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"“I feel badly about what happened to Nixon,” Mr. Railsback told the Idaho Statesman in 2012. “On the other hand, after listening to the (White House) tapes and seeing all the evidence, it was something we had to do because the evidence was there.”
Mr. Railsback lost his seat in the 1982 Republican primary, a defeat he attributed to his vote in the impeachment inquiry. He was one of four Republicans and three conservative Democrats who drafted two of the three impeachment articles against Nixon, who resigned before the House voted on them." (The Washington Post) |
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"President Nixon then ordered Bill Ruckelshaus, the next in line, to fire Archibald Cox.
Bill Ruckelshaus had promised to uphold the independence of the independent prosecutor. So when he was ordered by the president to fire the prosecutor for trying to obtain evidence, Bill Ruckelshaus didn't make a series of excuses with his own conscience to stay close to power. He refused the president's order and resigned. "When you accept a presidential appointment, you must remind yourself there are lines over which you will not step," he recalled in 2012. "In this case, the line was bright and the decision was simple." Bill Ruckelshaus died this week, at the age of 87--a conservative and a conservationist who conserved and protected the rule of law." (NPR) |