IMPEACHMENT Same Sources, Conflicting Conclusions a Courageous Conversation Prep Guide by Allen Hilton

IMPEACHMENT Same Sources, Conflicting Conclusions A Courageous Conversation Prep Guide by Allen Hilton

You may be like many of the people I have interviewed or the public that opinion-gatherers are portraying: a bit tired of being inundated by 24-hour reporting on daylong sessions and testimony and now hearings on the constitutionality of this impeachment and court arguments about who will and won’t testify and… This saturation and the collective distaste of the American people began early – even, for some, after the first day of hearings – and has naturally increased. One columnist has ventured a guess as to the cause:

The collective nausea was no mystery. Americans used to soothing (or stoking) their fears via curated news on their siloed outlet of choice were exposed to the opposition’s argument, unfiltered by Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. It was a shock to the system. (Lorraine Ali, “Already Sick of the Impeachment Hearings?” LA Times Nov 14, 2019)

You may be among the gun shy who hear “Conversation” and “Impeachment” in the same sentence and run the other way.

On the other hand, through the Fran Park Center’s recent practice of Courageous Conversations, we at Pinnacle Church (and Christians in House United-ish churches across the country) have become accustomed to speaking with and hearing “the other side.” We’ve ventured out of our silos monthly to speak and listen well with one another – to have a sort of neighborhood chat about important things. And impeachment is a very important thing.

We hope you will join us this Sunday morning, Dec 8, at 11:30 in the Choir Rehearsal Hall (Sanctuary Building) to do what maybe only a church can do these days: talk with one another respectfully and honestly about the highly-charged and very significant issue of impeachment.

We also hope you will find this preparation guide helpful. We work very hard to make these materials fact-based, rather than partisan in either direction. That is a rare effort in our time. Please feel free to help us do it better by giving your feedback to Allen Hilton at [email protected]

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Our Questions

1. What is at stake in the impeachment hearings? Why do or should we care about this? 2. Why are Americans experiencing more impeachment hearings in these latter days of our republic? 1 out of our first 36 presidents faced hearings (2.7%), while 3 of our last 9 presidents have faced them (33%). what does it say about the state of our nation that our frequency is increasing? 86% of Democrats are FOR impeachment and 87% of Republicans are AGAINST it. Does this mean that independent thought has become a dinosaur among us? Or are these numbers a positive indicator that our people are more consistently principled? 3. Can history help us here? We’ll ask for recollection and reflections by those who remember the Nixon and Clinton impeachment hearings. 4. How shall we navigate the rest of what happens with our friends, family, neighbors, et al. during and after this impeachment process?

SETTING THE TABLE

Why We Talk

1. To Get Better at Disagreeing Lovingly

In a time of incivility and disrespect between people who disagree on important matters, Courageous Conversations are designed to help rebuild atrophied muscles for disagreeing civilly and respectfully.

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ… (Ephesians 4.15)

2. To Develop Our Convictions from Our Relationship with God

In an age when American Christians often listen to their progressive or conservative political party line, before the voice of God through Jesus and scripture, we commit ourselves to reversing that order. We will pray for God to move us from Christ to the world and its matters.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6.33)

3. To Celebrate Our Differences as Assets, Rather Than Threats

In an era of echo chambers, when Americans flock to birds of their own theological and political feather, courageous Christians capitalize on the God-given value of our differences. (1 Corinthians 12.4-26) This also means listening for God’s voice in the things others say.

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Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12.5-7)

4. To Normalize Conflict

In the New Testament and church history, Christians address theological and political conflict about ideas directly in order to move forward. Contemporary Christians tend to avoid these direct conflicts, opting rather for “parking lot conversations” with people who agree with them (aka “echo chambers”). Courageous Conversations help us get over our fear of moving toward one another in our disagreements.

Certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. (Acts 15.1-2)

5. To Save Our World

If churches can learn to disagree and solve our problems in constructive, collaborative ways, we can become a resource to our cities, states, regions, nations, and all nations. In other words, by learning talk well with one another, we’re ultimately saving the world.

Jesus prayed, “Father…I in them, and you in me, that they become completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and that you love them as you love me. (17.23)

How We Talk

In order to build new muscles for civility and mutual understanding, we build some basic practices into our Courageous Conversations.

