of character,
42:49made it clear to all of us.
42:50We did not know where this was going to end up.
42:52I certainly didn't.
42:54I didn't come into it with any preconceived notion
42:56that, okay, this is going to be easy.
42:59We're going to lay out all this stuff then the House
43:00will impeach and then he'll be convicted in the Senate.
43:04I certainly didn't do that. I don't know anybody who did.
43:09And because it was such a historic experience,
43:12we all felt the weight of that responsibility.
43:17And John made very clear that we would be betraying our duty
43:27as lawyers and our historic obligation if we talked.
43:32And when we would occasionally go out for lunch,
43:38the building where we were working would be staked out
43:40by reporters who'd be yelling at us.
43:42I particularly remember Sam Donaldson
43:44who had a really loud yell
43:46and he got to know the names of the lawyers,
43:47so he would yell,
43:49“Hillary, Hillary, come over here and talk to me.”
43:51We would just walk by.
43:54I remember when I appeared at the hearing,
43:57at one of the hearings with a Doar and Joe Woods
44:03before I went over there because Doar wanted to take me
44:05because I had done so much of the work and I appreciated it.
44:08But he said, “Don't talk to anybody.
44:11Don't make facial expressions. Don't portray any opinion.
44:14We're there just to make a presentation
44:16to the members of the committee.”
44:17So it was a matter of honor
44:21that we would maintain the secrecy
44:26that was so critical for this for this whole investigation.
44:33There were a lot of leaks, but they weren't from the staff.
44:35No, they weren't. They weren't, not from the staff.
44:39How many women were with you on the team?
44:44Boy, I don't know. I want to say maybe I mean
44:49I can call the names, see the faces, five.
44:54There might've been more, but those are the ones
44:56that I interacted with the most.
45:02I think on Joe Woods’ team,
45:04on his task force you had John Lintwoods,
45:07David Haines,
45:08John Davidson, as well as Bill Weld and yourself.
45:13After Mr. Woods leaves in May,
45:16is that when you move to Bernie's team
45:19or does Bernie take over?
45:21Can you remember what happened when Mr. Woods left?
45:23No, I really can't remember.
45:26I remember working closely with Joe,
45:29particularly on the standards to be applied,
45:32working with John Lebovitz on the grounds of
45:36for impeachment along with Bill Weld.
45:39I shared an office with a young lawyer
45:41who was in John Doar’s law firm in Wisconsin
45:44by the name of Tom Bell.
45:46And he was very focused on aggregating
45:51and recording the facts, the statements of information.
45:57So, I don't remember.
45:59I do remember that starting in early summer,
46:03maybe this was through Bernie, I began listening to tapes.
46:07And I began to listen to the tapes of President Nixon
46:14talking to his staff members,
46:18talking to Henry Kissinger, talking to his Filipino valet.
46:26And I particularly remember what we called the tape of tapes,
46:32which was Richard Nixon taping himself listening to tapes.
46:38And I was one of several people whose job it was,
46:41was to try to insofar as possible perfect
46:45the transcription.
46:46So we would sit there with the headphones on,
46:50just exhaustingly listening, trying to make out words.
46:54Some of the transcription already occurred,
46:57but some of it was garbled, it was not at all clear.
47:03But the tape of tapes was a big revelation to me.
47:07I had no idea that he would be taping himself
47:10listening to tapes and then coming up with rationalizations.
47:13So he would call somebody into the room and he would say,
47:17“I want to play this for you.
47:18Now when I said that, here's what I meant.”
47:21So it was really a shocking experience.
47:27What do you think you concluded that the president,
47:31then president was involved in the cover up?
47:36I think for me it was listening to the tapes,
47:40and particularly the so called tape of tapes
47:42because it was almost a textbook example
47:46of someone trying to get stories straight
47:48and getting other people to get their stories straight.
47:52I tried really hard not to have an opinion
47:56during the winter and spring.
