January 5, 1999

[Partial transcript]

Dr. Keyes: What's the good news today?

Well, we have a headline in the Washington Times--"Consensus Grows For A Short But Full Trial"--indicating that there is a growing feeling that the Senate has to try the articles of impeachment. And it is this that I want to address this morning. And it is going to be one of those cases where I ask for your patience, because what I have to lay out for you is in some sense a little complex, I think. But at the same time it is critical, and it indicates that right this minute there are people in the country, particularly in the Senate, who are speaking in ways that go way beyond the authority which they are given under the Constitution of the United States, and that if we think just for a brief moment here about what the Constitution actually says about who is supposed to do what, then we can get a clear sense of how things ought to be conducted, and who has the real responsibility for making key decisions about the organization and procedure that should govern in dealing with the articles of impeachment that the House has passed. If you look at the Constitution of the United States, one of the things that it makes clear [regarding the removal of a President] is who has the power to do what, and it is done in a way that is more unequivocal than is often the case in the Constitution--it is something which is worth noting.

For instance, we have pointed out frequently on the program in the discussion of the House of Representatives that it is the House of Representatives that has the sole power of impeachment. Only the House can decide whether somebody who is subject to impeachment is to be impeached. And especially in the case of the President, obviously, they have the sole power to decide whether the President is going to be impeached. And they have already made that decision.

There are a lot of folks out there, particularly among the Democrats, who are saying that somehow or another the Senate has the right to make a decision about impeachability. And that is not true. It simply cannot be the case. The Senate has no impeachment power. And since it has no impeachment power, how can it make judgments about whether an offense is impeachable?

Now, there would be those that would want to argue that the Senate derives that power from the fact that if, for instance, a prosecutor decides to bring charges against an individual, he notifies the court of those charges, and the judge then looks at the charges. The judge can then say, "But these are not real offenses. This is a frivolous charge. I'm throwing this out." And there have been people in the Senate, among the leadership, among the Democrats, and elsewhere, who have been talking as if the Senate has that kind of authority--the authority that a presiding judge would have to decide that a case did not rise to a serious level, did not satisfy the requirements of the law that these particular charges could be made, and could therefore be thrown out.

They therefore put the Senate in the role of the presiding officer of the court of impeachments in the case of the President. And as the presiding officer for the court of impeachments in the case of the President, the Senate can then make a judgment as to whether or not the offenses that the House alleges rise to a level that, in fact, satisfies the requirements of the law that an offense has been committed, and that the charges are not just frivolous.

Now, in a formal sense, it is true that the presiding judge in a case has that right, because he has the right to decide what cases are going to be heard in his court. And if he decides that a case is frivolous, he can throw it out of court. Judges do this all the time; they dismiss the case: "Nope, frivolous; doesn't satisfy the law; I won't hear that one."

But the reason that the argument is false with respect to the Senate has to do with a provision that the people in the Senate appear to be ignoring right now, but that I think we must consider seriously and that I hope will be considered seriously by folks in the legislature and particularly by the individual, in this case, who actually has responsibility under the Constitution.

Let me read to you the relevant portions of the Constitution. It says, "The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside."

So, in the case of articles of impeachment brought against the President, who is the presiding judge? Not the Senate, and no member or officer of the Senate has, in fact, the presiding jurisdiction when it comes to articles of impeachment. That means that in a formal sense the Senate cannot convene itself as a court for the purposes of trying the charges against the President. There is nobody in the Senate who has that presiding authority which can call the Senate to order as a court of impeachment. Nobody in the Senate can do that. The Senate Majority Leader, the Vice President of the United States acting as the President of the Senate, the President Pro Tem--nobody can call the Senate to order to act as a court of impeachment except the Chief Justice of the United States. He is, according the Constitution, the responsible party.

And by the way, I need to point out to that this is not the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not have this authority. It does not belong to the Supreme Court to involve itself in cases of impeachment. The Founders were explicit--in Federalist 65, Hamilton talks about why they did not give the Supreme Court the power to act as a court of impeachment, why they did not combine the Supreme Court with the Senate. What they did was to give the Chief Justice the role of presiding judge, so that all of those prerogatives which belong to the presiding judge in a case belong to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

That means that the Chief Justice is formally the one who is notified of the charges. The House says to the Chief Justice, "We bring these charges against the President and ask that you convene the Senate as a court of impeachment as provided in the Constitution." It is then for Chief Justice Rehnquist to decide when the trial is to take place, and he is to notify the Senate that their services are required--the same way that you and I get jury notices: "You are required to appear here, and to present yourself so you can be a juror." And that is what Chief Justice Rehnquist is now required to do with the Senate.

