Patrick Kennedy: “that was not dangerous to the future of this republic. It did not justify throwing this democracy into a constitutional…”

“that was not dangerous to the future of this republic. It did not justify throwing this democracy into a constitutional tailspin, and it will not justify it. Gifts, testimony, executive privilege, all these things, do these justify paralyzing our constitutional form of government? People say this is about a certain offense, perjury, and we should not let anyone off the hook. But during the Watergate scandal, President Nixon perjured himself in his tax returns, and this was dismissed, this was dismissed, as not an impeachable offense. And what about when Caspar Weinberger lied to this Congress about a secret war? Remember the Iran contra scandal? When asked, Caspar Weinberger said he had no details of such a military offensive, no details whatsoever. He lied to this Congress. Guess who pardoned Caspar Weinberger? Republican president George Bush, and he did so at the behest of Senator Bob Dole, who pushed him to pardon Caspar Weinberger. I just want to make a concluding couple of thoughts: Joe McCarthy, remember him? He used details of people's sex lives to extort cooperation from them and from former communists by threatening to expose what happened in their bedrooms. J. Edgar Hoover, remember J. Edgar Hoover? He tried to get Martin Luther King, Jr., to drop out of the civil rights movement by sending Coretta Scott King a copy of an illegally obtained elicit tape recording. It is documented. Ken Starr has done the same thing.…”