Louise Slaughter: “most of us feel a surreal atmosphere here in America's capital. I envision the dome of this magnificent building swathed…”

“most of us feel a surreal atmosphere here in America's capital. I envision the dome of this magnificent building swathed in black, because this is truly a day of mourning, and history will not judge us well. The process that brought us to this point was so fatally flawed that no one can reasonably feel that justice has been done. The Independent Counsel's investigation has gone on for five years, although we find he did not personally participate in much of it. The investigation itself will be debated for years to come. The role of the perfidious friend, Linda Tripp, who worked in collusion with both the Independent Counsel and the civil case lawyers, shows how amateurish and unfair Kenneth Starr's stewardship was to the Office of Independent Counsel. The harm it has done to due process, the lawyer-client relationship. And the secrecy of the grand jury. Will be lasting and destructive. The Committee on the Judiciary did not fulfill its responsibility to independently hear from material witnesses to assess their credibility and to allow the President the opportunity to cross-examine them. Instead, it has brought to the floor this highly-charged partisan resolution. Impeachment has always been reserved as a last resort as the check of an executive's abuse of power. It was not intended to be invoked lightly. In the Federalist Papers No.…”