John Conyers: “Mr. Speaker, the record of the House on something as important as impeachment should be as clear and accurate as it can…”

“Mr. Speaker, the record of the House on something as important as impeachment should be as clear and accurate as it can be, and after yesterday's considerable misstatements by Members of the majority, I rise to set the record straight. Mr. Speaker, they say these articles show high crimes. The record of historians who wrote the committee say they are low crimes and do not justify the drastic remedy of impeachment. As to Article I, impeachment is not justified. They say the President committed perjury in the grand jury, but the actual record is that he did not deny an inappropriate relationship with Miss Lewinsky during his grand jury appearance. They are complaining only because of a lack of specificity, if my colleagues can believe that, in the President's testimony about who touched who and where and when it happened. They claim that there is a clear and convincing evidence of grand jury perjury, but ignored is the panel of experienced prosecutors who testified that no reasonable prosecutor in the land would have brought a perjury case arising out of these facts. As to Article II, the impeachment is not justified. They say the President's testimony deprived the plaintiff, Paula Jones, of her day in court. Not so. The record shows that a Federal judge ruled three times that Monica Lewinsky's allegations were not relevant to the core issues of the Jones case and refused to permit the Jones lawyers to pursue the allegations.”