Hillary Rodham's 1974 Watergate "Procedures were Ethically Flawed"

Here’s a little more:

Jerry Zeifman, a former counsel to the House Judiciary
Committee for 17 years, breaks these barriers. He takes
you to a behind the scenes account of one of the famous
faces in politics, Hillary Clinton, in his explosive book
Hillary’s Pursuit of Power

This book describes and documents unethical practices
of Senator Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s Pursuit of Power is
based on Zeifman’s personal experiences. In 1974, he
had supervisory authority of a staff that included Hillary
Rodham – who was then engaged in a variety of self-
serving unethical practices in violation of House rules.

In 1998, as consultant to a member of the Judiciary
Committee that impeached President Clinton, he gained
extensive personal insights into the unethical practices
of Hillary Clinton in her White House “West Wing” office.

A lifelong Democrat, Jerry Zeifman has concluded that
Hillary Clinton is ethically unfit to be either a Senator or
President – and if she were to become President, the last
vestiges of the traditional moral authority of the party of
Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson will be destroyed.

This book will open the eyes of the people to the truths
behind unethical practices previously unknown to the
public. It will guide them to make wise decisions on
whom to vote for office in the upcoming elections.
Suspicions and doubts will be confirmed and dispelled
respectively by the amazing revelations in this book.

About the Author

As former Chief Counsel of the House Judiciary
Committee Jerry Zeifman, was acclaimed by former
House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill as a “Great American who
played the key role during the Nixon impeachment
proceedings.” Later, during the Clinton impeachment he
served as a consultant to members of the committee. He
has also served as: Professor of law at the University of
Santa Clara; President of National Institute of Economics
and Law; General Counsel to National Counsel on
Industrial Defense; and General Counsel of International
Ethical Alliance.

Mr. Zeifman is also the author of Without Honor: The
Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment of President
Nixon (Thunder’s Mouth Press 1996). He is currently
completing a further book for publication in 2007 titled
The Dissident Democrat, which spans his career in public
service from the Roosevelt administration to the
present.

Availability of Hillary’s Pursuit of Power

The book is available in electronic form for the price of
$3.00

It is available in print form as an autographed and
inscribed paperback for total charge of $13.00 Buy Now
or send payment by check or money order to: Marianne
Zeifman, 32 Walnut Tree Hill Rd. Sandy Hook, CT O6482

Acclaim for Jerry Zeifman’s prior book Without
Honor: The Crimes of Camelot and the Impeachment
of President Nixon (Thunders Mouth Press 1995)

This behind-the-scenes look at the infamous Watergate
scandals provides compelling first-hand knowledge that
both Democrats loyal to the Kennedys and Republicans
“stonewalled” the investigation of President
Nixon…There are also cameo appearances by Hillary
Clinton. Her actions reveal that if she is not a liar, at least
she has no interest in justice...Highly recommended.
Five Star Review
Amazon.com

Jerry Zeifman..provides unique, often startling insights
into the incomplete impeachment of Richard Nixon. I
found this book to be a real page turner… It provides
missing information that cannot be ignored by students
of the period, the Nixon presidency, Watergate, and
Congress.
John Dean III

I got a kick out of Without Honor. I liked it a lot. I
sometimes try to imagine myself functioning in the
political circles of Washington. I wouldn’t have had the
patience to cope with it. They would have had to send
me home in a wheel chair.
Saul Bellow (Nobel Laureate)

A cogent blockbuster.
Publishers Weekly

The story is utterly fascinating and the extraordinary
quotes from his diary taped at the time surely make it a
primary source of considerable importance.
Edward Mortimer
Financial Times of London
.
After I started Jerry Zeifman’s extraordinarily insightful
book I could not put it down — and finished it in one
sitting.
Henry Hyde, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee

Limited current availability

A cache of the first edition has recently been located in a
warehouse. While the supply lasts, autographed copies
inscribed to the buyer can be obtained for $6.00 (with no
charge for shipping) by buying now or sending check or
money order to Marianne Zeifman, 32 Walnut Tree Hill
Road, Sandy Hook, Ct. 06482.

Biographical Material

Jerome Zeifman was born in 1925 in Mineola, New
York. He attended Harvard University, and received a
law degree from New York University. He served as a
naval communications officer on USS Missouri
during World War II.