And there are a lot of people who are talking as if the Senate has some kind of ability to convene itself as a court of impeachment. That is not true. Because it belongs to the presiding officer of a court, or a legislature, or any other body, to convene that body. And where the impeachment of the President is concerned, the Chief Justice is the presiding officer--not the Supreme Court, by the way. He does not act, in this capacity as the Supreme Court, as the judicial branch, specified. This is not a power that belongs to the court. It is a power--it is a responsibility, rather--that belongs to the Chief Justice, in his person, specified in the Constitution.

Of course, there are other things that go along with this. They have talked about evidence and witnesses, and how the case shall be organized--who makes all those decisions where a case is concerned? Have you ever been involved in a court case? Does the prosecution make a decision as to what evidence will be admitted, and what witnesses are going to be admitted? Ultimately, who makes those decisions? The presiding judge. The Senate does not have the authority to make such decisions, because the Senate does not preside over the case of impeachment when a President is concerned. The Chief Justice presides.

And so, all of the discussion that the senators are having about how the trial will be organized, and whether it will be called, and what will be done, and so forth--unconstitutional, all of it. They are, in fact, acting under color of an authority which they have by virtue of this provision in the Constitution, and this provision in the Constitution specifies that the presiding officer will be the Chief Justice--no member of the Senate and not the Senate as a body.

Of course, in terms of the procedures and all of that, the argument could be made that the Senate is the master of its own procedures. But in this case, that argument would be incorrect. Because if you consider what happens in any kind of body that has a meeting, legislative or otherwise, that body usually will choose its officers. And the specification in the Constitution says various things about that. But when you choose your own officers and you put somebody in the chair, and that person consistently rules in a way that the body does not like, the body can remove that person. They can overrule that person by majority vote, because by majority vote they could take that person out of the chair. So when the Senate says, "We have the right to overrule the person who is presiding," they get that power from the fact that by majority vote they could remove that person from the chair. And so they can override any ruling by simple majority vote.

But in the case of the trial of a President as a court of impeachment, they don't have the power to remove the Chief Justice. And therefore they do not have the power to overrule his judgments, either.

And so in accordance with what the Founders actually intended, this was not supposed to be a political process, a corrupt process, or a bargaining process. It was supposed to be, in terms of its organization and procedure, a process that was set by an independent judge.

(break)

I hope that y'all have followed what I've been saying here, because you're not going to hear it, I don't believe, anywhere else. I don't know why it is that nobody else in this country chooses to read the Constitution and think about what it says, but it's important that we do so. And in this particular instance, a lot of loose talk is taking place, particularly in the Senate right now. And sad to say, that loose talk has implications which would result in the destruction of the Constitutional balance that is required to maintain the integrity of our Constitutional system.

Consider, for example, if the Founders hadn't been wise enough to remove the question of whether the trial takes place and how it takes place from the hands of the Senate--consider the abuse that this could be put to in order to destroy the independence of the Executive. Articles of Impeachment passed by the House, the Senate puts them on the shelf, looks at the President and says, "Hey, we aren't gonna bother with those right now . . . so long as you do our bidding." Right? And they could delay and adopt delaying tactics of various kinds, or dilatory tactics of various kinds, intended to maximize their ability to blackmail a sitting President with the threat of a trial, so that throughout whatever remained of his tenure he would be on their little chain, thereby destroying the Constitutional balance and exposing the Constitution to all kinds of depredations.

Depredations of a sort, by the way, that the Founders were particularly wary of in terms of legislative dominance of the process at the federal level. They provided against this possibility, as well as making a provision against excesses in the House, by removing the question of the organization and procedures for the trial, the kinds of things that are the prerogative of the presiding officer, from the purview of the legislative branch.

