Cliff Stearns: “we are on the threshold of a very simple decision here, a simple decision to decide whether to look at and investigate…”

“we are on the threshold of a very simple decision here, a simple decision to decide whether to look at and investigate the Starr report. Now, both parties in this House agree that we should investigate. The Democrats want to limit the scope and the time. But we want to follow the precedents established by Watergate. No prior impeachment investigation has ever been limited in the United States or England in the last 600 years because of time and scope. If there is a precedent that you can cite today, please tell us. Why do we have to go forward like this? Because man believes he is above the law. In fact, Louis XIV said, ``I am the State.'' The king expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited power. In 1825, Daniel Webster in his Bunker Hill Monument oration talked about unlimited power, love of power and ``long supported by the excess and abuse of it are yielding in our age to other opinions.'' What are those opinions? The Constitution. So, my friends, we are at a threshold. Under our Constitution, the role of the House and our duty to the American people is to act simply as a grand jury in reference to the impeachment charges presented. To paraphrase Thomas More ``A Man for All Seasons'', when he said: ``The laws of this country are the great barriers that protect the citizens from the winds of evil and tyranny. If we permit one of those laws to fall, who will be able to stand in the winds that follow?'' How eloquent. How truthful.”