Word: sirica
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sirica's decision was widely applauded as a sensible compromise between the arguments of Wright and Cox. The Wall Street Journal, for example, called it a "reasonable and tenable position." The Atlanta Constitution said: "It was Judge Sirica as much as any single man who pressed for the truth." In the White House, of course, the reaction was somewhat different. The first official statement said flatly: "The President will not comply with the order." It added that Nixon's lawyers were "considering the possibility of obtaining appellate review or how otherwise to sustain the President's position...
There remained the possibility that Sirica would find nothing on the tapes so sensitive that the grand jury could not hear it. In that case, he could simply give the jurors the tapes in their entirety. On the other hand, Sirica said that if the tapes turn out to be irrelevant to the investigation-or if privileged material cannot be separated from the unprivileged-the tapes would be withheld, as Nixon has demanded all along...
Half-forgotten in the struggle was the fact that Senator Sam Ervin, who hailed Sirica's decision as a "great victory for the search for truth," has also been demanding the presidential tapes. His committee has filed a separate complaint in Sirica's court, and last week the White House lawyers fought back with a barrage of arguments far more pugnacious than the ones they had filed in opposition...
...that the committee probe "has been, in fact, a criminal investigation and trial conducted for the purpose of determining whether or not criminal acts have been committed and the guilt or innocence of individuals." Such a proceeding, the lawyers argued, exceeds Congress's constitutional powers. The answer asked Sirica to dismiss the committee's subpoena on a number of other grounds. It said that the court lacked jurisdiction over the President, that the Senate had not authorized the subpoena and that it was "unreasonably broad and oppressive...
...Ervin committee lawyers immediately fired back a motion for summary judgment, asking Sirica to rule on their request with a minimum of further proceedings. They noted that the committee had received evidence, principally from former White House Counsel John Dean, that the President was involved in a crime-the Watergate cover-up-but that he refused to give up the tapes and memoranda that might exonerate him. The committee insisted that the subpoena was well within its "mandate and responsibility to ferret out all the facts regarding the Watergate affair, both to aid the Senate in its legislative function...