Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [420]
Rehnquist rapped his nublike gavel, an ancient prop in the Senate, and asked all hundred senators to rise and be sworn. The blue drapery of the Senate chamber provided a rich background for this historic moment. After standing at their wooden desks to take the oath as fact finders in this solemn impeachment trial, each senator was called forward to sign the official Oath Book. Parliamentarian Robert Dove recalled this as an especially poignant moment. Typically, senators signed that book only when they were sworn in, one of the happiest occasions in their public careers. Now, the demeanor of most senators was “sardonic.” Most returned to their seats, quietly clutching the ceremonial pens, not knowing whether to keep them as souvenirs or to pitch them to avoid some hidden curse. Dove recalled the feeling inside the Senate chamber as one of “apprehension and angst.” The questions adrift in the room were, “How long is this going to go on? What is going to happen? Is there any reason to do this?” When the Senate recessed at 1:40 P.M., the senators were still asking themselves those questions.
That same day, Independent Counsel Ken Starr indicted Julie Hiatt Steele, onetime friend of Kathleen Willey, who had recently recanted her story supporting Willey’s charges of sexual groping by President Clinton. In an effort to rehabilitate Willey as a witness and to provide fresh ammunition to the House managers if they were able to broaden the scope of their impeachment inquiry to include Willey’s allegations, Starr’s office charged the fifty-two-year-old Steele with obstruction of justice and uttering false statements. These criminal charges, if proven, potentially would land the single mother in prison for years. That sort of strong medicine, OIC hoped, would cause Steele to recant her recantation, paving the way for a new impeachment referral at a time when the House managers desperately needed a pick-me-up.
LATER that same evening, January 7, hidden away in the Capitol, senators of both parties gathered in an extraordinary joint session that would dramatically reshape the impeachment trial. Those in attendance at this rare joint caucus, held on the second floor of the Old Senate Chamber, remembered it as a turning point, although not a single camera or tape recorder or Washington journalist was able to make a record of it. This small, ornate room that had once been home to the Senate (1810–1859) and to the U.S. Supreme Court (1860–1935) continued to instill a sense of awe in senators, no matter how long they had served. Here, under a glittering chandelier that bathed it in soft light, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had been fashioned, and famous statesmen like Daniel Webster and Henry Clay had given stirring orations that had preserved a fledgling nation. On the wall, a handsome porthole portrait of George Washington in military uniform, painted by Rembrandt Peale—for whom Washington had personally posed—served as a reminder that the country’s richest history reposed in this tiny room, a symbol of the strength and unity of the American democratic republic. It was here, on the first day of the historic Clinton impeachment trial, that Republicans and Democrats forged a plan to save the nation (and themselves) from ruination.
One observer present in the Old Senate Chamber that night recalled two hours filled with open, eloquent, brutally frank discussion. Some younger senators, including John Edwards of North Carolina, were forced to stand. Others set up folding chairs in the back. At first, many speakers expressed anger—at the president, at the House of Representatives, at each other. Eventually, the bitter distrust yielded to an honest, near-desperate search to find common ground. Regardless of political