Word: claire
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Nixon had hurt rather than helped his survival chances and that he must surrender all "relevant" evidence to the Rodino committee. One of Nixon's most vocal supporters, Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott, has also privately warned Nixon through the President's chief Watergate counsel, James St. Clair, that the President must yield all relevant evidence...
Although the Rodino staffs requests for documents thus had specific and legitimate aims, they were still portrayed by Nixon and St. Clair as too vague and extensive. Nixon said at Houston that the committee wanted to "bring a U-Haul trailer" up to the White House and carry out the presidential files. Members of Congress were bristling at such exaggerations. There was overwhelming sentiment in the Congress that it would not tolerate Nixon's withholding of evidence from the Rodino committee. Nevertheless, Ziegler insisted that the White House would not supply the evidence requested by the Rodino staff until...
...Clair did manage, however, to provoke a partisan split within the committee. He argued that he must be allowed to be present and to cross-examine any witnesses whom the committee calls as it attempts to determine what charges, if any, to lodge against the President. Disputing St. Clair's argument, Rodino contended that his committee's investigation is not a trial or an adversary proceeding; it is akin to a fact-finding grand jury probe in which potential defendants are not represented by counsel because no one has yet been charged. Yet Republicans on the committee...
...committee leaders hope to reach a compromise with St. Clair. They are willing to discard the idea of taking depositions. Instead, the staff would interview witnesses, who would not be under oath but would be asked to sign their statements. Since these would be less formal than depositions, no cross-examination would be appropriate. Whether committee Republicans will accept that proposal is still in doubt...
There also is evidence that while Presidential Lawyer James St. Clair's intricate legal tactics of delay and noncooperation may be admirable for a normal defendant in a courtroom, they are devastating to the President of the U.S. The longer that Nixon is kept from some kind of legal reckoning or due process of law, the more impossible it is for people to grant him that most ancient and widely hailed of all juridical rights-the presumption of innocence until proved guilty. One thing that emerges from studying those polls is that most Americans are concluding that Nixon...