.NATION/WORLD
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 5
Clinton and Johnson
share many similarities
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - Both were from
-Southern states and got to be pres-
ident against great odds. Both acquired
a determined collection of political
foes, bent on driving them out of office.
Both faced impeachment on narrow
legal grounds that many argue were
rroies for political disagreements.
But scholars say the case of President
Andrew Johnson, who in 1868 became
the ofly chief executive in U.S. history
to-facea trial in the Senate after being
ached by the House, contains an
n tbroader parallel - and a serious
lesson - for the deliberations in
Cdngress over the fate of Bill Clinton.
To succeed in removing a president
from office, the scholars contend, oppo-
nents must present clear evidence that he
has committed a profound offense to hurt
the country or its political system, not
merely that he has done things that have
angered Congress or sparked revulsion
among voters around the country.
Johnson was acquitted despite a
widespread belief that he was sabotag-
ing the entire post-Civil War
Reconstruction.
Johnson scholar Albert Castel noted:
"We came as close as you can get with
Johnson, but it was not close enough to
remove him from office."
On one level, comparing the two
cases is like looking back into history
and seeing the present:
Johnson had long been under
fire from a group of fierce partisans
who plainly despised him and every-
thing he did. One, Rep. James
Ashley (R-Ohio), even suggested
that Johnson, as vice president, had
been involved in the plot to assassi-
nate President Lincoln, just so he
could succeed him.
Congress and the administration
wrangled continually over legal issues
during the impeachment process, from
whether the president could be forced
to testify before the House Judiciary
Committee or the full Senate to whether
lawmakers were entitled to see records
of confidential White House messages.
As in the Clinton controversy,
testimony by Secret Service agents
also was an issue, though in
Johnson's case, Lafayette Baker, the
agency's chief, openly sought to hurt
him by passing lawmakers spurious
reports about an alleged presidential
affair with a woman seeking to
obtain pardons for former
Confederates.
AP PHOTO
Harvard Prof. Samuel Beer testifies on Capitol Hill yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee. House Democrats are
calling experts before Congress to try to convince moderate Republicans to vote against impeachment.
117
Clinton panel
impeachment
counsel
CLINTONComt
Co mm i
Continued from Page 1 ment ag
cence, and that the burden should be "great a
on the committee to call fact witness- the stat
es." offenses
To make their case, Craig and other ger to th
Clinton lawyers presented three pan- Clint
els of witnesses in which: commit
0 Constitutional scholars and other instead
experts argued that Clinton's offenses Social
are not impeachable, and one Yale Washin
University professor insisted that this memori
lame-duck, 105th Congress cannot father, w
legally send an impeachment matter When
to the 106th Congress when it con- thinky
venes in January. Clinton
Three Democrats who sat on the out ans%
House Judiciary Committee during On C
Watergate said the charges in the Speaker
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal falls far reporter
short of the case against President the impe
Nixon. the fullf
"Unless this committee and the will sho
House act on a bipartisan basis and Outsi
reach out for the common ground, White1
as we did during Watergate, unless hope in
you have the full support of the from th
American people for the enormous modera
disruption of our government that balance
an impeachment trial will entail ... before t
you should not, you must not vote Cong
to impeach," said former New York Amo
Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman. Republi
® Two veteran Democratic lawyers announ
from the Nixon period who late in the ment tod
day contrasted his crimes with the a list
allegations against Clinton. Republi
James Hamilton, a former associate suadable
argues Clinton
Frank Sinatra
appears in a
mugshot
following his
1939 arrest.
AP PHOTO
inappropriate
on the Senate Watergate The writtenr
ttee, said articles of impeach- House, release
gainst Nixon were based on its most detaile
nd dangerous offenses against charges likely t
te," while Clinton's alleged cles of impeach
s "do not indicate he -is a dan- The Clinton
he nation" allegations of p
on has not appeared before the justice and abus
tee, and yesterday he attended arly and legal;
a conference on reforming point-by-point
Security. He then left claims by the c
gton for Tennessee for a On the cha
al to Vice President Al Gore's lawyers cited<
who died Saturday. suggest that the
n a reporter shouted, "Do you ing what it thi
you will be impeached?" with what he ac
boarded his helicopter with- For instance
wering. that Clinton had
Capitol Hill, outgoing House Lewinsky, they
Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) told answer that he4
s he will not be presiding over alone with her
eachment debate if it comes to jury. They also
House next week, although he cannot be based
w up to vote. between how C
ide the committee room, the described sexua
House saw a glimmer of Refuting the
n its effort to win support charges, the law
e small group of Republican is any evidence1
tes who are likely to tip the to conceal the g
when the matter comes Craig, in his
the full House. mittee, appeale
ressional sources said Rep. bilities, saying
Houghton (R-N.Y.), a hiding wrongdo
can moderate, would faults that th
ce his opposition to impeach- Constitution wo
day. And Democrats compiled crimes" or even
of 26 other moderate "I make only
cans they considered "per- hope it is not a
e. late in the pro
report from the White
d yesterday, provided
d rebuttal to date of the
to be included in arti-
ment.
