american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. next, an oral history interview that provides a new look into the nixon impeachment inquiry. to mark the 40th anniversary of the watergate breakin, the richard nixon library released interviews with key staff on whether there were grounds to impeach president nixon. this is the first time many of these have spoken about the work and inner politics of the impeachment inquiry. a selection will be televised on american history tv throughout june. we heard next from william weld who served as a member of the house judiciary committee impeachment staff. he recalls the committee's work to define what constituted grounds for impeach.

mr. weld later served as government of massachusetts. >> hi, i'm director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum in yorba linda, california. september 8, 2011. i have the honor and privilege to interview william weld. thank you for joining us today. please tell us how you came to be involved with the inquiry? >> i got a call in the fall of 1973, an associate at a law firm in boston. asking me if i would be interested in interviewing for a job on the impeachment staff. at that point, it hadn't really gotten off the ground. i said no, i have to stay on until i make partner. and i called back in 15 seconds and said i made a grave mistake. can i still interview? he said yes and sam garrison, running the republican side of the staff, not yet fully unified. some thought it never was.

i went down, met with sam, had a good interview with him. engaged to come in quite shortly thereafter, and reported for duty in december 1973. >> tell us a little bit about -- first of all, about sam garrison. give us the work nature of him? >> he was a devoted family man. i think from the south. from richmond. and he worked like a tiger. slept in on sunday mornings, but that was about it. he and i had a good personal relationship. >> you were there before john dohr was named. >> i'm sure i was there before bert jenner. maybe it was before dohr. i remember showing up for work, and if i was the first staffer, hilary rodham was the second staffer, and i remember john dohr calling us into his office, bill, hillary, we have a research project here. we have to find out what

constitutes grounds for impea impeachment of a president. there is no case directly on point. it's friday afternoon, i don't want to ruin your weekend. why don't you have the memo on my desk tuesday morning. we said fine, chief. looked around, looked around, and six months later, after 40 lawyers had gone blind trying to figure out what answer to that question was, we decided that the answer to the question really resided in the newspapers at the time. not in decided law cases. >> some of the literature written about the committee suggests that you and john davidson wrote a minority opinion on the grounds for constitution. for constitutional grounds for impeachment. >> i know we wrote a minority memo on the right of jim st. clair, my future law partner, to cross-examine witnesses. i'm not sure that we ever wrote a formal minority memo.

the big question in the early days was does the grounds for impeachment have to be a crime? and i can remember being of the view early on that really that it should be required that it's a crime or there is really no stopping point. there would be any president could be impeached for anything. the ultimate memo said, well, what if a president took up a life of pleasure in a foreign land? that might not be a crime under u.s. statutory law, but it certainly would be grounds for removal from office. and i found and find that rather persuasi persuasive, and i guess the dirty little secret is that the only check is political. i remember early on congressman gerald ford, future president

ford, is impeachment is what a majority of the house and 2/3 of the senate says it is. and people said, oh, poor geary ford, played too much football, doesn't understand what this is. you know, what congressman ford says is a terse, but profound statement of an impeachable offense. >> did you find your view shifted? >> i think my own view shifted a little bit. i was worry the about the bright line criminal crime requirement early on, and ultimately came to the view that impeachment was a remedy directed at a defect, usually between the branches of the government. usurping the powers or functions of another branch or perhaps dereliction, failing to discharge the duties incumbent on you for your branch. we said a lot about the take care clause. the president takes care that the laws be faithfully executed.

and there was a feeling in the whole mess with the watergate conspiracy and misuse of the fbi and cia that the president had not taken care that the laws be faithfully executed and that -- you know, it took a while to get there. a lot of floundering around. >> was there a sense -- how did you in your own mind separate the actions of the lieutenants from the president? or did you come to the conclusion that the president is responsible for the actions of his lieutenants? >> you mean hald heman and ehrlichman? >> i mean haldeman and ehrlichman indeed. >> i listened to a lot of the tapes and haldeman and ehrlichman and the president seemed to be on the same page. the president wasn't going, oh, really, that was an interesting idea. he was right there with them. no question of parasite and host here. >> since you mentioned him, could you give us a word picture of james st. clair, since you