He opened a private law practice in Nyack, New York
prior to working for the Committee on the Judiciary
of the United States House of Representatives. He
served as Counsel (1961-72) — and was Chief
Counsel (1973-74) during the Watergate scandal, the
threatened impeachment of Richard Nixon, and the
confirmations of Gerald Ford and Nelson
Rockefeller. Zeifman retired from the committee staff
in 1974 to teach law at the University of Santa Clara.

His personal papers are currently available at The
George Washington University, The Gelman Library,
Special Collections and University Archives; 2130 H.
St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20052 Phone: 202-994-
7549 Email: speccoll@gwu.
edu

The material dates from 1960-77. The collection
contains his personal diary and correspondence, as
well as his work-related papers. The collection deals
primarily with issues related to the Watergate
scandal, the resignation of Spiro Agnew, the
impeachment of President Nixon, the confirmation of
Gerald Ford to be President, the confirmation of
Nelson Rockefeller to be Vice President, the efforts
of Gerald Ford (as majority leader) to impeach
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglass, and
prior efforts to impeach seven other federal judges.
The materials also contain information about the
employment on the Judiciary Committee of a number
of people who later rose to national prominence,
including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernard
Nussbaum, John Doar, and William Weld.

Present Career As Author – See www.Jzeifman.com

Books: Without Honor: The Crimes of Camelot and
the Impeachment of President Nixon (Thunders
Mouth Press 1995); Hillary’s Pursuit of Power (Xlibris
2006); Best and Worst of Times: Memoirs of A
Democratic Counsel (for publication 2007)

Articles in such publications as Wall Street Journal,
Washington Times, New York Post, Insight
Magazine, News Max, World Net Daily, National
Ledger, Accuracy in Media, etc. (See Google.com)

Numerous TV and radio interviews (1995 to present)

ARTICLES
by
Jerry Zeifman

NewsMax.com April 17, 2007

Democratic Caucus Should Remove
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

On April 6, a Washington Post Editorial
aptly described Mrs. Pelosi’s trip to
Demascus as a “pratfall,” – which the
dictionary defines as “a fall in which one
lands on the buttocks, often regarded as
comical or humiliating.”

In my view that word was a discrete
understatement. As a life-long Democrat
and former congressional chief counsel I
regard her conduct as an unconstitutional
abuse of power that warrants her removal
by our Democratic Caucus,

As I previously noted in my NewsMax
article of April 7, she persistently fosters
what Thomas Jefferson denounced as
“tyranny by the majority” — and violates
House Rules that give her the duty to
maintain order, civility, and decorum, and
to foster “comity” (a word rarely used these
days, meaning “mutual respect”). Her trip
to Damascus was more than a blunder. In
denying President Bush’s request as well
as purporting falsely to Speak for Israel it
was a usurpation of Presidential power

As a result of her defiance of the president,
Democrat Leon Panetta, the former chief of
staff to President Clinton, cautioned in the
April 2 New York Times that if the
Democrats “go into total confrontation
mode on other than [domestic issues]…
that’s a recipe for losing seats in the next
election.”

The Wright Precedent
The prior history of Democratic Speaker
Jim Wright is now being repeated by Nancy
Pelosi. After Wright became speaker, five
South American presidents had agreed on
a peace plan which the Reagan
administration vigorously opposed. Anti-
Sandinistas and Contra hardliners became
incensed when they learned that Speaker
Wright had secretly sat in on a meeting
between Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando y
Bravo the Catholic leader being asked to
mediate the peace.

Then House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich
began filing numerous accusations in the
Ethics Committee of malfeasance by
Wright. In the end the House Democratic
Caucus determined that Wright had lost his
effectiveness as Speaker and compelled
him to resign. They voted to replace him
with Democrat Tom Foley — who restored
the traditional civility and comity that had
prevailed under previous Democratic
Speakers.

To date the Democratic Caucus has either
been suffering from a loss of institutional
memory or is hopefully keeping its power
dry before taking up the matter of her
counter-productive loss of effectiveness as
Speaker.

