a selection will be televised for the first time on american history tv throughout june. we hear now from bernard nussbaum who served as senior member of the house judiciary committee on impeachment and worked alongside future first lady and secretary of state hillary rodham clinton and later served as counsel to the president of the united states in the clinton administration. this is the second of two parts and is about one hour. >> 1988, yeah, 1988 hillary came

into the office. i think she had some other business. she wanted to see me. she comes in and we have dinner together and she says, bill's thinking of running for president. now this is 1988. this is 14 years after the conversation we had in the car and bill clinton at this point i think is 43 years old. he was born in '46. how old was he in 1988? >> he's 42. >> 42. he's 42 years old in 1988. and she's the same age. no. she's a year younger. she's about 41. she was born in '47. he's thinking of running for president and she doesn't want me to commit to support anybody else. i said, my support for anybody makes any difference -- makes no

difference so i say to her very tentatively, i said, well, hillary, i know we discussed this in the past, something like that, but he may be kind of young. 42 years old. to run for president. john kennedy ran when he was 42, 43. she says, well, he's deciding. just don't support anybody else. okay. i'm not supporting anybody. a week later i get a call from her saying he's not running in '88. i ended up supporting michael dukakis in 1988 with great effect as you can tell. actually i went to the convention in 1988 and i was on the floor of the convention in atlanta in 1988 when bill clinton spoke and made what turned out to be a disastrous speech. i was there.

i didn't even know he was going to speak. then in 1992 or 1991. 1991, october, 20 years ago from not today but this month i get a call from the partner in goldman sachs saying there's going to be a meeting. we're going to have to have a meeting shortly, i know this part, to see if we can raise money for bill clinton who is going to run for president. hillary says you're onboard. hillary never called me, never asked me anything. 1991. i hadn't heard from her in a while. she hasn't called me. nobody from -- kim brody the partner of goldman sachs called and says you're onboard. let's see if we can have a meeting and see if we can raise money for clinton. i go down to this meeting. this meeting is in tom tischer's office who is a republican who wasn't at the meeting in his

office and there's six people sitting around in this meeting. and brody is there and i'm there and four other people. i don't know who they were. investment bankers and maybe one lawyer. very few people. well, we can have, we're here to discuss the governor of arkansas bill clinton to raise some money and one of the guys says who's bill clinton? the governor of arkansas. may run for president. i'm a republican he says. he's a democratic governor. then somebody says, this is like five or six weeks. i'm sitting listening to this. somebody says, what? this is crazy he says. i mean even -- nobody ever heard of this guy. i mean, how are we going to raise money for this guy? this is nuts. they came here only because the goldman partner asked him to come. what's the argument to raise money for some governor from

arkansas? and i start -- i get agitated at this point and i say, no. this is what you're going to tell people. this is how you're going to raise money for the governor of arkansas. you're going to go out and tell people that when they see him, and when they meet him, and when they hear him speak, and when they see the quality of his mind, his charisma, his intelligence, his good looks even, you're going to tell these people this guy is going to be president of the united states. and they contribute money now they're contributing very early to somebody who is going to be president of the united states and all they have to do is see him and come into contact with him and he's going to win. i said that to sort of rouse them up. whether i believed it or not at that point i'm not quite sure. they said all right. then we had a party. the group arranged a party and some fancy apartment on sutton place and clinton showed up and hillary showed up who i hadn't seen in a while and we started raising money at that party and

the rest is history. you want to go back to the tapes? >> you heard the tapes. the special prosecutor hands them over in a satchel right? >> yes. that's right. >> that's in march. >> march of 1974. right. >> then in april somebody decides to enhance them because it's hard to hear them. >> correct. it's hard to hear certain parts here but we listen and especially prosecutors -- i don't remember. did he send over transcripts? i don't remember. but the white house did release transcripts and this became a big issue because they weren't accurate in certain key portions.