were his partner later? >> jim came in, and, you know, even at that point, he was an old trial lawyer and my one abiding memory of him is i was presenting the case for the committee on an article base the on impoundment of funds. failure to spend funds that had been appropriated. i think a lot of them were clean air act. here is the arguments for impoundment and the arguments the other way. and bob mcclure from illinois, any other possible defenses that the president should raise? in the thick of the fight over the documents and the supreme court and whether the president withheld documents. and i said, yes, based on case a, b, and c, i said very proudly, the president could stand upon the ground and the defense of sovereign immunity. and st. clair, seated three feet to my right and collapsed

laughing. because that was obviously such bad politics at the time. >> tell us about the effect that bert jenner had at the time i joined. >> bert was a class "a" litigator. argued witherspoon versus illinois. he was ra highly distinguished lawyer. an interesting thing was that john dohr had this very strong view, we wanted to have a unified staff, and, you know, my playmates were mostly hillary rodham, dag march hamilton, to some extent joe woods, but i also worked closely with john davidson, john whitman and sam garrison on the republican side. but i was welcomed in both

camps. i'm not sure everybody was welcome in both camps, and i think the hard core of the watergate task force, i'm not sure that had any republicans on it. so the evidence of the watergate conspiracy, developed mainly by the democratic staff. and they were not -- they were not quite so partisan as the congressman from texas, who at a democratic caucus was asked what is the theme of jack brooks? what's the theme of this article ii about agency abuse, fbi, cia, all so confusing, i don't understand it. he took his cigar out of it, and said the theme of this argument is we're going to get that son of a bitch out of there. but staff weren't permitted to think or speak in some ways. but no secret that some of them weren't friendly to president nikon. >> a number of the minority

staff were disappointed with how things were going and how john dohr was doing his job. were they asking you questions? >> the republican members of the committee had a perfect right to have their own legal research done. i think that might have been about st. clair's right of cross-examination. there would be the occasional research request for there dell latter, chug wiggins, robert mclurie, somebody on the -- dave dennis, some of the republican members and we'd do that, i thought we had that -- that obligation, on the other hand, i spent a lot of time with the democrats, it may have helped my job was on the legal constitutional side more than the factual development side. might have made that easier. >> once the question chose the

broad interpretation of impeachable offenses or high crimes and misdemeanors, what did you shift? what were you focusing on? continued to work on the legal case? >> yeah, i did a lot of work on the legal case. listened to the tapes, by myself, developed and proposed and presented to the committee the case on impoundment, which i think was article 6:vi, not accepted, but did get some votes that one did involve more courts of law. there had been 15 or 20 cases, mostly slapping down the president's position, some upholding it. that was very law heavy. >> that never got submitted to the committee, to my knowledge. >> it was submitted, because i testified before the committee. >> but they didn't -- >> well, yes they did. i think it was voted down 27-11

or something like that. >> oh. did you play a role in shape in any of the other articles? >> i remember a discussion about agency abuse. article ii. i don't think i ever had the blue pencil on that. i also had quite a lot of exposure to article iii, which i think dealt with subpoenas and contempt of the subpoenas if memory serves, and i remember reading the different versions of the documents, where it is white house would have erased the incriminating material on most copies, but one of them got through, and needless to say, that infuriated everybody on the staff. >> were you -- did you participate in the decision about retranscribing the tapes, because the concern was the white house transcripts were just not usable or not thorough enough? >> i was not a decisionmaker,

but it was clear to me, having listened to both versions from the white house and the perfected versions that that was absolutely true. later, i became a federal prosecutor, and, you know, we would expend a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, on those transcripts and have the jury listen to the tape and have the transcript at the same time, and the defense would scream bloody murder and said that's not what that word says, and i became a civil litigator, same thing, the transit of a tape is a huge forensic development. and whoever made that decision, i think it was probably john dohr, bert jenner, and joe woods, they were absolutely right. >> how valuable were the materials that the watergate special prosecution force handed over? >> on the development of the watergate conspiracy? i assume they were very valuable, but that wasn't rell my hunt. i was not an article i man. >> what's the story with bert

jenner and his sort of -- changes positions. was he -- was he forced out by the -- by the minority -- the minor leaders? >> i don't know about forced out. he was one of the prominent lawyers in the united states, founder of jenner and block, the great chicago firm, so a person like myself, having begun to an ivy league law school, as spiring to be a kicker litigation department, sky high as far as i was concerned. i remember him saying the president would be impeached. i remember him saying that to me and a couple other people in a car in march. he got there pretty quickly and he and dohr spent a lot of time together, and he would come and make presentations to the republican members. but i don't think they ever felt

