Word: rodino
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...retrospect, Rodino's biggest mistake may have been to push, with solid Republican support, for closed-door hearings on the evidence. Too much of this evidence and allegations against the President had already been made public. Rodino may have sensed that the public would get fed up with the whole issue if it heard the Doar briefings, then the debate over the same evidence in committee, again on the House floor, and finally once more in a Senate trial. Yet open hearings, belatedly backed by the White House, would at the least have largely eliminated the leak problem...
...committee's work has been all too slow. Says one: "We've been going through the forest marking Xs on the trees so we can find our way out later. Now we're looking for our way out." But most members support Chairman Peter W. Rodino and Chief Counsel John Doar in their contention that they had no choice. As Rodino explained early on: "The only thing we can do is to present the data. There's no other...
Shortly afterward, Rodino tried to ease the monotony by having another lawyer read, with Doar breaking in to make explanatory comments and cite the supporting documents. It did not work well enough; the next day St. Clair, exhausted by his routine of 14-hour workdays, dozed briefly. But naps were rare, and the daily attendance of the 38 members was excellent...
During the lawyers' presentations, committee members were supposed to interrupt only to ask questions that would clarify a point. In the interest of bipartisan harmony, however, Rodino interpreted that standard broadly. As a result, the sessions often bogged down in seemingly interminable-and sometimes irrelevant-questions or debates. Once the members argued for 90 minutes over whether certain material should be labeled "fact" or "evidence." Finally they decided to call it a "statement of information...
...that winked a light on the console in front of Staffer Louis Vance, who turned on the member's microphone. Only Presidential Special Counsel James St. Clair did not have a microphone. Under the rules, he was allowed to say nothing unless he obtained permission in advance from Rodino. St. Clair's principal functions were to relay the committee's evidence to the White House and, two or three times a day, defend the President to reporters gathered outside the door...