Also few if any media writers ever refresh
the public’s recollection of the controversy
in the Democratic Caucus in 2002 when she
first ran for Minority Leader. Then she was
opposed by Rep. Harold Ford Jr, (D Tenn),
a black Southern Democrat who later
became a Senator — and without her
support was recently defeated for re-
election by a Republican. Fiver years ago
Ford appeared on the Don Imus show and
described Pelosi as: “destructive,”
“obstructionist,” and “not the kind of
leadership we [Democrats] need.”

Last year after becoming Speaker Pelosi
supported her closest ally, Abscam-
Scandal-tainted Rep. John Murtha, to be
Majority Leader. However, she was
overruled by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D IL)
and the Democratic Caucus which by a
large majority voted to appoint Steny
Hoyer, Pelosi’s long time rival.

Mrs. Pelosi, whose San Francisco
constituency is far left, currently claims
credit for leading the Democratic Party’s
election victories last year. However the
credit really belongs to Emanuel – a former
key member of Chicago Mayor Daley’s
staff, whom Bill Clinton hired to be his
Chief of Staff. The truth is that Emanuel
had the political acumen to recruit enough
conservative Democrats to defeat
Republicans and control the House.

In my view, the best way for Democrats to
try to win control of both Congress and the
White House in 2008 is for Emanuel and the
Democratic Caucus now to follow the
Wright precedent of 1989 and force Pelosi
to resign, Then Rahm Emanuel should use
his political acumen to replace her with a
more moderate Democrat with a reputation
for civility and comity. This will shift our
party’s partisan policies toward a more
centrist position — and reduce the
demagogic political warfare that is now
diminishing the moral authority of both
political parties.

The result will restore the pre-Pelosi
Democratic tradition, in which Democratic
partisan policies are determined in the
Democratic Caucus and not in the Speaker’
s office — and our House Speakers are role
models of civility.

What Citizens Can Do About Pelosi
In the case of Wright the Democratic
Caucus responded to a wide spread public
outcry against his fierce partisanship that
was generated by the proceedings of the
House Ethics Committee that investigated
his political history. Under today’s House
Rules such an investigation can be
launched by petitions filed by House
Members. In my view, Republicans,
Democrats, and Independents alike should
contact their Representatives in Congress
and urge them to file such a petition with
the Ethics Committee.

Nancy Pelosi Should Resign

NewsMax.com April 6, 2007

Nancy Pelosi has persistently violated her
duty to exercise her speaker powers in
accordance with the Constitution and the
current “106th Congress House Rules
Manual” (House Document 106-320).
In short, she has fostered what is known as
“tyranny by the majority” — and violated
House Rules that give her the duty to
maintain order, civility, and decorum, and
to foster “comity” (a word rarely used these
days, meaning “mutual respect”).

The “House Rules Manual” includes
Jefferson’s “Manual of Parliamentary
Procedures,” originally drafted by the
founder of the Democratic Party when, as
vice president, he presided over the Senate
from 1797 to 1801.

In 1837 the House, provided that the
provisions of Jefferson’s Manual should
“govern the House in all cases to which
they are applicable and in which they are
not inconsistent with [subsequently
adopted rules].”

Jefferson’s manual, which is still in effect,
was a codification of 18th century
“common law” and re-affirms that House
Rules are “the only weapons by which the
minority can defend itself . . . and by a
strict adherence to which the weaker party
can only be protected from those
irregularities and abuses which these
forms were intended to check, and which
the wantonness of power is but too often
apt to suggest to large and successful
majorities.”

Currently, Pelosi, who is second in line to
the president, often describes herself as a
partner in his power — a higher role than
the Constitution grants to the vice
president, who is first in the line of
secession — and whose only official duties
are confined to presiding over the Senate.

Pelosi Oversteps the Electorate

In closing the recent debate on the $125
billion Emergency Defense Appropriations
bill’s provision to bring our troops home
from Iraq next year, Pelosi — purporting to
speak for the entire electorate —
proclaimed “The American people have lost
faith in the president’s conduct of this war .
. . The American people see the reality of
the war; the president does not.” Both
before and after the debate she has also
often derided him for waging “a war
without end.”

As Democratic Sen. Patrick Moynihan once
noted “Members of Congress are entitled to
their own opinions — but not to their own
facts.” Mrs. Pelosi’s false assertion of a
national consensus was then belied by a
role call vote of 218 to 213.”

