Voices

Excerpts from impeachment proceedings Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, as transcribed by the Fed-eral Document Clearing House:

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“During our presentation today and tomorrow, we will show from our history and our heritage, from any fair reading of the Constitution and from any fair sounding of our countrymen and women that nothing in this case justifies this Congress overturning a national election and removing our president from office.”

--White House Special Counsel Gregory B. Craig.

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“The phrase ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ is not a familiar one in modern American jurisprudence. Common law constituted a category of political crimes against the state, and neither high crime nor high misdemeanor have ever been terms used in the criminal law.”

--Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, former attorney general.

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“I strongly believe that the weight of the evidence runs counter to impeachment. What each of you on the committee and your fellow members of the House must decide, each for him or herself, is whether the actual facts alleged against the president, the actual facts and not the sonorous formal charges, truly rise to the level of impeachable offenses.”

--Sean Wilentz, professor of history, Princeton University.

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“There is no question that the president’s conduct was wrong, that he misled the country and the nation, but I believe that the legal case against the president is not strong. Republicans have said that Democrats do not contest the charges. Well, we do.”

--Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking minority member.

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“Removal from office, that grand, forbidding consequence of a successful impeachment, distinguishes this process radically from the judgment of a court. It resembles rather a vote of no confidence in a legislature.”

--Samuel Beer, professor-emeritus of government, Harvard University.

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“The only time in American history that has seen anything like the process this fall... occurred in 1868 [Andrew Johnson].”

--Former Rep. Robert Drinan of Massachusetts.

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“Now, I think you’ve [Craig] raised a level of expectation, and now I’m counting on you to meet that over the next--today and tomorrow. You need to meet that expectation--very unusual for the White House spin operation to go out there and set up expectations they can’t fulfill. Usually they do it the opposite. So you’ve now established a very high expectation that I’m going to count on you to meet.”

--Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.)

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“I’m concerned that some members of the House may view the application of a lesser standard [for impeachment] as appropriate, that they may think that the House should simply send to the Senate for trial any charges for which there may be probable cause that an offense may have been committed, and then leave to the Senate as the trier of fact the resolution of the matter.”

--Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.).