1. We actively love one another. Jesus’ Golden Rule is the most direct guide to our conduct: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7.12) which he repeats when he says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12.31) In our Courageous Conversations, these commands usually show up as active, patient listening and constructive, respectful comments. (John 13.34-35)

2. We “Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church.”

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Christians believe that we all have the Spirit of God. To remind ourselves of this, at least at first, after any person speaks, we’ll repeat this chorus: “Listen for what the Spirit is saying to the church.” (Revelation 3.22)

3. We take Community Responsibility If tensions rise and begin to get out of hand, that is not just an issue for the two or three people in the fray. It is a community issue, and we are all called to help as we can to restore Christian love. (Philippians 4.2-3)

PART ONE: WHAT IS AT STAKE?

No American president has ever been removed from office by the impeachment process. (President Nixon resigned after the House had voted on one of its Articles of Impeachment, so we’ll never know if Congress would ultimately have removed him from office. Given the current voting patterns and distribution of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, that record is not likely to be broken this time. In addition to this, the leaders of the House of Representatives, who called these proceedings into existence, have known those probabilities from the beginning.

If they are very likely not to end in the removal of the President from office, what is at stake in the impeachment hearings?

The Rule of Law?

One consideration in every impeachment has been the responsibility Congress has to check and balance the power and conduct of the president. Interpretation of this duty can be highly politicized, of course. Looking through different partisan lenses, one behavior is a “crime or misdemeanor” to one pair of eyes and a mere indiscretion to another. But at the base of this discussion is a constitutional mandate. On the other hand, some have worried that when we lower the bar concerning “impeachable offenses” we slow down government and weaken the presidency. Here is a consideration of the constitutional language around impeachment:

The Language of the Constitution

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. (The U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 4)

The simple-seeming language of Article 2 of the Constitution is not quite so simple at all. While Article 3, Section 3 will define treason, we never get help defining bribery, high crimes, or misdemeanors. There is no “Definitions” section to answer this question, and that leaves the task of defining these terms to the U.S. Congress. In a polarized context, that’s a high-degree-of- difficulty dive. Here’s what we know:

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Treason

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” (Article 3, Section 3, U.S. Constitution)

The House of Representative’s hearings have not included any conversation about treason.

Bribery

The Constitution does not define bribery, which is unfortunate, because bribery is the charge most often cited against President Trump by his accusers. In the hearings thus far, three debates have arisen around the term:

1. Does bribery require an expressed quid pro quo (“something for something”) offer? 2. Does bribery require the actual outcome that its perpetrator intended? 3. Should bribery be defined by current legal usage in our courts, or by what we might discern was the original definition that the framers would have given it?

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

This term was borrowed directly from British Law. It first appeared in impeachment trials of the King’s counsellors in 1386-1459, but not again until the 1600s when Parliament revived it to try the King’s counselors. It was used to encompass a whole range of “violations” of office. British examples from the century leading up to the U.S. Constitution:

o 1701, Earl Russell, 1st Earl of Oxford, was impeached for using his position as Treasurer of the Navy to embezzle funds. o 1715, Lord Bolingbroke and Strafford of Oxford, was impeached for giving the King bad counsel on foreign affairs. o 1787, Warren Hastings, governor general of Bengal, was charged by prosecutor Edmund Burke for abuses of power. Burke said the charges “were crimes, not against forms, but against those eternal laws of justice, which are our rule and our birthright: his offenses are not in formal, technical language, but in reality, in substance and effect, High Crimes and High Misdemeanors.”

Note: It is important to notice that we are not comparing apples to apples here. Britain obviously has never had a process by which to impeach their King. All of the examples above would have their American analogies in impeachments of cabinet members or presidential advisors.

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Some wish that the framers had been more precise in defining what they meant by these impeachable offenses. Others are more comfortable with such language being vague enough for every generation to define the terms for themselves.

We will see below that the Articles of Impeachment in the cases of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton interpreted the constitutional language to include defying a recently-passed law about presidential appointments (Johnson), obstruction of the Justice Department’s investigation (Nixon), and perjury and obstruction of a congressional investigation (Clinton). In the current case, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are anchoring their charges concerning President Trump’s conduct with the Urkrainian president in the bribery clause and high crimes and misdemeanors.

Faith?

Is there anything at stake for our life of faith as people who live in this land? That’s a question Christian folk ask about everything that happens. In this case, we might ask what resources our tradition gives us for sorting what faithfulness looks like in this context.