The facts are that she presides over a
House divided by both the war in Iraq and a
political culture war at home. She
obviously wants to win the domestic
political war against the Republicans by
setting a deadline for the Iraq war.
Another fact is that when she first became
speaker she pledged to curtail the
“earmarking” of appropriation bills with
pork. Yet she encouraged her longtime
Democratic ally John Murtha to use his
powers on the Appropriations Committee
to load the bill with $24 billion of
earmarked pork. The New York Times of
March 24 described it as “largely aimed at
domestic program unrelated to military
expenses [and] was added by Democrats to
make the bill more acceptable to
lawmakers.”

Similarly, the Senate later approved a
similar pork laden measure in a party line
vote of 51 to 47, with Sen. Lieberman the
sole Democrat siding with the Republicans.
Despite the fact that, with defense funds
due to expire in May, Pelosi then used her
powers to recess until April 29 — which
even her liberal supporters in the media
have characterized as an exercise of
partisan brinkmanship.

Pelosi’s Syrian Mistake

She also denied a request by President
Bush (who has primary constitutional
authority over the conduct of foreign
policy) that as the third-highest official of
the United State she not make an official
visit to Syria, which our government has
officially declared to be a “terrorist state.”
On a high profile televised visit to Syria,
she conferred with President Bashar al-
Hassad. She not only purported to speak
for the American people in opposing
Bush’s policies and the Iraq war, she
purported to have spoken for Israel. As
reported in the Jerusalem Post, “[Israel’s]
Prime Minister Office issued a rare
‘clarification’ Wednesday that, in gentle
diplomatic terms, contradicted U.S.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s
statement in Damascus that she had
brought a message from Israel about a
willingness to engage in peace talks.”

As a result of her defiance of the president
and persistent confrontation of his foreign
policies, Democrat Leon Panetta, the
former chief of staff to President Clinton,
was quoted in the April 2 New York Times
as cautioning that if the Democrats “go into
total confrontation mode on other than
[domestic issues] where they just pass bills
and the president vetoes them, that’s a
recipe for losing seats in the next election.”
Ironically, history is now repeating itself.
Our first woman Speaker Pelosi may well
deserve to become the second Democratic
speaker to be compelled to resign from
Congress.

The prior history of Democratic Speaker
Jim Wright is now being repeated by Nancy
Pelosi — perhaps by a loss of memory of
the House Democratic caucus, which
forced Wright to resign.
After Wright became speaker five South
American presidents had agreed on a
peace plan which the Reagan
administration vigorously opposed.

Anti-Sandinistas and Contra hardliners
became incensed when they learned that
Speaker Wright had secretly sat in on a
meeting between Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando
y Bravo the Catholic leader being asked to
mediate the peace. The Washington Post
wrote “[Wright’s] approach marks a
dramatic shift in the running of the House
and in the role of the House speaker as
Washington’s No. 1 Democrat.”
The Wrong Way for Wright

As described 10 years later by Wright’s
own chief of staff: “[Then] Republican
Minority Whip Trent Lott described
Wright’s participation in foreign affairs as
“The most arrogant abuse of power I’ve
ever seen . . . Dick Cheney of Illinois, [then]
chairman of the Republican Policy
Committee, got so mad at Jim Wright that
he began to wax nostalgic about the
warmth and affection for the previous
speaker, Tip O’Neill. ‘There are no such
feelings for Jim Wright,’ he observed.”
Then-House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich
began filing numerous accusations of
malfeasance by the speaker in the House
Ethics Committee.

In the end Jim Wright resigned.

With the unanimous endorsement of the
Democratic caucus the House then voted to
replace him with Democrat Tom Foley —
who restored the traditional civility and
comity that had prevailed under Democratic
Speakers Sam Rayburn, John McCormack,
Carl Albert and “Tip” O’Neill.

Currently, with public respect for
professional politicians at an all time low,
and the financing of presidential
campaigns at an all time high, the moral
authority of both the Democratic Party and
the GOP is diminishing. In my view, the
longer Nancy Pelosi remains our party’s
leading spokesperson the more her
penchant for political warfare and non-
compliance with Jefferson’s “Manual” will
enhance the chances of Republican control
of Congress and/or the White House in
2008.

She will serve our party and the nation best
by resigning.

