What Other Presidents Have Faced Official Questioning?

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4-29-04

What Other Presidents Have Faced Official Questioning?

President Bush Meets with the 9/11 Commission on Thursday. President Bush on Thursday said, "This is an important commission, and it's important that they ask the questions they ask so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland." -- White House Website April 29, 2004

In 1919 in the aftermath of World War I the country was convulsed with the fight over the League of Nations. On August 19 a group of senators quizzed President Wilson about the League. The meeting was held in the White House. Present also were two stenographers and the White House usher. According to historian John Milton Cooper, author of Breaking the Heart of the World, "This meeting marked the only time before or since in American history that a president came close to allowing himself to be questioned by a congressional committee."

In 1974, shortly after taking office as president, Gerald Ford gave Richard Nixon a pardon. The country reacted negatively. Ford, trying to save his presidency, agreed to appear before Congress. Elizabeth Holtzman, then a member of the House Judiciary Committee which had voted to impeach Nixon, remembers: "The President came before the subcommittee, made an opening statement and was questioned by the House members. Although each of us had only five minutes, I was able to ask the President directly whether there had been a deal with Nixon about the pardon. The public could determine by Ford's demeanor and his words whether to believe his emphatic denial of any deal."

John Dean later recalled: "While President Ford appeared before the Congress to explain his granting of a pardon to Richard Nixon, those who remember that appearance will recall that he really did not satisfy the skeptics or critics at the time. It was only with the distance of several years that people came to appreciate that Ford's pardon of Nixon had resolved a true national nightmare. Before they realized that, however, they had voted Ford out of office."

Bob Woodward later revealed that Ford, while still vice president, had discussed with Nixon chief of staff Al Haig the possibility of granting Nixon a pardon. Ford's aides were aghast when they learned of the conversation, fearful Ford could be accused of striking an illegal bargain in exchange for the office of president.

In 1986, during his second term, it was revealed that President Reagan had traded arms for hostages in violation of his pledge never to negotiate with terrorists. Under public pressure, his poll numbers dropping precipitously (from 67% to 46% in a month, a presidential record), Reagan asked Texas Senator John Tower to head a presidential commission to investigate what had happened in the scandal that came to be known as the Iran-contra Affair. In January 1987 the president testified before the commission that he had personally approved the sale of arms to Iran. A few weeks later he denied that he had done so. A few weeks after that he again reversed course, telling the commission in a memo: "The only honest answer is to state that try as I might, I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli sale in advance or whether I approved replenishment of Israeli stocks around August of 1985. My answer therefore and the simple truth is, 'I don't remember, period.' " In March in a presidential address Reagan said: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not."

On August 17, 1998 President Bill Clinton testified at the White House about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Q: Good afternoon, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good afternoon.
Q: Could you please state your full name for the record, sir?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: William Jefferson Clinton.

The testimony was videotaped. It was later played on national television.

Among the most memorable quotes was this one: "I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not constitute sexual relations, as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition."

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