THE
Mvichigan Daily
Vol. LXXXIV, No. 50-S Ann Arbor, Michigan--Saturday, July 27, 1974 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
alk talk, talk, talk, talk
Nixon backers
lose key vote
wL ;:kon articles of
mpeachmen
AP Photo
CHAIRMAN PETER RODINO (D-N.J.) listens to seemingly endless debate
yesterday as the House Judiciary Committee discussed a key amendment to
the articles of impeachment. The committee is expected to vote today on which
articles it will recommend to the full House.
Regents boost
1 f
tuition back to.
Fall 73 level
See story, #
page 3
WASHINGTON 0(--Impeachment
advocates won their first major
vote by a wide margin late last
night by defeating a Republican
attempt to start dismantling the
charges against President Nixon.
The 27-11 vote shortly before
midnight climaxed a long day of
partisan haggling in which out-
numbered Nixon supporters insist-
ed proposed impeachment charges
were too vague.
MORE TEST votes are expected today,
but the committee seemed certain to -
recommend-perhaps this weekend-that
the House impeach Nixon and put him
on trial. in the Senate. There, a two-
thirds vote to convict would remove him
from office.
Though committee m e m b e r s were
growing weary from their third con-
secutive late-night, nationally broadcast
debate, controlling Democrats let the
argument run its course before the quick,
one-sided roll call vote settled this first
substantive decision.
All 21 Democrats were joined by six
of the 17 Republicans in refusing to
abandon a section of a proposed im-
peachment article charging Nixon with
'making false of misleading statements
to lawfully authorized investigative offi-
cers and employes of the United States."
JOHN DOAR, chief counsel for the
impeachment inquiry, expressed the
fears of the majority when he was ask-
ed what harm could come from revising
each impeachment article to include
details of evidence.
To do that, he said "would cause
harm. It will just build and build and
feed and fester into more and more
delay ..."
What Doar and the majority appeared
determined to avoid was giving the
anti-impeachment bloc a mass of factual
statements each of which could be ques-
tioned closely - thereby throwing the
committes's schedule even further be-
hind.
COMMITTEE members found the few
precedents sometimes in conflict for
this first presidential impeachment pro-
ceeding since 1868.
Rep. Charles Sandman (R-N.J.) offer-
ed the motion to knock out the provi-
sion and said he was prepared to make
similar attacks on each of eight other
sections in the proposed article.
Sandman and Rep. Charles Wiggins
(R-Calif.) led the anti-impeachment bloc
that contended the allegations lacked
enough detail to permit the President
to defend himself.
uoar
But the backers of the article, appar-
ently holding a bipartisan majority on
the 38-member committee, replied that
the President and his counsel were fully
familiar with the charges.
REP. ELIZABETH Holtzman (D-N.Y.)
said the opponents of the article were
focusing on "a really phony issue."
Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Tex.) said
that contentions such as those by Sand-
man and Wiggins were "phantom argu-
ments, bottomless arguments." She said
that "if we have not afforded the Presi-
dent of the United States due process . ..
then there is no due process to be found
anywhere."
As the debate dragged on and grew
more bitter, Chairman Peter Rodino
(D-N.J.) called for order and said:
'This is serious ennigh that to indulge
in parliamentary maneuvers to delay a
decision on this important question only
serves to tell the neople that we are
afraid to meet this issue."
THE DEBATE was consumed almost
entirely by the dispute over detail-
rather than whether the charges them-
selves are valid.
Supporters of the article noted that
the President's lawyer participated in
all sessions during which the committee
received its evidence and many tlemo-
crats cited the material on which the
allegations were based. In addition, they
pointed out that a detailed committee
report would accompany any articles of
impeachment the panel approved.
There was little indication in the de-
bate of any weakening in the bipartisan
support for impeachment. It appears
that as many as seven Republicans will
join the 21 Democrats in recommending
Nixon's removal from office.