people like buzz and other people they were under tremendous pressure in the white house to -- listen, 18 years later i was in the white house. i was in the white house in the beginning of whitewater. i know. you might think the white house is a very efficient place with dozens of people who perform well. it's not true. so i don't even -- poor fred and jim st. clair and a handful of people in the white house, you know, whatever reason the transcripts they released were inaccurate and we made it our business to try to put together accurate transcripts and presented that to the committee to demonstrate what we were given is not accurate so they could draw whatever conclusions they want to draw from that. obviously we weren't in the business at that point of drawing favorable conclusions under those circumstances. >> so it's after the white house. >> i believe so. >> that you start the

transcription process. >> correct. >> and how -- what kinds of checks and balances do you put into that process so that your transcripts are better? >> well, we just devoted -- we just devoted a lot of time. people really made an effort just to get it right. you know. once we realized that the other transcripts were wrong, the way i remember it, this is somewhat vague in my mind so i don't want to over state this. but we really wanted to get it right. also we wanted to be fair. i mean, it's not, look, we're good people, you know, but that's not -- we had a committee to deal with and we had republicans as well as democrats. this is not the special prosecutor's office, special counsel, where you have to answer to no one. we had to answer to a committee and the committee while the democrats were the majority, there were conservative democrats on the committee who

by no means -- jim mann, walter flowers, people like that, key members of the committee. these are democrats. by no means whose constituencies, south carolina and alabama, but by no means certain, you know, to vote for impeachment unless there is a case to be made. putting aside republicans. so what we were trying to do is get it right. make sure the transcripts are as accurate as possible so when they make their decision they can make it in a coherent, logical, accurate fashion. and that's a big, you know, even i didn't think of that until recently. sure there was a republican staff, too, that worked, sam garrison, jenner, but we had -- we had the republican staff overlooking -- they were working

together with us. that's one of the great things he was able to do, meld the two staffs together and on the other hand we were being questioned all the time as to whether this should be done or that should be done or what the consequence of this is and the consequence of that, how do you analyze this and how do you analyze that. this is a very important concept to understand during that impeachment. this is a real sort of joint effort in part but also an effort where we were subject to checks and balances. as we had to be. so we try to get it right. we try to get the tapes right and i think we did get it right. >> some people have remembered the tapes having a major impact on burt jenner on his thinking. >> yeah. i think it's in accord with my recollection. burt jenner, also, look. burt jenner was a -- he was -- the way i remember it he was a wonderful man, a wonderful guy.

he was very prominent and well known as a lawyer, created a great firm, jenner & block. and he wanted to do the right thing. he wasn't out to get the president as some of the republicans later accused him in effect and pushed him aside. he was out to do sort of an independent, fair investigation, and wherever the facts lead the facts lead. that's the way i felt and i think that's the way dorr felt also. once we got the tapes and by that time and talked to some of the people, yeah, we did conclude that impeachment was appropriate but it took a while to get there and it took jenner a while too. that's why the irony is if the tapes hadn't been there who knows what would have happened? >> when you put together the subpoenas did you -- were you

hopeful -- were you hopeful or optimistic or just felt you had to do it but you didn't think the white house was going to give you anything? >> no, i -- well, i was one of the key people -- no person was totally in charge of anything other than dorr but i was one of the key figures in putting together the subpoenas, article 3 which i told you i was deeply involved in. we felt we had to do it and felt we were entitled to the material and knowing the way the white house was reacting we felt they would stonewall us because they wanted to turn this into a political process. this was a huge battle here. they wanted to say, this is a political fight and what the democrats are trying to do is pervert the impeachment process really just to reverse the last election. and we were resisting that at

all times so we were trying to get the facts and trying to keep the republicans -- we try to satisfy them that really trying to do it the fair way. but the white house was -- stonewald the committee and did stonewall the committee to a large extent. the mistake the president made was the special counsel who then took them to court and secured the tapes in effect. though it's my view as i expressed on another occasion that the supreme court and the united states v. nixon probably made the wrong decision in ordering the tapes to be turned over that the president's executive privilege is absolute except in impeachment proceedings. that's the right way. it probably wouldn't have came out the way it came out if what i considered the right way was

followed. the fact is the supreme court did rule. the president did decide to turn over the tapes which in retrospect was probably an historic mistake from his point of view and turning over the tapes resulted in the impeachment of the president. if he destroyed the tapes he probably wouldn't have been impeached. maybe i'm wrong on that. actually i hope i'm wrong on that. who knows? he did turn them over. we did get them and we did present them to the committee. we laid it all out. the tapes combined with all the other facts we gathered are collated. i don't want to take credit or have our staff take credit for sort of uncovering all these facts. there is nothing i remember we uncovered that wasn't obtained from somebody else. what dorr understood as i indicated earlier our process was sort of to gather, to collate and to present. >> you made the case before you had the smoking gun. >> yes. we made the case.