Impeachment in the Bible?

It is a natural instinct of faithful people to seek guidance from scripture, but in this issue there are some difficulties with that instinct. First, none of the governments we encounter in scripture are democracies or parliamentary monarchies, so obviously there are no examples of impeachment in scripture. The forms of ancient governance are quite alien to a respresentative democracy like ours.

The closest case is God’s recall of King Saul through the prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 15 and its brutal aftermath. The impeachable offense in this case: not obeying God’s command. So far, so good. But here is the command Saul disobeyed:

The Lord said, ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’

And here’s the description of Saul’s campaign:

Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves[b] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

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God commanded Samuel to impeach Saul because he did not exterminate all Amalekites and their animals, but left their king and his best animals alive. How would we ever find any moral of this story that would help us assess an American impeachment? I confess to having no answer to that question.

In the New Testament, Paul speaks in Romans 13 about the relationship between divine will and the appointment of government leaders. The passage has understandably received a wide variety of interpretations among Christians.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

On its face, by claiming that “those authorities that exist have been instituted by God”, the passage seems to eliminate the possibility that impeachment would ever fit within the divine plan. Three things weigh against this interpretation:

1. In the passage we read above, God “impeached” Saul; 2. The very author of this passage resisted authority often and got thrown into prison for it. 3. Jesus himself defied the “authorities” within Judaism and the Roman authorities who tried him.

This tradition of “resisting authorities” began with Jewish prophets and heroes like Elijah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. The early Christian church clearly did not believe that God’s will for them included an absolute obedience to the Roman emperors or their local Jewish authorities as God-appointed and infallible. The Christian tradition has continued on that arc. John the Seer wrote Revelation from exile in Patmos because he resisted Roman leaders. Christian martyrs across the ages testify to the unwillingness of faithful folk to bow to unjust rulers, from Peter and Paul, who resisted the Roman Emperor Nero, to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who and many others who resisted Hitler. Christianity Today recently ran an article naming “11 Places around the World Where Christians Are Being Persecuted”: Algeria, China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. (author Megan Fowler, Christianity Today, Nov 1, 2019)

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A few questions, then:

o If Romans 13 does not call us literally to treat every ruler as God’s choice to be obeyed without condition, does it have anything to do with faithful responses to impeachment? o Some of President Trump’s Christian defenders, including Secretary Perry, have called Trump “God’s chosen one”. How ought faithful people to respond to this claim? o What does it mean for us to see God’s work in setting up human authorities? o Should Romans 13 have guided Christians to oppose the impeachment processes of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton?

These are faithful questions to ask in our time.

What else is at stake?

In our Conversation we will discuss other parts of our government and our culture that are impacted by a presidential impeachment process.

PART TWO: THE REASONS FOR FREQUENT RECENT IMPEACHMENTS

Here’s a fact not many people are talking about:

1 out of the first 36 U.S. presidents (2.7%) faced impeachment hearings. 3 out of the last 9 U.S. presidents (33%) have been subjected to impeachment hearings.

We ought to ask why this is. In a recent straw poll I posted on social media, respondents answered with these several answers:

1. Partisan double standards (holding the other party’s Pres. To different standards than our own) 2. Pluralism and Identity Politics (the increase in racial, sexual, and cultural diversity in the U.S. and its impact on politics) 3. Political Polarization/Tribal Politics (the widening political and social distance between Republicans and Democrats in Washington and on Main Street) 4. The Nationalization of Politics (less attention on local and state) 5. The Trivialization of Impeachment (lowering the bar on what constitutes an impeachable offense) 6. The Growing Voice of Non-White Voices in the Critique of Leaders 7. More Ready Opportunities for Presidents to Commit Malfeasance 8. Propaganda Media/Slanted News on Both Sides 9. The Increase of Presidential Power since FDR 10. Weakened Cross-Party Mechanics (compromise has become a perceived weakness) 11. Increased Mistrust between the Parties 12. Decreased Accountability of Congress 13. Increasing Litigiousness (more lawsuits in American life)

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14. The Battle for the Constitution 15. The Two-Party System 16. The Attraction of Narcissists to the Presidency 17. Permission to Question Authority (since the 1960s) 18. The Dysfunction of the Electoral College as an Institution 19. The Recent Frequency is Not a Trend but an Aberration (we shall see!)

