have conducted themselves in a manner worthy of possible removal from office. Once the House has voted impeachment, Article I Section 3 states that the "Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." It further states that when the President is tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, and it specifies that a two-thirds vote of the members of the Senate present is needed for a conviction. Impeachment, therefore, is neither conviction nor expulsion from office, only the first step that may lead to those conclusions.
Q. There are some members of Congress calling for the appointment of an independent counsel to examine the charges you have raised as well as other related matters. You maintain that there is a significant difference between the duties of an independent counsel and the responsibilities of the House regarding impeachment. What are those differences?
A. The role of an independent counsel, as a prosecutorial office, is to look at possible violations of criminal law. It is certainly true that violation of criminal law would provide a clear basis on which to proceed with the impeachment process, but violation of law is not required for impeachment. Quite the contrary, it was explicitly noted by our Founding Fathers that the process is unique, that it does not necessarily presuppose a violation of law.
A lengthy discussion of the topic appears in The Federalist, No. 65, authored by Alexander Hamilton. Of impeachment, Hamilton stated: "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust." He specifically termed such offenses "of a nature ... political."
Q. How do you respond to the charge that calling for impeachment is a rather drastic step?
A. The process of impeachment was not placed in our Constitution to be avoided at all costs. It’s certainly something very serious, but it’s the only mechanism in our Constitution that allows the people of this country, through their elected representatives, to remove someone from office who is abusing that office. There is no other mechanism we have to do that. I have simply raised this issue and will continue to raise it because I think there are abuses by this Administration that rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry.
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Q. What is "filegate"?
A. This incident involves the acquisition by the White House of information collected by the FBI about private citizens, not about Cabinet secretaries or other high officials of government. This data was made available to political operatives at the White House with no regard whatsoever for the security of the information or for its accountability. It was, I think, a gross violation of the rights of American citizens to have information accumulated by our law enforcement agencies given to anyone for political use.
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Q. Aren’t the President and even Mrs. Clinton trying to claim that executive privilege gives them the right to avoid questioning?
A. Yes, these are among other specious claims that are being made, even by Mrs. Clinton. She has no right to claim executive privilege in the first place, yet she is trying to claim it as well as attorney-client privilege. The more fundamental claim of executive privilege was also dealt with in the Watergate era: It cannot be appealed to and will not be allowed as a reason to avoid furnishing information pursuant to a legislative investigation involving violations of law and abuse of .
Q. Executive privilege is a claim by a member of the Executive Branch that he does not have any obligation to cooperate with an investigation conducted by the Legislative Branch, such as the investigation you are involved in. Doesn’t that amount to overturning the system of checks and balances?
A. The way it has been used, it certainly does. The way they are asserting it, it is something that supersedes the Constitution and negates the laws of our country on disclosure in criminal prosecutions. They are saying that the people have no right to know what is being done by the President and the attorneys the people are paying for. The Supreme Court and other federal courts were forced to confront some of these issues very expressly during the Watergate era. They did so in a way that clearly establishes that these privileges are not allowable for what the Clinton Administration is now claiming. Yet they persist in making these claims.
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Note: This copyrighted article orginally appeared in the August 4, 1997 issue of The New American magazine.

Lots more interesting stuff at link above.