-
NewsMax.com February 26, 2007

Hillary Clinton: Politics Above Principle For
Over 30 Years

If Hillary becomes our first woman
President she will have the dubious
distinction of having successfully thwarted
the efforts of Senator Obama to become
our first Black — and Governor Richardson
our first Hispanic — President. Her victory
would also be the culmination of a political
career which she began in 1969 at
Wellesley — when she won prominence in
Life Magazine for her controversial
condemnation of our first Black Senator,
Ed Brooke, a liberal Massachusetts
Republican.

In high school Hillary had been a
Republican “Goldwater Girl” and at
Wellesley she soon became President of
the college Republican club that supported
Nixon. However, when Nixon fell into
disrepute Hillary eventually joined the then
popular “New Left” wing of the Democratic
Party.

At that time Senator Brooke had become
an anathema to far left Black Panthers and
Black Muslims. Because of his prior
military service and membership in the
Republican Party – despite his opposition
to Nixon’s escalation of Vietnam War – they
maligned him as a “Right Wing Uncle
Tom”

In 1969 Senator Brooke was invited to
receive an honorary degree and give a
commencement address at Wellesley.
“New left” student protesters persuaded
the school’s president to allow Hillary to be
the first student in the schools history to
give a commencement address in rebuttal
to that of another speaker.

In her speech Hillary assailed Brooke.

She suggested that the “words integrity,
trust, and respect” were misused if applied
to him. To explain to her fellow students
why she had abandoned the Republican
Party she added, “There’s a very strange
conservative strain that goes through a lot
of New Left, collegiate protests that I find
very intriguing because it harkens back to a
lot of the old virtues, to the fulfillment of
original ideas. And it’s also a very unique
American experience.”

In my recent book Hillary’s Pursuit of
Power I have documented her ethical flaws
since 1974 – when she served under my
supervision on the staff of House Judiciary
Committee. At that time, she became allied
with the far left wing of our party, which
opposed the confirmation of Gerald Ford to
be vice president. For self serving partisan
purposes they vilified Nixon publicly – but
wanted us to keep him in office “twisting in
the wind” for as long as possible.

In my view, throughout her entire career
Hillary has put politics above principle —
and is ethically unfit to hold office.

Friday, Dec. 29, 2006
Reprinted from NewMax.com

Ford’s Forgotten Legacy

When the confirmation of Jerry Ford to be
vice president was pending in the House
Judiciary Committee I, as a Democrat, was
in charge of an investigation that found
him highly qualified.

I now continue to have the highest regard
for his willingness to put principle above
partisan politics.

Sadly, his legacies are now being maligned
by The New York Times.

In its Dec. 28 editorial, the Times assailed
him for the pardon of Richard Nixon. It also
denigrated his prior role as a Republican
minority leader by describing him this way:
“In essence a creature of Congress — more
precisely, of the House of Representatives,
a place of perpetual compromise that
encourages neither the vision that
sometimes attaches to the Senate nor the
managerial skills [of] a governor.”
The New York Times and the current left
wing of our Democratic Party now give
Ford no credit for a meeting he held in the
Oval Office with Times reporter James
Reston and other prominent journalists.

At that time he disclosed that the CIA and
Defense Department had jointly sponsored
political assassinations on a broad scale
under presidents Kennedy and Nixon.

Prominent Democrats such as Ted
Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and
Harry Reid — like the editors of The New
York Times, the media in general, and even
many Republicans — would have us forget
that John and Robert Kennedy were
responsible for the assassinations of
President Lumumba in the Congo,
President Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, and
Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republican.

In revising history, they would also have
the present generation of Americans not
know that with the aid of Mafia leader Sam
Giancana, the Kennedys sponsored
numerous attempts to assassinate Fidel
Castro.
In my view, the current ignorance of most
Americans of an assassination program
named “Operation Phoenix” — that went
into operation during the Nixon
administration — also reflects poorly on
the media.

Under that program, political
assassinations of South Vietnamese
civilians were carried out on a broad scale.
In my view, the fact that the Phoenix
program has not been widely reported is
largely due to the collaboration of most of
the main media with the CIA — that has
long been a major source of leaks of
scandals in other agencies.
In the 197Os, CIA Director William Colby
himself admitted before the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence that the
program, which was administered jointly
with the Defense Department, killed more
than 20,000 suspected civilian communists.
Later investigative journalists reported that
Colby’s figures had understated the
assassinations. For more on this, read “The
Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA,”
by John Ranelagh (1986).
From 1965 through 1968 the program
summarily executed about 600 civilians per
month. Of these most were tortured prior to
execution. From 1968 through 1971, more
than 40,000 were reportedly killed by the
program.

