BY PAUL BARTON
Enquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Rep. Steve Chabot said he felt "great emotion" in voting Friday for the impeachment of a president.
Mr. Chabot, R-Cincinnati, voted with the Republican majority on the Judiciary Committee to recommend that the full House approve three articles of impeachment.
A vote on another article of impeachment is expected today, with the matter to go to the House floor late next week.
"You can't help but feel the weight of history on your shoulders," Mr. Chabot said during a break in committee proceedings.
Mr. Chabot and other Republican members of the panel gathered in a room behind the committee chambers to watch the president give a televised apology Friday for his actions.
"I was disappointed with the president's speech. He still has not admitted what everyone but the president seems to know - that he lied under oath," he said.
Mr. Chabot said Mr. Clinton left the committee with no choice but to support impeachment.
"I feel that because of this president's actions and the effect that perjury and obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential power - the effect they can have on the country - that it was my responsibility to vote to impeach," he said.
Mr. Chabot played a key role in committee debate Friday as Democrats charged that the panel should not recommend impeachment without listing the specific instances in which Mr. Clinton was allegedly lying.
Mr. Chabot produced a letter written during the Watergate scandal by then-committee member Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who argued that Judiciary members should not list specifics in their articles of impeachment against then-President Nixon. The idea was not to tie down either the full House or the Senate as it considered the case.
"We're following the Watergate model," Mr. Chabot said. Mr. Chabot also said it might be hard to list all the times the president has lied.
"He lied so many times and in so many forums it is really hard to keep track of it all," Mr. Chabot said.
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