FOREWORD By Hon. Peter W. Rodino, Jr., Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary On February 6, 1974, the House of Representatives adopted by a vote of 410-4 the following House Resolution 803: RESOLVED, That the Committee on the Judiciary acting as Beginning in November 1973, acting under resolutions referred to the Committee by the Speaker of the House and with a special appropriation, I had begun to organize a special staff to investigate serious charges against the President of the United States. On May 9, 1974, as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, I convened the Committee for hearings to review the results of the Impeachment Inquiry staff's investigation. The staff began its initial presentation the same day, in executive session, pursuant to the Committee's Impeachment Inquiry Procedures adopted on May 2, 1974. tation. By June 21, the Inquiry staff had concluded its initial presen On June 25, the Committee voted to make public the initial presentation including substantially all of the supporting material presented at the hearings. The Committee also voted to make public the President's response, which was presented to the Committee on June 27 and June 28 in the same form and manner as the Inquiry staff's initial presentation. Statements of information and supporting evidentiary material were compiled by the Inquiry staff in 36 notebooks and furnished in this form to each Member of the Committee. The notebooks presented material on several subjects of the Inquiry: the Watergate break-in and its aftermath, ITT, dairy price supports, domestic surveillance, abuse of the IRS, and the activities of the Special Prosecutors. The staff also presented to the Committee written reports on President Nixon's income taxes, Presidential impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress, and the bombing of Cambodia. Fifteen notebooks were furnished to the Members of the Committee relating to the Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972 and to events following the break-in, through April 30, 1973. In each notebook a statement of information relating to a particular phase of the investigation was immediately followed by supporting evidentiary material, which included copies of documents and testimony (much already on public record), transcripts of Presidential conversations and affidavits. The fifteen volumes relating to the Watergate phase of the Inquiry were divided into four books, as follows: -3 Book III Events Following the Watergate Break-In Book IV - Events Following the Watergate Break-In Book I dealt with events prior to the Watergate break-in. Book II dealt with allegations involving Presidential interference with the official Department of Justice investigation. Book III dealt with allegations concerning payments of "hush" money to Watergate defendants to insure their silence, offers of leniency and executive clemency, and the instigating or making of false statements to persons connected with an official investigation of Watergate; Book III also included a chronology of events between February 9 and March 22, 1973. Book IV dealt with events relating to the President's investigation of the Watergate break-in and alleged cover-up between March 22 and April 30, 1973. Every effort was made to preclude inferences in the presentation of this material. A deliberate and scrupulous abstention from conclusions, even by implication, was observed. With respect to the Presidential recorded conversations, the Committee determined to hear the recorded conversations in their entirety. The Presidential recorded conversations were neither paraphrased nor summarized by the Inquiry staff. Thus, no inferences, or conclusions were drawn for the Committee. During the course of the hearings, Members of the Committee heard each recording and simultaneously followed transcripts prepared by the Inquiry staff. Each of these transcripts is reprinted under the appropriate Statement of Information. During the course of the hearings, the Committee found it necessary to issue four subpoenas to President Richard Nixon requiring tape recordings of 98 Presidential conversations as well as all papers and things prepared by, sent to, received by, or at any time contained in the files of H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman, Charles W. Colson, John Dean, III, and Gordon Strachan to the extent that such papers or things related or referred directly or indirectly to the break-in and electronic surveillance of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate office building during May and June of 1972 or the investigations of that break-in by the Department of Justice, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, or any other legislative, judicial, executive or administrative body, including members of the White House staff. The Committee also subpoenaed the President's daily diaries (logs of Presidential meetings, telephone calls, and other activities) for the periods April through July 1972, February through April 1973, July 12 through July 31, 1973 and October 1973. In response to these subpoenas, the President furnished only edited White House transcripts of 31 of the subpoenaed conversations between March 17 and April 18, 1973. These edited transcripts were summarized by the Inquiry staff and made a part of the evidentiary material presented to the Committee. To the extent that the President declined to comply with the Committee's subpoenas and produce the -5 required material, the record of the Committee now made public in these volumes is incomplete. In a few instances, Ranking Minority Member Mr. Hutchinson and I determined, pursuant to authority granted us by the Committee, to defer the release of evidentiary material or to delete it for one of the following reasons: 1) Because the public interest in making the material public was outweighed by the potential prejudice to the rights of defendants under indictment and awaiting trial. 2) Because the information was classified or otherwise required confidential treatment, 3) Because the material was only marginally pertinent and was considered to be defamatory, degrading or embarrassing, or, 4) Because the material was not pertinent to Presidential responsibility within the outer limits of an impeachable offense within the meaning of the Constitution. The Committee on the Judiciary is working to follow faithfully its mandate "to investigate fully and completely" whether or not sufficient grounds exist to recommend that the House exercise its constitutional power of impeachment. I believe that the readers of these volumes will see that the Committee's primary effort in carrying out its mandate has been to obtain an objective, impartial presentation which will enable each Member of the Committee to make an informed judgment in fulfilling his or her constitutional responsibility. |