Robert Drinan

Robert Drinan was a Jesuit priest and law professor at Georgetown who served in Congress during the seventies and was the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. He died today.

He argued that Nixon should be impeached for the secret bombing of Cambodia, not for the secret break in to the Watergate offices of the Democratic Party.

In 1998, he testified at the Clinton impeachment hearings and gave then judiciary chairman Henry Hyde both a law and a morality lesson. I couldn’t find the exact quotes on line, but I remember one exchange that went something like this: Drinan told Hyde that he would be judged, too, for what he did regarding impeachment. Hyde sensed Drinan wasn’t talking about politics and shot back, “Do you mean God will judge me.” Drinan said, pointing his finger, “That’s exactly what I mean.”

A Jesuit priest and one of the country’s most respected constituional lawyers–Hyde was out of his depth.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.