Whew! That’s a lot of reasons! (Kudos to my Facebook friends for jumping in.) What do you see as the reasons for the recent increase.

Polarized Public Opinion on Impeachment

The cause of more impeachments my FB friends named most often is polarization. In a recent NY Magazine article, Ed Kilgore chronicled the impact of polarization among politicians in Washington and the way regular Americans see and treat one another.

“There’s a stubborn belief out there in the punditocracy that partisan (or ideological) polarization is an elite phenomenon, disguising the desire of regular Americans for come-let-us- reason-together bipartisanship and compromise. If that was ever true, it certainly isn’t right now when it comes to the fate of Donald J. Trump.” (Ed Kilgore, “Americans Far More Polarized on Impeachment Than in the Past,” NY Magazine, Nov 5, 2019.)

Kilgore compares our nation’s orientation to itself in 2019, compared especially to the fabric of society in 1973 and 74 during Richard Nixon’s impeachment hearings and 1998 during Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings. We are far more polarized than we’ve been before. In this section, we will explore the impact of that polarization on the way the hearings are being conducted and the way Americans are treating one another.

One obvious difference between the country when Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were impeached and Donald Trump’s impeachment process is the rise of political polarization.

Republicans who would Remove Democrats who would Remove

Richard Nixon 31% 71% Bill Clinton 51% 7% Donald Trump 7% 87%

Other causes of the recent upswing will arise in our conversation on Sunday.

PART THREE: CAN HISTORY HELP US HERE?

History of Impeachment Hearings in the U.S.

Only four U.S. Presidents have faced impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives. Only the cases of Presidents Johnson and Clinton made their way to the Senate. The Andrew Johnson impeachment process, which arose in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, featured stark congressional partisanship on the issue of reconstruction. Those of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, as different as they were, both occurred within an America that was not highly polarized, so that political party wasn’t an ironclad predictor of how congress voted or how Americans believed. In the hearings and process of Donald Trump, we have returned to the high levels of partisan division that the Civil War produced.

The substantive cases themselves are very different from one another. Here is a brief summary of each.

Andrew Johnson in 1868

Having been Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President, Johnson became President upon Lincoln’s assassination on April 15, 1865 – with three years and 323 days left in his term. Johnson carried out Lincoln’s compromise plan for Reconstruction even more vigorously than Lincoln likely would have, granting pardons and leniency to Confederate leaders and generals and vetoing a bill that would have granted political rights for freed slaves. This approach clashed with the vision of Radical Republicans in Congress and evoked a retaliatory “Tenure of Office Act” (1867) that forbade the President from replacing members of the cabinet without Senate approval. When Johnson defied this law by firing his Radical Republican Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, Johnson’s enemies in the House drew up and passed 11 Articles of Impeachment. The House voted 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson, but on May 26, 1868, the Senate’s 35-19 margin came one vote short of the two thirds majority required for a guilty verdict, and Johnson served out the full eight-month remainder of his term in office.

Articles of Impeachment: The House issued 11 Articles of Impeachment, the first 8 of which it directed at Johnson’s alleged violation of the “Tenure of Office Act” by the removal of Stanton and the appointment of General Lorenzo Charles.

Richard M. Nixon in 1973

On Nov 7, 1972, the incumbent President Nixon defeated Democratic nominee George McGovern 1972 in a historic landslide, garnering nearly 61% of the popular vote and 49 out of 50 states to claim a whopping 520 of the 537 electoral votes. Who could have imagined that 21 months later he would resign the office in disgrace?

A Watergate Timeline o June 18, 1972. The Washington Post reports that on June 17, five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex.