i did actually. we actually -- that is a very -- we described to the committee and i was involved in that or with others what we thought happened on the basis of witnesses we had talked to or seen or heard, on the basis of documents we'd seen. what probably happened at these crucial meetings. and i remember that in one committee session we were sort of giving our analysis, based on other things, when you put these things together this is what probably happened. and the tapes confirmed it. i remember feeling so proud. i wasn't the only one doing this. we were putting it together. chronology is very important. john dorr was very big on chronology and he was right. it's important. this fact, that fact, this date, that date.

this event, this event. that's how you sort of analyze. it was a good way of doing it. and then there were certain gaps to use an old famous word. and then we had a choice using our analysis to fill in the gaps. what the president probably did at this point, what was probably said here in view of what happened afterward and what was said before and we sort of provided that analysis as a committee even though we didn't have direct evidence of that and then when the tapes came out the tapes provided the right evidence. it was, you know -- i mean, dean's testimony for the senate watergate committee was very important as to the events that occurred and we used that to help us create this matrix of facts. ultimately, it worked. it was a wonderful process ultimately. as i saw -- i saw us convince

the conservative democrats who were very important here as i mentioned earlier, the walter flowers from alabama whose constituents were very pro president nixon and jim mans of south carolina, people like that were very important. we reached them and we were desperate not to have a partisan committee vote if at all possible even reaching them and then voting, i don't know, 17-14 something like that. i think that would have been the figures for the democrat and republican split. that would have been a disaster. a disaster is too strong a term. it was the wrong way to go about it. that's of course what happened to the next impeachment, the clinton impeachment in 1998. but we really, in order for it to be accepted by the country, to be accepted by history for the good of the country, you know, we really felt -- we

really stroef so hav so hard toe bipartisanship in this thing. a lot of credit to dorr and dino. they really just handled it right. it was useful to have a person like me who was aggressive. i mean, and wanted to go hard and at one time was convinced there was a case to be made. but their balance, their judgment, i think, really kept this process going along the right direction. i'm very proud that not only we reached the southern democrats which were important but conservative democrats, not all southern, but also the republicans and all of a sudden we started reaching some of the republicans. bill kohn and tom railsback and people like that who then spoke really from the heart. it was a very moving thing ultimately to see that. then of course after the smoking

gun tape came out, the june 18 tape, then the whole republican -- that's when the president had to resign. the whole committee sort of. the whole committee then decided impeachment was appropriate. so many republicans, wiggins -- the president had very able advocates on the committee, on the republican side of the committee. he became a judge in the ninth circuit. very able guy. >> you must have seen the emotion. >> yes. yes it was. i remember -- i do remember the emotion. the emotion, particularly on the republican side. that's where the emotion really was. the republicans really voted for impeachment in the final analysis were very torn. they understood they were in the process of potentially bringing down a republican president and

there was agony. there was really agony in their faces because many of them, and this is really interesting, i used to have these discussions even on our staff especially when the republican members of the staff, especially sam garrison, who is a very intelligent guy, unfortunately, later on he got into trouble after the impeachment, way after, but he in effect was -- burt jenner was sort of pushed aside by the republicans because they felt he wasn't sufficiently republican enough or partisan enough so garrison -- garrison was quite an intelligent guy and garrison expressed a view that even if some of these things happened, even if you -- even there was an abuse of power or misyousuf the fbi, the cia, and even the fact is he's a good president. and isn't that a fact to be taken into account? he was a good president of foreign affairs. he did very important things. he did the opening to china. he was hugely important in the

arab/israeli war in 1973. don't you have to make a judgment about that as well? and the answer is yes. you really sort of do. but on the other hand, he did do all these things that we -- he really did abuse his powers as president and against his political opponents and it's contrary to our system of government. the answer to that was other presidents have also done similar things. the answer to that is true to some extent. you know, but the fact is he sort of put it all together in a way that nobody else quite did it before. and you can't do that anymore. you know, that was a debate. garrison makes some interesting arguments and i think this was reflected in the agony of the republicans. when i watched this. they thought, many of them thought he was overall a good president. not only was he a president of their party but he was a good

president. certainly of foreign affairs and maybe even domestic affairs they thought. and in some ways he was a good president. apparently he didn't like me because i told you i mentioned a book he spoke -- this was years later after i was in the white house with bill clinton he made some derogatory comments about me after my deputy vince foster committed suicide and said in his book that he thought, to use his language, a tough shit and consequently maybe i drove my deputy vince foster to suicide which is of course not truth. vince foster was a wonderful man. unfortunately he had a breakdown. but president nixon was a very able guy but he did what he did and we did what we had to do and the congress reached the decision it had to reach. >> sam garrison's office was it close to yours?