When it was first publicly exposed, the
intelligence journal Counterspy described
the Phoenix Program as “the most
indiscriminate and massive program of
political murder since the Nazi death camps
of World War II.”

To his credit, President Ford not only
issued an executive order outlawing
political assassinations, he took positive
steps to reform both the CIA and the
Defense Department. He fired William Colby
and replaced him with George Bush senior.
He likewise fired Nixon’s secretary of
Defense, James Schlesinger, and replaced
him with Donald Rumsfeld. He also
appointed Dick Cheney as his chief of staff.

Now maligned by The New York Times as
lacking managerial skills and vision, the
Ford administration was scandal free. In
my view he was the most nonpartisan and
ethical president in my life time.

HILLARY’S WATERGATE SCANDAL

In December 1974, as general counsel and chief of
staff of the House Judiciary Committee, I made a
personal evaluation of Hillary Rodham (now Senator
Clinton), a member of the staff we had gathered for
our impeachment inquiry on President Richard
Nixon. I decided that I could not recommend her for
any future position of public or private trust.

Why? Hillary’s main duty on our staff has been
described by as “establishing the legal procedures
to be followed in the course of the inquiry and
impeachment.” A number of the procedures she
recommended were ethically flawed. And I also
concluded that she had violated House and
committee rules by disclosing confidential
information to unauthorized persons.

Hillary had conferred personally with me regarding
procedural rules. I advised her that Judiciary
Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker
Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O’Neill and I had
previously agreed not to advocate anything contrary
to the rules already adopted and published for that
Congress. I quoted Mr. O’Neill’s statement that: “To
try to change the rules now would be politically
divisive. It would be like trying to change the
traditional rules of baseball before a World Series.”

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted and
would not advocate any such rules changes. I soon
learned that she had lied: She had already drafted
changes, and continued to advocate them.

In one written legal memorandum, she advocated
denying President Nixon representation by counsel.
She had done this despite the fact that —in our then-
most-recent prior impeachment proceeding — the
committee had afforded the right to counsel to
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment
files were available for public inspection in our
offices. I later learned that the Douglas files were
then removed from our general files without my
permission, transferred to the offices of the
impeachment inquiry staff, and were no longer
accessible to the public.

The young Ms. Rodham had other bad advice about
procedures, arguing that the Judiciary Committee
should neither (1) hold any hearings with or take the
depositions of any live witnesses, nor 2) conduct
any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax
evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense
of President Nixon - but to rely instead on prior
investigations conducted by other committees and
agencies.

The committee rejected Ms. Rodham’s
recommendations: It agreed to allow President Nixon
to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings
with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the
official rules of the House be amended to deny
members of the committee the right to question
witnesses. This unfair recommendation was rejected
by the full House. (The committee also vetoed her
suggestion that it leave the drafting of the articles of
impeachment to her and her fellow special staffers.)

The recommendations advocated by Hillary were
apparently initiated or approved by Yale Law School
professor Burke Marshall - in violation of committee
and House rules on confidentiality. They were also
advocated by her immediate supervisors, Special
Counsel John Doar and Senior Associate Special
Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, both of whom had
worked under Marshall in the Kennedy Justice
Department.

It was not until two months after Nixon’s resignation
that I first learned of still another questionable role
of Ms. Rodham. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles
Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee,
wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into a
troubling set of events.

That spring, Wiggins and other committee members
had asked “that research should be undertaken so
as to furnish a standard against which to test the
alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon.” And,
while “no such staff study was made available to the
members at any time for their use,” Wiggins had just
learned that such a study had been conducted - at
committee expense - by a team of professors who
completed and filed their reports with the
impeachment-inquiry staff well in advance of our
public hearings.

The report was not made available to members of
Congress. But after the impeachment-inquiry staff
was disbanded, it was published commercially and
sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote that he was
“especially troubled by the possibility that
information deemed essential by some of the
members in their discharge of their responsibilities
may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff
during the course our investigation.”