They didn't give it to the judicial branch, however. They didn't give it to the Supreme Court, and that's very important to realize. And Hamilton, by the way, in Federalist 65 is very clear that this power is not given to the Supreme Court, and he gives reasons why it was not. Such presiding power as is given, the role that is allotted here, is allotted specifically to the Chief Justice, in his person. He has now a personal responsibility to preside over the process of trial of the President on the charges that have been brought by the House of Representatives.

All the discussion that is now taking place in the Senate, where they're all acting like this is their business and they get to vote and they get to decide and they're the ones who act, in essence, as the presiding judge--that's false. It's totally contrary to what the Constitution says. And in this sense they are usurping the proper role of the Chief Justice, given to him explicitly by the Constitution. And even if they try to argue that should the thing be convened and if he rules on a matter and they don't like it they could be majority vote overrule the Chief Justice, so what? He's still sitting in the chair. He can still say, "No. That witness won't be heard." And what are they gonna do then, you see? Because he gets his authority directly from the Constitution. He doesn't get it from them. He is not a member of the Senate. He is not, in this activity, subject to the authority of the Senate.

The word authority is very interesting in that regard. Authority means that role or function or responsibility which you derive from the author of the process. In this case, the authority for the role of the Justice of the Supreme Court, the one who puts him in that position, is not the Senate. His authority comes directly from the Constitution, and in that particular case when it comes to making these procedural judgments and so forth and so on, he is not subject to the authority of the Senate. He is subject only to that authority which is in the Constitution, and that authority here says just that he's gonna preside. It doesn't say that he presides subject to approval by the Senate, subject to judgments by the Senate. Doesn't say anything like that--just gives him straight out the authority to be the presiding judge.

And I think they did that precisely so that the kind of political maneuvering, deal-making, and corruption that we are presently witnessing could not be allowed to prevent a speedy and expeditious and fair trial of articles of impeachment voted by the House. The Senate is not in a position to thwart the process once the House has voted articles of impeachment, because they do not have the authority of the presiding officer. They do not preside over their own activities in this matter of trying the impeachment of a President. That presiding authority belongs to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

And some people will say, "Well, the court has said, the Supreme Court has said, that this is something that the Senate gets to decide," and so forth. It doesn't matter, because the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in this matter. The Constitution gives the Supreme Court no jurisdiction whatsoever in terms of trying the articles of impeachment. So the Court can say whatever it likes, the Chief Justice is specifically designated as the presiding officer, not the Supreme Court, and therefore it is his judgment that must prevail. It is his discretion that must be exercised, and respected, if we are to respect the Constitution according to its terms.

And this is what the problem is right now. A bunch of people running around Washington, running around the country, shooting off their mouths about this and that. I wonder if they're bothering to sit down and read this document? If they do, they will realize that right this minute every eye in America, every single eye in America should be turned toward Chief Justice Rehnquist--not toward Trent Lott, not toward Tom Daschle, not toward anybody in the Senate, but the Constitution says that the presiding judge here, the one who has the responsibility to convene the Senate as a court for impeachment. Nobody in the Senate, itself, can do that. The function of a presiding officer, the first responsibility, is to convene the court.

And so, if you don't have that presiding authority, you can't convene the court. Nobody in the Senate can call the Senate to order as a court of impeachment, cause they don't have that presiding authority. It is explicitly given to another in the Constitution. And so when they run around saying "Well, we decide whether it's gonna be convened, and we decide this," no they don't! They have not that authority. When it comes to trying the articles of impeachment, not the Senate and nobody in the Senate is given the authority to convene the court of impeachment, and to preside over the court of impeachment, and to perform the other functions that attach to the presiding officer or judge in a case. That authority is given to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

And insofar as we now are in a period where we're asking ourselves, "Well, what next?" the proper person to put that question to right now is Chief Justice Rehnquist. The case now lies before him, the same way a case would lie in any court in the country where there was a presiding judge within whose jurisdiction the case fell. And the charges have been brought, he has been notified of the charges, and it is now his responsibility to call upon the Senate and say, "In pursuance of this Article of the Constitution, I ask you to perform your Constitutional duty and to be convened as a court to try the impeachment of the President."

(break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call. Let me talk to a caller from Hemphill, Texas. Welcome to the Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Yes, Alan, I just wanted you to know that my husband and I sent out 42 letters to Senators yesterday, listing our reasons as to why there should be a trial of William Jefferson Clinton instead of test votes or censures.

