Political Quotes

“I send a question to the desk. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Senator Grassley asks counsel for the President: Does the House's failure to enforce its subpoenas render its ``obstruction of Congress'' theory unprecedented? Mr. Counsel PHILBIN. Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, the answer is yes. As far as I am aware, there has never been a prior instance in which there has been an attempt, even in the House, as in the Nixon proceeding--never mind in the Clinton proceeding, which actually left the House and came to the Senate--to suggest that there can be obstruction of Congress when there hasn't been anything beyond simply issuing a subpoena, getting resistance, and then throwing up your hands and giving up and saying: Oh, well, that is obstruction. In the Clinton situation, most of the litigation was with independent counsel, and there were privileges asserted in litigation and litigation again and again, but the point is that the issues about the privileges were all litigated, and they were resolved before things came to this body. Similarly, in the Nixon impeachment proceeding within the House, a lot of investigation had been done by the special counsel, and there was litigation over assertions of privileges there in order to get the tapes, and some tapes and transcripts had already been turned over, but, again, there was litigation about the assertion of the privilege in response to the grand jury subpoena that then fed into the House's proceedings.…”