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: “Hillary Rodham of
the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work.
... After the staff received the report it was reviewed
by Ms. Rodham, briefly by Mr. Labovitz and Mr.
Sack, and by Mr. Doar. The staff did not think the
manuscript was useful in its present form.”
On the charge of willful suppression, he wrote: “That
was not the case ... The staff did not think the
material was usable by the committee in its existing
form and had not had time to modify it so it would
have practical utility for the members of the
committee. I was informed and agreed with the
judgment.”

During my 17 year tenure with the House Judiciary
Committee, I had supervisory authority over several
hundred staff members. With the exception of Ms.
Rodham, Doar and Nussbaum, I recommend all of
them for future positions of public and private trust.

WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 25, 199

Cancer on the Presidency

Sadly, as a life-long Democrat and chief
counsel of the House Judiciary Committee at
the time of the Nixon impeachment inquiry, I
cannot in good conscience vote to re-elect Bill
Clinton. Having reached this decision, I am
proud to be among those Democrats who
have chosen principle over party. Defeating
Mr. Clinton would help revive the traditional
moral values of the Democratic Party — as
they existed under Presidents Roosevelt,
Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter.

Having long championed traditional
Democratic causes, I simply cannot
accept Mr. Clinton’s shameless election-year
surge to the right as his chosen means of
winning a second term. And like most if not
all traditional Democrats, I have grave
reservations about the Clintons’ morality and
ethics. In my view there is now probable
cause to consider our president and first lady
as felons, who are likely to be indicted after
the Nov. 5 election.

The misdeeds of the Clinton administration
have fallen into a pattern of deceit and
corruption that now clearly justifies denying
Mr. Clinton a second term in office. To date
more than 30 high administration officials
have been investigated, fired or forced to
resign, and the White House has illegally
obtained more than 900 confidential FBI files.
Four independent counsels have been
appointed, three to investigate cabinet
members and one to investigate the president
himself.

The White House suppressed documents
under subpoena. The Department of
Justice, the FBI and the Treasury Department
have been politicized and misused to
prosecute or investigate innocent staffers of
the White House Travel Office. The president’s
Health Care Task Force operated secretly in
gross violation of federal disclosure laws,
misled the federal courts and ignored
conflict-of-interest laws.

The most recent scandal, involving former
Commerce Department official and
Democratic Party fund-raiser John Huang
(who still has failed to answer a summons
issued by District Judge Royce C. Lamberth),
is but another hauntingly familiar throwback
to my days as an investigator of Watergate
crimes and a wide variety of other forms of
presidential misconduct. The 1972 Republican
Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP)
was involved in many shady operations that
mixed legitimate government funding
operations with the illegitimate refunneling of
money through backdoor corporate
contributions into CREEP coffers.

Now it appears that Mr. Huang, and his former
associates from the Indonesian Lippo
financial conglomerate, were unlawfully
funneling contributions from foreign sources
(that had both corporate and political
interests in U.S. policy) into Democratic Party
coffers. This mixing of U.S. policy with
partisan fund-raising — not to mention the
questionable background of some of the
institutions and individuals given top
clearance by the White House and the DNC —
has produced a cancer on the Clinton
presidency painfully reminiscent of the cancer
that brought down Nixon.

I am particularly saddened that the Clintons
now believe that their unethical and unlawful
acts in the pursuit of power will be condoned
by all but a few Democrats in the name of
party unity. During the Nixon impeachment
inquiry it was my view that the core of Nixon’s
corruption was his belief that in politics his
ends justified any means at all.

Ironically, it is now the Clinton administration
that has given renewed intensity to the
corrupt notion that immoral means can be
legitimized in the pursuit of political ends. If
Mr. Clinton is re-elected it will be testimony to
his success in putting politics before principle.
A second Clinton term would polarize the
nation even more dangerously than did
Richard Nixon’s — this time with Republicans
as the new defenders of integrity in
government and Democrats as the defenders
of a corrupt administration. If Mr. Clinton is
defeated, Democrats may find a new
strength — and long remember the folly of
marching in lockstep in support of a corrupt
president in the name of party unity.

Books and Articles
by

Jerry Zeifman

Send comments to:
jzeifman@yahoo.com

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