Dr. Keyes: Great.

Caller: This morning, Senator Daschle was on CNN and he did just exactly what you have explained to the audience, that the Senate has the authority to handle this trial and everything about it and it shouldn't last more than three or four days, if there should be a trial, and this is exactly what they're trying to put forth to the public. I hope there are people--we chose Democrats and Republicans to write who are heads of Judiciary, Rules, Veterans Affairs--somebody who had some common sense from both parties to look at this and understand that the people are due a trial according to the Constitution.

Dr. Keyes: You know, the more I have thought about this, and I don't want to say anything out of line here, but the responsible party right now in this whole process, according to the Constitution, is not in the Senate of the United States. And I think that a lot of the loose talk that is going on from Daschle and the other Democrats . . . I mean, they show no respect for the Constitution in this process anyway, but even some of the Republicans, they apparently haven't read the Constitution very carefully, or thought about its implications. Because, if you examine the way any legal process works, right, when charges are to be brought, just ask yourself logically, can a prosecutor who wants to bring charges against an individual notify the jury of those charges?

Caller: No.

Dr. Keyes: Why not?

Caller: Well, because, we've been in court . . .

Dr. Keyes: But why not? There's a very simple answer as to why not. Because no jury exists yet.

Caller: Well, you have to be summoned to be a juror.

Dr. Keyes: Exactly! Who summons you?

Caller: The court.

Dr. Keyes: The court! And who is the court in that case? The judge, right?

Caller: Right.

Dr. Keyes: The presiding judge is the one who has the responsibility for convening the court, for summoning the jurors, for swearing in the jurors, is that not right?

Caller: Yes, but why are our Senators this stupid?

Dr. Keyes: But all of that is the responsibility of the presiding officer. It is not the responsibility of anybody in the Senate, and they do not have any authority over the articles of impeachment until they are convened as a court of impeachment.

Caller: Right.

Dr. Keyes: And so the Constitution is very clear here. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. HE has the role of presiding officer. He receives the articles, he convenes the session, he swears the Senate in as jurors, he decides what witnesses are to be admitted, what evidence is to be required and admissible, and so forth and so on, same way a judge does in any other court.

Caller: Yes, but we've got to be sure that there is a trial.

Dr. Keyes: No, no, no, HE has to be sure.

Caller: Well . . .

Dr. Keyes: You see, because right now, the Senators are acting as if under the Constitution they have the authority to decide whether or not the case is to be tried. That is a prerogative that belongs to the individual charged with the presiding authority. In the first instance, the person who presides over the court, as we just went through, is the one who convenes the session, isn't he?

Caller: Right.

Dr. Keyes: That means that the responsibility for convening the trial, that is, for deciding when, where and how it will be convened, rests with the presiding officer. Who is the presiding officer in the case of an impeachment of the President?

Caller: Rehnquist.

Dr. Keyes: Rehnquist is! How can these Senators be acting as if the Senate gets to make these decisions when under the Constitution they don't have the authority to make them?

Caller: Well, that's what I'm saying. They are acting as if they have the authority, and they are trying to brainwash the public that they have the authority.

Dr. Keyes: Um-hum.

Caller: And the public is eating it up, because the media will not tell the truth!

Dr. Keyes: Well, it's partly, though--and I want to be fair to everybody, now--I think part of the problem is that most people in the country do not see this. Do you understand? I see it because I've spent part of my life studying the Constitution, living with the Founding Fathers, and so forth. A lot of the folks who deal with these matters are dealing with them, even the ones in the Congress, just as a matter of having to do it right now. In the media, I think there aren't many people who actually have read the Constitution and understand how it's supposed to operate. And, therefore, these guys can get away with all kinds of stuff that has no basis in the document. And it's one of the reasons I think we need to start talking about it, getting the word out. The responsibility right now rests with the Chief Justice. He needs to take on his Constitutional role.

