The forty-four attorneys involved in the impeachment inquiry worked seven days a week, I was twenty-six years old, awed by the company I was keeping and the historic responsibility we had assumed.
Doar was committed to running a process that the public and history would judge as nonpartisan and fair, no matter what the outcome. I assisted in drafting procedural rules to present to the House Judiciary Committee.
After working on procedures, I moved on to research the legal grounds for a presidential impeachment and wrote a long memo summarizing my conclusions about what did―and did not―constitute an impeachable offense. Years later, I reread the memo. I still agreed with its assessment of the kinds of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, the framers of the Constitution intended to be impeachable.
Slowly and surely, Doar’s team of lawyers put together evidence that made a compelling case for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.
On July 19, 1974, Doar presented proposed articles of impeachment that specified the charges against the President. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment citing abuse of power, obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress. The votes were bipartisan, earning the confidence of both the Congress and the American public.
Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974, sparing the nation an agonizing and divisive vote in the House and trial in the Senate. The Nixon impeachment process of 1974 forced a corrupt President from office and was a victory for the Constitution and our system of laws. Even so, some of us on the committee staff came away from the experience sobered by the gravity of the process. The tremendous powers of congressional committees and special prosecutors were only as fair and just and constitutional as the men and women who wielded them.
Suddenly I was out of work. Yet early in the spring of that year, I had asked Doar for permission to visit Bill in Fayetteville. While there I went with Bill to a dinner party where I met some of his law school colleagues, including Wylie Davis, then the Dean. As I was leaving, Dean Davis told me to let him know if I ever wanted to teach. Now I decided to take him up on the idea.
My decision to move did not come out of the blue. Bill and I had been pondering our predicament since we started dating. If we were to be together, one of us had to give ground. With the unexpected end of my work in Washington, I had the time and space to give our relationship―and Arkansas―a chance. Despite her misgivings, Sara Ehrman offered to drive me down. Every few miles, she asked me if I knew what I was doing, and I gave her the same answer every time: “No, but I’m going anyway.”
I’ve sometimes had to listen hard to my own feelings to decide what was right for me. I had fallen in love with Bill in law school and wanted to be with him. I knew I was always happier with Bill than without him, and I’d always assumed that I could live a fulfilling life anywhere. If I was going to grow as a person, I knew it was time for me―to paraphrase Elean or Roosevelt―to do what I was most afraid to do. So I was driving toward a place where I’d never lived and had no friends or family. But my heart told me I was going in the right direction.
On a hot August evening, the day I arrived, I saw Bill give a campaign speech before a good-size crowd in the town square in Bentonville, and I was impressed. Maybe, despite the tough odds, he had a chance. |