Resolved, that Richard M. Nixon has violated the duties and abused the powers of the Office of President of the United States of America. He has ignored his oath to execute the Office faithfully and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States by conducting the Office for his personal pecuniary benefit and political advantage, misleading and deceiving the people of the United States and their elected representatives in Congress, and by subverting the principles of constitutional government. He has breached his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed by willfully ignoring the laws and by endeavoring to impede and obstruct their proper execution. In all this, he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors in the conduct of his Office, for which the House of Representatives do impeach him.
So begins a proposed set of articles of impeachment presented to the House Judiciary Committee last week by its special counsel, John Doar, and minority counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr. Indeed, there are so many specific allegations against the President that five different sets of impeachment articles were prepared by the staff and a few Congressmen on the committee. The staff's aim was to give the members most of the possible choices. The committee will apparently pick and choose from all five sets as it makes its historic decisions.
The five approaches to drawing up the articles vary mainly in how specific such articles should be and which presidential acts should be considered evidence of a violation of a particular duty imposed on the President by the Constitution. All sets, however, avoid the issue of whether a President can be impeached only for an indictable criminal offense, as Nixon's lawyers insist, or whether he can also be impeached on the broader ground of failure to carry out the duties of his office, as most constitutional scholars hold: each set of articles includes both kinds of impeachable acts.
There are no fewer than 29 proposed articles of impeachment in the five sets; many of them duplicate others but are put in a different framework. Recurring as the predominant broad charges against the President are these:
1) He violated his constitutional duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
2) He obstructed the administration of justice.
3) He abused the powers of his office by misusing agencies of Government for his own political or pecuniary gain.
4) He defied lawful subpoenas from both the Judiciary Committee and the courts by making a claim of Executive privilege that was offered "in bad faith" and was in reality intended to conceal evidence damaging to him.
The committee's impeachment debate probably will center on the more specific allegations of presidential misconduct. They arise from:
1) The cover-up of White House involvement in the Watergate wiretapping-burglary.
2) The attempt to "defame" Pentagon Papers Defendant Daniel Ellsberg with information obtained by a burglary of the office of his psychiatrist.
3) The firing of the first Watergate Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, for persisting in seeking evidence from the President.
4) Nixon's "willful" evasion of income taxes.