Word: rodino
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...President's hit-and-travel offensive was having one clear result: both on the Rodino committee and in the full House, Republicans were tending toward a more partisan view of impeachment. If they continue to do so, a party-line vote on impeachment in committee and on the floor might result. Given the Democratic majorities in both forums, the vote would presumably go against the President, but his chances for acquittal might be enhanced in the later Senate trial, where a two-thirds vote is necessary for conviction...
...Rodino committee clearly was on the defensive for the first time-even in Democratic circles. "The committee has taken too damn long," complained one congressional Democratic leader last week. "Timing is all important. They lost everybody's attention, and the President meanwhile went away on his mission of peace, glorifying himself." Said another Democrat with a hyperbolic despair not yet warranted by events: "They've about blown it. By the leaks, they've almost irreparably damaged the investigation." More realistically, another Democratic leader told Rodino: "Peter, the honeymoon is over...
...Rodino, the criticism is painful. In selecting Doar, a longtime moderate Republican, as counsel, he had seemed to move shrewdly to avoid partisanship. Certainly, if he had selected a fiery Democratic prosecutorial type, he would have been severely criticized much earlier. The procedure of presenting all the evidence to the committee and expecting the members to draw their own conclusions based on the facts seems proper in something as momentous as impeachment. A rushed series of briefings would have been sharply-and validly-assailed by the White House as unfair...
...Rodino's strategy has been to try to impress all factions of his committee with the thoroughness and fairness of the staff work. Southern Democrats, under some political pressure from home to back Nixon, have been relatively qui et so far, but many are leaning toward impeachment because of the staffs factual presentation of evidence. The committee last week spent a day on the illegal secret bombing of Cambodia, mainly to mollify the more liberal Democrats, even though that issue can scarcely gain widespread support as a separate impeachment article...
...Rodino's aim has been to lay out all of the major allegations of presidential misconduct to determine whether there is an overall pattern of impeachable activity. "Is there a relationship among these things?" Rodino asks, meaning such matters as the Watergate coverup, the ITT and milk deals, the underpayment of taxes by Nixon, the Ellsberg burglary and other "plumber" activities, the secret bombing and the spurning of subpoenas. "Is there a connection between him and them?" The question, Rodino suggests, is "whether there was a serious abuse of power, a failure to faithfully execute the laws, scandal...