PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

The second thing you can do to advance the cause of impeachment is to sign the petition at People for the American Way that advocates naming a special prosecutor to “Hold Bush Accountable: Demand a Special Prosecutor to Investigate the White House“

The role of special prosecutors in impeachments in the past 50 years is mixed. Most people remember the terrible example of Kenneth Starr, the guy who took the sow’s ear of the Republican case and tried to turn it into a silk purse, but no one except for Republicans bought it as an impeachable offense.

What has been forgotten was the importance of the Special Prosecutor for Watergate. Accumulating scandals forced Nixon to authorize Attorney General Eliot Richardson to name a Special Prosecutor, and he named Archibald Cox. Remember him? I do. Remember the “Watergate Tapes”?

For details, the Wikipedia reminds us that the tapes were discovered and then subpoenaed by first special prosecutor Archibald Cox, as they might prove whether Nixon or Dean was telling the truth about key meetings. Nixon refused, citing the principle of executive privilege, and ordered Cox, via Attorney General Richardson, to drop his subpoena. But Cox refused.
Cox’s refusal to drop his subpoena led to the “Saturday night massacre” on October 20, 1973, when Nixon compelled the resignations of Richardson and then his deputy William Ruckelshaus in a search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Solicitor General Robert Bork, and the new acting department head dismissed the special prosecutor. Public reaction was immediate and intense, with protestors standing along the sidewalks outside the White House holding signs saying “HONK TO IMPEACH,” and hundreds of cars driving by honking their horns. Allegations of wrongdoing famously caused Nixon to state “I am not a crook”. Nixon was forced, however, to allow the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued the investigation.

During his tenure as Special Prosecutor, Jaworski was perhaps most famous for his protracted constitutional battle with the White House concerning his attempts to secure evidence for the trial of former senior administration officials on charges relating to the Watergate cover-up.

The Special Prosecutor knew that President Richard Nixon had discussed the Watergate cover-up with the accused on numerous occasions. And that these conversations had been recorded by the White House taping system. Jaworksi requested tapes of sixty-four Presidential conversations as evidence for the upcoming trial. The President refused to hand them over, citing executive privilege.

After attempts to find a compromise - including supplying edited transcripts of some recordings - had failed, Jaworski subpoenaed them. The White House appealed on two grounds: firstly, that the Special Prosecutor did not have the right to sue the President; and secondly, that the requested materials were privileged presidential conversations. Aware that an important constitutional issue was at stake, and unwilling to wait any longer, Jaworski asked the Supreme Court to take the case directly, bypassing the Court of Appeals.

On July 24th 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that the Special Prosecutor did have the right to sue the President; and that “the generalized assertion of [executive] privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial”. The President was forced to hand over the unedited tapes to Jaworski, including one of a very compromising discussion on 23rd June 1972 (known as “the smoking gun” tape). The President resigned in early August.

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In this whole process, Nixon never actually got impeached. It was the combined work of the Special Prosecutor, and investigations in the Senate led by Sen. Sam Ervin, that eventually forced Nixon’s resignation. As the Wikipedia puts it,

Though then-President Nixon had endured two years of mounting political embarrassments, the court-ordered release of the “smoking gun tape” about the burglaries in August 1974 brought with it the prospect of certain impeachment for Nixon, and he resigned only four days later on August 9.

The Senate hearings provided the publicity that rallied public opinion, plus the publicity attending the “Saturday Night Massacre.” But it was the Special Prosecutors, both of them, who broght the legal pressures on the President that forced his hand.

For these reasons, the petition of the People for the American Way deserves support.

Bob Schacht