48:00But then we would hear from John and Bernie
48:07and others how they were piecing together
48:09the facts that they had had us accumulate.
48:16And there were a couple of facts that they found particularly
48:19telling like this has been written about numerous times.
48:23But when Nixon threw the ash tray,
48:26and I think that that fact had a big impact
48:30on some of the members of the House committee
48:33because when you're given information that you expect,
48:43but it doesn't come out the way you wanted it to,
48:47so you pick up an ashtray and out of frustration,
48:49anger, disappointment, you throw it.
48:53I had the feeling that that was a turning point
48:56when that fact was placed in with everything else
48:59for a number of the lawyers.
49:00So you actually can remember that moment?
49:03Yeah, because I mean that was just a turning point
49:12because either he didn't know
49:16and he'd been manipulated by his staff,
49:20or he did know and he was trying to cover up,
49:22and that's how it came across.
49:26I think that information came from Colson.
49:28Could be.
49:32The day before Article I was passed by a bipartisan majority,
49:40Congressman Sandman and Wiggins
49:45went on an attack against Congressman Sarbanes,
49:49I'm sure you will remember this.
49:50But it had an effect on the staff
49:52because that night the attack was,
49:55you don't have enough specifics. We need specifics.
49:58And you cannot impeach a president without specifics.
50:01And that night staff worked tirelessly
50:04to put together specifics to go with every charge in Article I.
50:07Did you participate in that?
50:09Yeah. I recall that.
50:13See, that was the necessary transitioning away
50:19from just presenting the statements of information.
50:23I think Doar and the other senior lawyers were very aware
50:29that they didn't want to get ahead of the committee,
50:34which I think was the right position for them to be in.
50:39But then when the committee was saying,
50:40“Wait a minute, I can't wait through all of this.
50:43You've got to tell me what it means.
50:45You have to construct an argument
50:47and if you're looking at Article I,
50:50you have to tell me what are the pieces of information
50:54that either support it or disprove it.”
50:56And that's when we had to pivot into producing
51:02a much more detailed case, if you will.
51:08Do you remember the work done by C.
51:10Vann Woodward?
51:11I do. I do, yes.
51:16I don't know whether John knew him or Burke Marshall knew him.
51:20I don't remember that. But he was brought on board
51:25to provide some historical perspective and analysis.
51:30Were you sort of the liaison?
51:32I worked, I can't say I worked with him.
51:34He produced his own material,
51:36but I was available to him to do whatever he needed done.
51:40I know we don't have a lot of time.
51:42I just want to ask you a few more questions if I may.
51:47Do you remember working with Fred
51:49Altshuler ?
51:50Oh, very closely, yes.
51:52Tell us about him please.
51:53So Fred is a meticulous lawyer.
51:59I mean, he had a very clear view about how to gather facts,
52:08how to evaluate them and how to present them.
52:12He worked incredibly hard. He was somebody that I admired
52:18and really valued as a colleague.
52:22Did you do any research on the abuse of powers, IRS issue?
52:28I don't remember. I don't know.
52:30I probably pitched in on everything,
52:31but I can't remember.
52:35Where were you when the articles were being passed?
52:40I think I was in the office. I think that's where I was.
52:44Was it a surprise?
52:50Was it a surprise?
52:52By the time they actually were voted on,
52:56it wasn't a surprise because I think
53:00Rodino and his committee staff had a pretty fair idea
53:04of who was going to vote for it by then.
53:07What was your reaction to the Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Nixon?
53:11About the tapes and the--?
53:15Yes.
53:16I thought the outcome was really required
53:22because the tapes were done
53:25in the course of his official role as president.
53:32And so I think that having to turn them over
53:35and having to get them cataloged and be available for the public
53:41was the right decision.
53:44Okay. Just three more questions then we'll be done.
53:50What do you remember of President Nixon's resignation?
53:53I was not at all happy or jubilant about him resigning.
54:01I thought it was a very sad chapter in our history.