(break)

Dr. Keyes: As I say, there's been a lot of chatter, I think, some loose talk, about how this whole process looks according to the Constitution. And if you walk through it as some people have tried to do, and you say, "Well, loosely speaking, the House of Representatives is kind of like the grand jury, right?" And they make the charges. Well, in the court system, those charges are then notified to the presiding officer who has jurisdiction over the case. And the presiding officer with jurisdiction over the case, in the case of the trial of the impeachment of the President, is the Chief Justice of the United States. Now, it is true that the Chief Justice, technically . . . I mean, think about this for a minute. It says in the Constitution that when the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. What happens, just as a matter of for instance, if the Chief Justice refuses to preside? If he looks at the articles of impeachment, if he says, "These are frivolous. I'm not going to preside over a trial like this." What happens then? Well, we can't have a trial, because a trial can't be held unless the Chief Justice is in the chair.

So, in terms of any decision about whether the House has correctly adjudged, for instance, "Did these rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors?" you have the Senators and all these people talking about this, but at this stage of the process, the Senate has nothing to do with that. If anybody could, in fact, summarily dismiss the charges that have been brought by the House, it would be Chief Justice Rehnquist. He would have, technically speaking, the position to do that. Because like any other presiding officer, he can decide that he will not lend himself to the process and in terms of the Constitution there is no substitute for him. If he is not in the chair, the trial cannot be Constitutionally convened--you see what I'm saying? So the Chief Justice actually has an important prerogative here.

It is also, by the way, why contrary to what the Senate is arguing, the calendar that governs here is not the Senate's calendar, either. For instance, just as a matter of practicality, if Chief Justice Rehnquist were out traveling the world right now and couldn't get back for three weeks, could they hold a trial on these articles of impeachment? No, they could not, because the Constitution specifies that the Chief Justice shall preside. Nobody else can be substituted for him. So his calendar has to govern the question of when the trial takes place. You have to go to him and you have to say, "Mr. Chief Justice, when can you preside over this trial, because we can't have it without you. Your calendar has to govern, Mr. Chief Justice, because the Constitution makes you the indispensable man here." And at that point the Chief Justice will say, "Well, my calendar can accommodate this, then, how about your calendars?" Then they work it out. You understand? But in the first instance, he has to be consulted. The Senate can't make up its mind on its own about this matter, because it does not have the Constitutional authority to do so.

Nobody, not the Senate, and nobody in the Senate, can convene the Senate as a court for the purposes of trying a Presidential impeachment. That presiding authority is in the hands of the Chief Justice. Not the Supreme Court, but the Chief Justice, in his person, has that authority according to the Constitution of the United States. So the key figure in all of this right now is the Chief Justice. He could summarily dismiss the charges by refusing to hold court.

That's basically where the judge's right to dismiss charges comes from anyway. "I refuse to hold court about this, 'cause I think this is frivolous." He could refuse to hold court. And all this talk about summary judgments, and dismissal, and not rising to the level of high crimes--that's his job right now, it's not the Senate's job. And they have, in point of fact, no jurisdiction over that question at the moment.

Now, if you go down the road a piece, let's say that you have the Chief Justice doing his job, he convenes the trial, they're sworn in, according to the judgments that are made by the presiding officer, the case is organized and presented, both sides having their opportunity in a fair way to present their case, and it is then given to the jury, or in this case to the Senate, at that point in any given process the jurors, as those of who have been on a jury know, they retire, don't they? Does the judge go into the jury room with them? No. So at that point, once again, the Senate becomes master of its own deliberations.

And it is at that point, after a proper trial has been conducted with the Chief Justice presiding, it is at that point that the Senate then becomes, as it were, again master of its own deliberations. Up to that point, according to the Constitution, they are not master of their own deliberations. And all the talk that's going on right now as if they are the ones to make all these decisions about when, where, how, who, all of this--this is chatter that has no basis in the Constitution, and that in fact is explicitly withheld from them by the terms of the Constitution which puts an independent individual, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, deriving his authority directly from the Constitution, not in any way from the Senate, he is in fact the presiding officer who is in charge of their proceedings, right, when they sit as a court for the purpose of trying to impeachment of the President of the United States.

And this is gravely important, because I think the Founders intended to preserve the Constitutional balance here, and to make sure that this process would be, at least in terms of its procedures, free of the corruption of politics. And the kinds of calculations that even the media acknowledge, "Well aren't you thinking about what Republican Senators can be re-elected if we have this trial?" and so forth and so on--this wasn't intended to have any influence on the discussion.