>> yeah, yeah. we were all -- we work out of the congressional hotel. it was a very small place. and we were constantly together. garrison was a good advocate. i have, you know, for -- i don't believe he's alive anymore. he died, didn't he? he was young. he was not old. certainly no older than i was. you should really -- well you did track down some of the -- you should track down some of those republican staff members and see what they remember. at the end we were all on mostly the same page. which is an amazing feat, which i fully didn't appreciate. i know it was important at the time but i didn't appreciate how amazing in this day and age, impossible, impossible to have done today what we did then. i think it's impossible. >> what changed?

>> the enormous partisanship that exists today, which even existed 20 years ago when i was in the white house with bill clinton when i was counsel to the president. you know, it became worse and worse. i mean, there's no middle anymore. there's no moderate republicans. there's moderate democrats but no moderate republicans. and the notion of people coming together to make a joint decision, that's why the country has all the difficulties it has now. i don't know about the economic situation and things like that. it's really a big problem. then maybe it was when historians will look back, can already look back, it's one of last times people can sort of come together. again, it's a tribute as i keep saying to dorr and to redino but we came together. and, also, what i'm very proud of, i think i mentioned this before if not in this interview is i always thought there would be historical back lash against,

you know, the impeachment process, the nixon resignation because we forced him out of office, this was a partisan gang that sort of put it all together. there was never, that back lash never came. nobody ever writes that somehow -- there's no meaningful position some people have written but that somehow error was committed. this was wrong what happened. this was wrong. i mean, this shouldn't have happened. this was sort of a president being driven out of office and he shouldn't have been driven out of office. nobody -- no respectable authorities have ever really said that. and that's another tribute to that process that we engage in. i'm very proud of that, too. i always thought there would be. i thought history -- that's the way it'll go. 20 years from now, 20 years from now people who start writing, oh, this was -- we -- in a moment of hysteria, using the

tapes, we forced the president out of office and we shouldn't have done it. nobody has ever said that. the decision is basically accepted by history as, yes. this is the correct judgment under those circumstances and those times. and that's something, you know, look how people are going to look back at clinton and the so-called impeachment. he was impeached, president clinton, by the house of representatives. he was acquitted sort of by the senate but he was impeached. everybody looks at that as a joke. it's a joke. it's an absolute joke. it's a misuse of the impeachment process. there's been no punishment by the american people of the party that did that but it's a joke. you look back at that as a joke not a legitimate process. but nobody looks back on -- most people don't look back -- maybe some people do -- but most people don't look back on the watergate imetch poomt, the 1974 impeachment and ultimate resignation as a joke. actually president nixon wasn't

the house judiciary committee voted and the senators went to him and said it was going to be voted out and the senate will probably vote to convict so he resigned. >> did you think the lessons you've learned in 1974 were useful or not in 1993-94 or had the world changed so much by then? >> no, they -- in 1993-94 when i was in the white house, i was affected by what happened in '73-'74, and this is of course also part of history right now in various books. the office of the independent counsel is a very dangerous office, you know. it was conducted well in

'73-'74. cox and jowarsky did a good job. they did a fair job. it was the proper thing to do but it was a unique circumstance at the time. there was, you know, clearly evidence of significant abuses of power. we had the tapes ultimately but normally that is a dangerous office to exist for a president to have to face. when you start appointing independent counsel, the dynamic is such that you want to make a case. you want to make -- when you only had one target and your reputation is sort of at stake you want to make a case. the impeachment process is the proper process but the independent counsel is a dangerous thing to have because you have to have a unique person

in that position who will walk away without making a case. especially when the president is involved. maybe other lower officials it -- so i was very wary. and when i came into the white house in '93 and '94 of the institution of special prosecutor, independent counsel. and when this outcry arose in late 1993 when i was counsel to the president after my deputy vince foster committed suicide, this outcry arose about whitewater, this so-called investment that president clinton and hillary clinton had made a long time ago which they lost money on that somehow there was some sort of corruption involved in that or madison guaranteed and jim mcdougal -- had nothing to do with abuse of power and the same stuff that happened in '73 and '74 and there was an outcry for an independent counsel to inst