54:06I thought the actual departure was a really poignant,
54:12painful moment for him and his family
54:17as well as for the country.
54:21So I watched it on TV, like I guess everybody else did.
54:25And it was a really very unfortunate, sad outcome.
54:37What was it like to meet President Nixon?
54:42I met him when Bill was in the White House.
54:46I don't recall ever meeting him before,
54:48but I haven't thought hard about that.
54:53He had been to Russia, he called the White House
54:58and asked if he could come by and brief Bill
55:01about his trip to Russia. Bill was fascinated by the idea
55:08because despite his resignation and his abuse of power,
55:16he was an incredibly experienced,
55:21intelligent person who knew a lot about the world.
55:28And so Chelsea and I and Bill,
55:33he was brought into the White House
55:35and brought up the elevator to the second floor
55:38because Bill was going to meet him in his private study.
55:40He came at night as I recall,
55:44but maybe just right after he got back from Russia.
55:47So Chelsea and I and Bill greeted him,
55:51welcomed him back to the White House.
55:55He had obviously thought about what he wanted to say.
55:58So when he saw me, he said,
56:01“Well, I know you're working hard on healthcare.
56:03That's really a big task.”
56:06And when he saw Chelsea, he said,
56:08“My daughters went to Sidwell like you are.”
56:10So he had something that he'd prepared to say to us.
56:14And he had a folder so I think he'd written a memo.
56:18But then he and Bill went off out to talk about Russia.
56:22And you went to his funeral?
56:24I did. I went to his funeral.
56:26And one of the really few regrets
56:30I have about our eight years in the White House
56:34is that I didn't go to Pat Nixon's funeral.
56:37I think we were just not well informed
56:41or understanding of the protocol.
56:46We had other things and I think the schedulers
56:49or whoever was looking at this basically didn't appreciate
56:54the significance that it should've had.
56:57So I deeply regret not going to Mrs. Nixon's funeral,
57:00but we did go to President Nixon's funeral.
57:05And President Clinton gives a eulogy did,
57:11were you involved at all in how he described Nixon?
57:15I don't recall. He probably talked to me about it.
57:18We kind of bounce ideas off of each other.
57:21I may have seen a draft,
57:23but I don't recall any specific advice that I gave him.
57:27What was it like to be in that --
57:31you were among people that you had studied.
57:35How did it make you feel?
57:37Well, by that time I was much more familiar
57:44with the role of being First Lady.
57:47And it was the right and proper thing to be at his funeral
57:55to represent the country as we were all doing.
58:05So, I talked to a number of the former presidents
58:08whom I knew, the former first ladies whom I knew.
58:11And it was a beautiful day in Yorba Linda
58:15and it was a very touching funeral memorial service.
58:22What should the country have learned
58:25from the House's role in impeachment in 1974?
58:29I think that it's such a serious undertaking.
58:35Do not pursue it for trivial partisan political purposes.
58:43If it does fall to you while you're in the House
58:46to examine abuses of power by the president,
58:56be as circumspect and careful as John Doar was.
59:02Restrain yourself from grand standing
59:06and holding news conferences and playing to your base.
59:13This goes way beyond whose side is on you’re on
59:17or who's on your side.
59:20And try to be faithful purveyors of the history
59:27and the solemnity of the process.
59:31And I guess that lesson wasn't learned.
59:34That lesson was not learned.
59:36And that's why I think it's important
59:40to keep talking about how serious this is.
59:44It should not be done for political partisan purposes.
59:50So those who did it in the late 90s,
59:55those who talk about it now should go back
1:00:01and study the painstaking approach
1:00:05that the impeachment inquiry staff took.
1:00:10And it was bipartisan. You had a bipartisan staff
1:00:15and you had both Democratic and Republican members
1:00:18of the committee reaching the same conclusions
1:00:22that there were grounds for impeachment.
1:00:24Secretary Clinton, thank you for your time today.
1:00:26Thank you. Good to talk to you.
1:00:28Thank you.

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