o Aug 1, 1972, A $25,000 cashier's check, apparently earmarked for the Nixon campaign, wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar, The Washington Post reports. o Sept 29, 1972, John Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats, The Washington Post reports. o Oct 17, 1972, FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort, The Washington Post reports. o Nov 7, 1972, Richard Nixon wins re-election over Sen, George McGovern by a historic landslide, winning 49 of 50 states. o Jan 30, 1973, Former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. o April 30, 1973, Nixon's top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign over the scandal. White House counsel John Dean is fired. o May 18, 1973, The Senate Watergate Committee begins its nationally televised hearings. Attorney General-designate Elliot Richardson taps former solicitor general Archibald Cox as the Justice Department's special prosecutor for Watergate. o June 3, 1973, Former White House Counsel, John Dean, has told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times. o June 13, 1973, Watergate prosecutors find a memo addressed to John Ehrlichman describing in detail the plans to burglarize the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, o July 13, 1973, Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices. o July 23, 1973, President Nixon refused to honor Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox’s subpoena to hand over tapes that recorded Oval Office conversations between the president and high officials concerning the Watergate break-in and subsequent attempts to cover up the White House’s involvement. o Oct 20, 1973, The So-Called “Saturday Night Massacre” o President Nixon ordered, Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire independent special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who had been commissioned to the post by Congress. o Attorney General Richardson resigned, instead of carrying out the order; o The Justice Department’s second in command, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, resigned in response to the same order. o Third in command, Solicitor General Robert Bork, was appointed Acting Attorney General, and carried out the order to fire Archibald Cox. o Oct 30, 1973, The U.S. House of Representatives begins its impeachment process. o Nov 1, 1973, Congress appoints a new special prosecutor, o Nov 17, 1973, President Nixon famously declares, "I'm not a crook," maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case. o Dec 7, 1973, The White House can't explain an 18 ½-minute gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes.

o Apr 30, 1974, The White House releases more than 1,200 pages of edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes to the House Judiciary Committee, but the committee insists that the tapes themselves must be turned over. o July 24, 1974, The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Nixon must turn over the tape recordings of 64 White House conversations, rejecting the president's claims of executive privilege. o July 27, 1974, The House Judiciary Committee passes the first of three articles of impeachment, charging obstruction of justice. o Aug 8, 1974, Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign. Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumes the country's highest office. He will later pardon Nixon of all charges related to the Watergate case.

Articles of Impeachment:

1. Obstruction of Justice during the initial Watergate investigation. (Passed on July 27, 1974) 2. Abuses of Power through the Departments of Treasury (IRS audits) and Justice (FBI investigations), as well as the Executive Branch (the development of a secret investigative committee funded using campaign contributions) and Obstruction of Justice as these were investigated. 3. Obstruction of Justice. (Refusing to answer four House Judiciary Committee subpoenas.)

The second and third Articles never reached the House floor for a vote before President Nixon resigned.

Partisan Balance of the House of Representatives in 1973-74:

Democrats – 243 Republicans – 192

Public Opinion Polls through Watergate

https://news.gallup.com/vault/226370/gallup-vault-fire-nixon-nixon-fired-cox.aspx)

“In May of 1974, Gallup transitioned to a different measure of public support for impeachment -- asking Americans separately about bringing Nixon to trial in the Senate and removing him from office. As early as April 1974, a majority favored a Senate trial, and by the start of August, a majority favored his removal.”

William Clinton in 1998

o Nov 1995, President Clinton began a relationship with the 21-year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. o Summer 1996, Ms. Lewinsky, having been transferred to the Pentagon, confides in Pentagon colleague Linda Tripp about the affair. o 1997, Ms. Tripp secretly records conversations with Ms. Lewinsky about the affair. o December 1998, lawyers for Ms. Paula Jones, who is suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoena Lewinsky to testify. o January 7, 1998, Ms. Lewinsky, allegedly under the recommendation/pressure of the president, files an affidavit denying that she had participated in a sexual relationship with him. o January 12, 1998, Ms. Tripp contacted then-Independent Counsel in the Whitewater Investigation, Kenneth Starr, to inform him of her knowledge of the affair. o January 13, 1998, Ms. Tripp wears a wire to a conversation with Ms. Lewinsky, who is then offered immunity by the FBI to testify to the affair. o January 16, 1998, Mr. Starr contacts Attorney General, Janet Reno, to request widening the investigation to include the cases of Ms. Jones and Ms. Lewinsky, with particular attention to the suspicion of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Jones trial. o January 17, 1998, President Clinton denies sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky in a deposition for the grand jury in the Jones case. o January 19, 1998, rumor of the affair first appears in print in the Drudge Report. o January 21, 1998, several news organizations print the alleged affair and President Clinton denies it. o January 26, 1998, President Clinton adamantly denies the affair with his (in)famous words, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” o August 17, 1998, President Clinton becomes the first sitting president ever to face charges before a grand jury. He also admits in a televised statement that he did indeed have a sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. o September 9, 1998, Mr. Starr presents the report of his investigation to the House of Representatives. o September 24, 1998, The House Judiciary Committee announces that the committee will consider a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton. o October 5-6, 1998, The House hearings begin in open session. o Dec 19, 1998 -- After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approves two articles of impeachment, charging President Clinton with lying under oath to a

federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term. o January 7, 1999 – The Senate begins its impeachment trial with Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding. o February 12, 1999 – The Senate votes not to remove President Clinton from office, not reaching either the 60 votes necessary on either of the two Articles. (on Article 3, obstruction of justice, the vote was 50-50)

The Articles

Article One: In his conduct while President of the United States . . . in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of the President . . . has . . . undermined the integrity of his office . . . betrayed his trust as President . . . and acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law by: • willfully corrupting and manipulating the judicial process of the United States for his personal gain and exoneration • willfully committing perjury by providing false and misleading testimony to the grand jury in relation to his relationship with an employee • willfully committing perjury by providing false and misleading testimony to the grand jury in relation to prior perjurious testimony in a civil rights action brought against him • allowing his attorney to make false and misleading statements in the same civil rights action • attempting to influence witness testimony and slow the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action

Article Three: . . . has [in the Paula Jones Case] prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice by: • encouraging a witness to give a perjurious affidavit • encouraging a witness to give false testimony if called to the stand • allowing and/or encouraging the concealment of subpoenaed evidence • attempting to sway a witness testimony by providing a job for that witness • allowing his attorney to make misleading testimony • giving false or misleading information to influence the testimony of a potential witness in a Federal civil rights action • giving false or misleading information to influence the testimony of a witness in a grand jury investigation

PART FOUR: HOW SHALL WE NAVIGATE RELATIONSHIPS DURING AND AFTER THE IMPEACHMENT PROCESS?

The raw hatred for one another that appears to prevail between Republicans like Devin Nunes and Democrats like Adam Schiff during these impeachment hearings impacts the way Republicans and Democrats, Trump’s defenders and Trump’s accusers, respond to one another on Main Street.

Shanko Iyengar and Sean Westwood, social science researchers from Stanford and Princeton, wrote a frighteningly predictive article in 2015 called “Fear and Loathing across Party Lines,” in which they documented a cyclical relationship between the conduct of American politicians and the conduct of the American people.

Hostility for the opposition party among rank-and-file partisans sends a clear signal to elected officials; representatives who appear willing to work across party lines run the risk of being perceived as “appeasers.” For the vast majority who represent uncompetitive districts, there are strong incentives to “bash” the opposition. Recent evidence on congressional “taunting” fits precisely this pattern; representatives from safe seats are especially likely to taunt the opposition party. Congressional press releases that fit the partisan taunting category—meaning that they utilize “exaggerated language to put [the opposition] down or devalue their ideas”—make up more than one-quarter of all congressional press releases issued between 2005 and 2007 (Grimmer and King 2011, 2649).

The level of animosity across party lines also implies a reduced willingness to treat the actions of partisan opponents as legitimate, resulting in more intense contestation of policy outcomes. The passage of the landmark 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts were no doubt controversial and opposed by large numbers of Americans, but they were not subject to persistent efforts at nullification. In contrast, two years after passage of the Affordable Care Act, legislative efforts to repeal the law show no signs of weakening. Finally, our evidence documents a significant shift in the relationship between American voters and their parties. Fifty years ago, comparative party researchers described American parties as relatively weak, at least by the standards of European “mass membership” parties (Committee on Political Parties 1950; Duverger 1963; Kirchheimer 1966). The prototypical instance of the latter category was a party “membership in which is bound up in all aspects of the individual’s life” (Katz and Mair 1995, 6). By this standard, American parties have undergone a significant role reversal. Today, the sense of partisan identification is all encompassing and affects behavior in both political and nonpolitical contexts. (https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2015/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf

Certainly “Fear and Loathing” do not embody a faithful Christian response to other Christians or citizens across lines of partisan difference. How then shall we behave with one another as we disagree? How shall families, friendships, neighborhoods, schools, churches, and all the other gatherings of Americans find ways to continue peacably with one another? This will be a central piece of our Conversation this Sunday.

We need your voice in this mix. Please join us!