at ease with him. i remember at one point, he was testifying, dell latter from ohio says you say that, mr. jenner, but i don't have to take your word for that. i saw the report you just filed about how prostitution should be legalized, and that's not binding on me anymore than what you are saying right now and one of the democratic members said i hope the member from ohio reflects on what he said. dell latter did not need to reflect on what he said. that was an example of the comracam comraamaraderie on the committe. sam was considerably more conservative. he approached this -- i won't say as a -- entirely as a partisan, but his view at the beginning was, listen, if the president of the united states is going to be impeached and removed from office, somebody better give me a pretty dang

good reason, or we're going to be a banana republic. he had deep relations with some of the conservative republican wing on the committee, and i don't think bert jenner did. both of them tried to be very professional about it. but there was tension? yeah, there was tension. >> had he worked for spiro agnew? >> i forgot that if that was true. >> did you play any role of shaping information? the books that were handed to the committee? >> again, not the article i watergate conspiracy, but i may have had a role in some of the other stuff? >> the question for you, since you were working on the legal side, did you come to the understanding that this procedure was like a grand jury? some question as to whether mr.

st. clair could be there and cross-examine. >> and -- and then i guess the issue in a grand jury, the defendant's council is not there. >> most grand juries. some states by statute permitted defense council. >> is this one of the -- sort of discussions? >> yeah, there were a lot of arguments about whether the standard here was probable cause, 4 out of 9. preponderance, 5 out of 9. reasonable doubt? >> you mean five out of nine jurors? >> no, percentage likelihood. no. a grand jury, four o4 out of 9 , that's probable cause. there are all different standards of proof required. another would be preponderance,

5 out of 9 or 6 out of 10, whoever you like. another standard, clear and convincing evidence, loosely translated as 7 out of 9. and then beyond a reasonable doubt, which is sometimes translated as 9 out of 10. so you know, the people who wanted the president be-to-be impeached said we don't have to prove this thing, this is probable cause. and others said this is a rather important proceeding, if if we're going to send the guy who is president to get removed from office, u.s. a little bit more -- a little bit more important than a speeding ticket and maybe the standard should be a little bit different. and i can remember doing a good bit of legal research on all of those things, and analogizing this to various different kinds of proceedings. the fact is, almost no judicial proceeding which is analogous. this is quintessentially

legislative proceeding, and ultimately, the check is political. it's not -- not some statute, not some rule. sure, high crimes and displea other thanes, but put whatever water into that vessel you care to. >> how useful was the johnson precedent? >> i thought johnson was very usual. a 1934 case involving a judge i think called willis ritter, also useful to me. >> in the end, article 23ii, di you reach 4, 5, 6, 9, or 10? >> in the agency abuse? >> yeah. >> pretty clear he did it. i listened to the tapes. the question, too much potpourri jammed into the glass jars.

a single cognizable offense. the evidence behind that, a lot of evidence in the watergate case. that was just there. on tape. >> how many times does a president have to do it before it's too many? >> i mean, president said once, well, maybe we could encourage the cia to get involved he, because that would maybe dissuade the fbi or complicate their efforts, even once if it was too dissuade the fbi at cases that was aimed at the president's breastplate that might be enough. slight perjury and perjury prosecution takes on the color of the underlying offense. and i think the obstruction takes on the color of the underlie offense. and if you didn't have the evidence, you would say this is too artificial.

>> before the vote, did you sense there would be bipartisan support for some of these articles? yeah. i'm trying to remember the timing. but it was clear there would be some bipartisan support. some republicans going along. there was a very dramatic moment i remember involving chuck wiggins, and i think it was when the smoking gun tape was flayed. june 1972, not sure when this meeting occurred. but there was a die-hard group of perhaps nine or ten republicans with the president all the way, and their legal leader was chuck wiggins who became an appellate judge in california. a very learned, scholarly man. he made arguments like you made an election, so you cannot argue this. somebody brought in a smoking gun tape for the die hards.

