Henry Hyde would not have Impeached

DOUGLASS: In retrospect looking back at what came out to the public, what is your
view of it now?

HYDE: In retrospect, a lot of things could have been done differently. Senator Feinstein put
together a resolution really condemning the President—it was far more, volatile, shall we say,
than our bill of impeachment. I oppose that, in retrospect I probably should not, I probably
should have let that pass and gone, because I knew we couldn’t get the votes to remove him
from office. But we had to do the best we could do and we did. But retrospectively, that
resolution, I didn’t think it was Constitutional—there’s no provision in the Constitution for
Congress giving a report card on the Executive as such. We all do every election, but a lot of
things would be done differently. I would have insisted on the right of our counsel to take the
deposition of Ms. Lewinsky. But the senators wanted us to get out of town as quickly as we
could, and they wouldn’t give us permission and they really ran the impeachment trial under
the law.

DOUGLASS: Why in retrospect would you now, if you had it to do over again, support
what was much more of a reprimand, but was not impeachment?

HYDE: Because it was doeable, and impeachment was not. Impeachment was—we knew we
couldn’t win. We got, we did impeach, the House did vote to impeach, and so there will always
be an asterisk after President Clinton’s name. And that is no small accomplishment. But all
things considered, in retrospect, perhaps the resolution would have been enough.

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