In point of fact, the whole notion that the Senate can just indefinitely delay, postpone, or not deal with this question runs contrary to the reasoning that is presented at least by Hamilton in Federalist 65. He is giving an argument as to why it is that they don't have an independent court of impeachments, a permanent one that would exist independent of the other departments of government, that would either be composed of people who had no share in the federal government or be composed of people who would be drawn from the state governments or something. When he answers the second possibility, which is that you draw individuals from the state governments, he says, "The second would be espoused with caution by those who will seriously consider the difficulty of collecting men dispersed over the whole Union. The injury to the innocent from the procrastinated determination of the charges which might be brought against them, the advantage to the guilty from the opportunities which delay would afford to intrigue and corruption, and in some cases the detriment to the state from the prolonged inaction of men whose firm and faithful execution of their duty might have exposed them to the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives." Clearly, Hamilton intended not only that the trial must take place, but it must take place speedily and without delay.

(break)

Dr. Keyes: (first words are blurred under the music) . . . that, I think, is critical to understanding the process that's going on. I think it's also critical if as a people and particularly if right now our leadership is to avoid taking steps that would result in a serious breach of the Constitutional process. And I think that there are some people in the Senate right now who are talking in such a way that they are utterly disregarding how the responsibility for the process of impeachment and trial is allocated in the Constitution.

The House has the sole power of impeachment. The Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. But when the Senate sits for the purposes of trying the impeachment of the President of the United States, the Senate sits under the presidency of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the presiding judge. And that means that the prerogatives associated with the presiding officer--including, in the first instance, the prerogative of convening or not convening the trial. That's a prerogative associated with the Chief Justice. Not, by the way, with the Supreme Court.

I need to make this distinction, so it's clear. The Chief Justice is not acting in this instance on behalf of the court itself, and in fact Hamilton and others are quite clear that they rejected the idea of involving the court as such in the impeachment process. No. The Chief Justice is involved in the process in his person. He has, in this instance, a personal responsibility as Chief Justice of the United States to preside over the Senate when it sits as a court for the purpose of trying the impeachment of the President. And that means, of course, that despite all these people saying that the Senate will convene, and so forth and so on--the Senate can't convene itself. It is for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to convene the Senate when it sits as a court for the purposes. He's the one who has to call them to order, because he's the presiding officer, as specified in the Constitution. He's the only one who can call them to order, as a court, for the purposes of trying the President.

And that means he has the responsibility, as any presiding judge would, for making sure that things are properly organized, for making sure that the trial takes place in an expeditious way, for making sure that the oath is administered to the Senators in this particular case. They are not responsible for this themselves, because they don't preside over their own proceedings, according to the Constitution. They can turn to us and say, "We're the masters in our own house, we have the right," but no, not in this case. The Founders explicitly took from them the presidency of the Senate when it comes to trying the impeachment of a President of the United States.

I think they did it for good reason, so that the process of trial would not be infected with political calculation, judgment, cowardice, expediency--all the things that, in fact, we are seeing in operation right now. Quite inevitably. I don't say this totally in any way that's disparaging of the people in the Senate and so forth, because the Founders understood that if you are dealing with legislative bodies, you're going to be dealing with things that are infected with politics. You can't eliminate that. They say so.

What they tried to do by involving the Chief Justice was not eliminate it, but reduce its influence when it comes to the actual organization and process, so that the President, in this particular case, would be assured a fair and expeditious trial of the charges against him, so that the people in the House would be assured that the Senate couldn't simply delay and ignore the charges that they had brought, for political reasons or otherwise. They wanted to be fair to the Constitution, to the parties involved, to the people of the country, and they thought that by trusting this matter to the discretion of the Chief Justice, somebody who should be fully cognizant of what are the requirements of law and equity, that they would be able to assure that the process would move forward with a modicum of both decorum and respect for justice and fairness.

And this whole responsibility now rests with Chief Justice Rehnquist. It does not rest with the Senate--and much as they're running around right now saying so, there's no basis in the Constitution for their saying so. Because, they do have the sole power to try all impeachments, but when they do so, the organization and process, all those things which we know to be associated with the presiding officer's judgment and discretion, those things rest with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, not with any member of the Senate, and not with the Senate as a body. And this is something they're totally ignoring right now.