they played it, and the nine die hards sort of realized they had been played for fools. i heard it referred to as a draining effort. and if anyone had been drained, they had. and chuck wiggin, ultimate strong silent type burst into tears. >> i've got to situate this, because the supreme court doesn't rule that these have to be turned over after the vote. so the committee listened to this tape after -- this would have been after the votes had been taken. so they listened to the june 23rd '72 tape after the supreme -- not before -- couldn't be before the supreme court proceeding. >> i would have said that the supreme court ordered that the tape has to go over sometime in may. maybe a few tapes. no, july 29th. ten days before he resigns. >> yeah. >> maybe that meeting was in

that interval. >> oh, my goodness. that must have been very powerful. did you have an a-ha moment when you were going through the materials? >> well, listening to the tapes. >> do you rnl? do you remember was that -- may, june? it would have been -- do you remember when you listened to the tapes? >> no. but it was conversations between the president and halderman and president err lackman and john dean had a big part in some of them. and i thought, boy, everyone keeps their voice down in the oval office. no screaming and ranting and raving. on the other hand, what's being said is pretty amazing. >> tell us about john dohr, working with him. >> he was a dream boat. dream boat. just so sort of apple pie good,

and, you know, i knew that he -- he made a real effort to not socialize with any of his democratic friend in washington. he was quite a good friend with ethel kennedy in washington. i spent quite a bit of time at hickory hill. that john dohr, he won't even return my telephone calls, it's really awful. one time, john took exception to the fact that i think it was i had written a memo for mr. hutchison of michigan, the ranking member, at the request of sam garrison and i think sam asked me to deliver it to mr. hutchison and john said i didn't know about this. i got caught in the middle on that. and i was kind of inned middle because i was on both sides. i had a lot of different jobs, long politics, and a house

liberal and icon servetive administration witness. the ed meese justice department, and a house conservative and liberal administration, witnessed the nixon impeachment. and i don't like either one. would rather be right in the middle of the road administration. had to get my own administration. >> tell us about working with hillary rodham. >> very close relationship. very decent -- just a very decent person. and if i recall correctly on the occasion when i got in the middle and john dohr got frowny faced with me, which he shouldn't have, by the way. i was doing my duty. i think hillary intervened and defended me on that, and i've never forgotten that. >> frowny face? he got frowny face? >> yeah, he did. he said i should have known about this. how did this happen. >> tell us about what happens --

you were -- you were going to tell us what happened after this experience. >> well, you know, this was the beginning of a life long career of litigation and politics from me. i transferred from the corporate department to litigation. ran for state attorney general in 1978 because i was so obsessed with the investigative possibilities of grand juries and thought the ag's office was not doing as much as it could have. i was absolutely creamed in that one. but then when reagan was elected, i was, you know, a republican who knew how to try a case. appointed a u.s. attorney, and then had a lot of public corruption cases there. went to washington as head of the criminal vest division, went back to massachusetts, ran for governor and won. before that happened, i was approximately law as a late gator.

minding my own business, in a philadelphia hotel room, preparing a witness for somebody. and 25 years after the -- after that happened, 25 years after the watergate case, after the impeachment, i get a call from john podesta, then president clinton's chief of staff, and i had known him through the clinton white house, president clinton and i had been friendly as governors and he nominated me to be ambassador to mexico. during a couple of months, i spent a period of time in the white house with john podesta and rahm emanuel. he calls me up in 1999 and says looks like they are going to impeach my guy and hearings in the house. nearest we can tell, a couple of guys in the country that know a lot about impeachment of a

president. the other is disqualified about political interest. you have to testify, which i was happy to do and did. >> tell us about that experience, just doing? >> well, i think i went in with a bunch of other former u.s. attorneys who were also republicans. a pretty impressive panel, and i had the additional background of knowing the law of impeachment, and i said sex is not an impeachable offense. it just isn't. it has to be something that touches and concerns the office or use of power. this is a nonstarter as a matter of constitutional law and they said well, what about perjury? you brought a lot of cases when you were a prosecutor in boston? yes, but as i said earlier, a perjury prosecution partakes the color of an underlying offense. i once prosecuted a guy for perjury for denying he was in boston on november 28, 1981.

why bring that case? that was the day of the great lindh fire that almost burned down the city of lindh. he was a known torch, arsonist, and claimed to have been in florida. but an agent for atf, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, found his fingerprints on a ticket at the delta warehouse in atlanta and proved he had come up and flown back to tampa. so that's a perjury case. maybe kind of like the al capone income tax evasion case. you're really getting at something else, and you would never prosecute somebody for perjury for falsely denying they had a terrorist with some lady of their acquaint answer. to we beneath the dignity of the law. >> do you remember when you learned president nixon was going to resign? >> yes. i had a longstanding commitment to go fishing with my brother