lawyers refuted the
perjury, obstruction of
e of power with schol-
arguments as well as
factual dismissals of
ommittee's lawyers.
arge of perjury, the
specific examples to
committee is confus-
ks the president said
tually said.
instead of denying
d ever been alone with
argued that Clinton's
did not "recall" being
did not constitute per-
said a perjury charge
d on the disagreements
Clinton and Lewinsky
al contact.
obstruction of justice
iyers denied that there
that the president tried
ifts he gave Lewinsky.
remarks to the com-
d to Republican sensi-
that dishonesty and
oing are not the sort of
he framers of the
ould interpret as "high
i'misdemeanors
one plea to you, and I
futile one coming this
cess,' he said.
'FBI files about 01' Blue
.Eyes released to public,
WASHINGTON (AP) - Francis
Albert Sinatra -special agent for the
FBI?
It would have happened if 01'
Blue Eyes had his way, according
to a cache of confidential docu-
ments from Sinatra's FBI file,
made public yesterday. Sinatra in
1950 volunteered to work under-
cover for the feds - an offer they
could (and did) refuse.
That same year, according to a con-
fidential federal informant, Sinatra
smuggled $1 million cash into Italy
for mobster Charles "Lucky"
Luciano. Such tales are the stuff of
The Sinatra Files, a mishmash of
;facts, allegations and just plain
rumors.
The papers - 1,275 pages in all
- offered few nuggets of new
information. There were vague
allegations of mob ties and com-
munist sympathies, but little detail
or evidence of either.
There's no mention of Judith
Exner, the Sinatra acquaintance who
allegedly had simultaneous affairs
with President Kennedy and Chicago
mobster Sam Giancana. No baccha-
nalian tales of the Rat Pack rampag-
ing through Las Vegas. And only
passing mentions of mob bosses like
Giancana and Carlo Gambino, with
no smoking guns.
Rather than flashes of the infamous
Sinatra temper, the documents
include a variety of threats against the
singer - everything from extortion
to death threats.
A Sept. 7, 1950, confidential
memo showed Sinatra offering his
assistance to the FBI. Using an
unidentified go-between, the
Hoboken, N.J., native told FBI offi-
cials that he felt there was an oppor-
tunity to "do some good for his coun-
try under the direction of the FBI,"
the memo said.
The singer, the memo continued,
was "willing to do anything even if it
affects his livelihood and costs him
his job."
The Sinatra family had no com-
ment on the release of the docu-
ments, said spokesperson Susan
Reynolds.
The FBI started its Sinatra file in
February 1944 after gossip columnist
Walter Winchell passed along a tip
that the breadstick-thin singer had
paid a doctor $40,000 to give him a
phony 4-F draft rating.
That charge was baseless, but the
file filled up over the years.
According to the FBI, Sinatra saw
the material after filing his own
requests in 1979 and 1980. The FBI
came up with 1,300 pages on Sinatra,
and released all but 25 of the pages
after Freedom of Information
requests from The Associated Press
and other news agencies.
But there's little revelatory about
Sinatra, who died in May at age 82. A
February 1947 memoranduum,
rounding up all the FBI's information
on Sinatra to that point, offered a sec-
tion titled "Association with
Criminals and Hoodlums."
It briefly mentioned a Sinatra meet-
ing with Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel
and a gift of a dozen shirts from a
Chicago mob acquaintance of Al
Capone.
But even that section held just a
mere five paragraphs.
E ~ -- - -
CHEATING
ontinued from Page 1
through a commercial site," Carson
said. "If it's a serious problem, it should
be addressed in a forum with
University faculty, administration and
students."
Although many faculty members are
,uninterested in using Integriguard,
there are professors who support the
service.
"It's a way of making it less tempting
Jor people to plagiarize," English Prof.
Michael Schoenfeldt said. "I'm teach-
ing a class with 125 students and I
don't get to know each one well enough
to judge whether or not they would be
capable of writing a paper."
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