Wednesday, February 10, 1999 -- Washington, D.C. -- Here is the complete transcript of Senator Tom Harkin's statement (written with assistance by Abbe Lowell) concerning the impending impeachment vote in the Senate, made shortly after noon.

I'm making my statement in public, before I make in private behind those closed doors, so that my constituents and others will know how and why I reached my decision.

I have nothing but disdain for and objection to the closing of the Senate doors on this vital matter of impeachment of the president. The closing of the doors keeps the American people out.

And as I've said before, we should have no right to do that. This is not a private club. It belongs to the American people and they should be involved in this process to see how and why we reach the decisions that we do.

A few weeks ago, I used a barn yard term to describe what I thought this case amounted to, and the longer the case has gone on, the more I'm convinced that that characterization was correct.

This case should never have been brought to the United States Senate. In fact, I believe it to be one of the most blatant political, vindictive actions taken by the House of Representatives since Andrew Johnson's case was pushed through by the radical Republicans of his time and forced upon a Senate.

The radical Republicans of 1868 have been replaced by the zealous Republicans in the House of Representatives of 1998. And it was these zealous Republicans, some of whom opined even before the Monica Lewinsky story ever broke, that Bill Clinton should be impeached and removed from office.

And so, I think it's important for us to take a look at how this case got here. Now, one might ask why is that important? Well, if you believe the end justifies the means, then it probably isn't important.

But if you believe that the end doesn't necessarily justify the means, that those who are charged with enforcing the law cannot break the law in order to bring someone to the bar of justice, and if you believe the rule of law applies not only to the defendant -- the president, in this case -- but also to the prosecutors and those sworn to uphold that rule of law, then it is important to look at how this case got here.

First, we have a statute, the independent counsel statute, which at best is flawed and at worst unworkable, which allows someone to be targeted without any regard to time or money. In fact, it has essentially created a fourth branch of government with no checks and balances.

Now again, the conduct I want to point out of Ken Starr does not excuse the behavior of the president.

But it has everything to do with our perspective on the case and how we approach it, and how as judges in this court of impeachment, we weigh our decision.

Now where the political motivation is so blatant, as it has been in this case, I think we in the Senate should have our guard up on what this case is about. This is the sort of political impeachment case that Madison and Hamilton wanted to avoid. And I refer you all to the Federalist Paper Number 65, in which Hamilton writes that the greatest danger would be that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

That was why he was arguing that the trial should be held in the Senate and require a two-thirds majority in order to convict and remove.

So in the beginning, under this statute, Ken Starr is picked by a three-judge panel to investigate Whitewater. Whitewater turns into Travelgate. Travelgate turns into Filegate. And then one wonders, how did Monica Lewinsky drop in on all this?

Well, if we look back, it is known that Ken Starr, as a private attorney in 1994, had dealings with Paula Jones' attorneys in terms of her then-pending lawsuit against President Clinton. So he had prior involvement himself with the Paula Jones case.

Now the Paula Jones case proceeds forward, and then in October of 1997, an entity called the Rutherford Institute, funded by conservative sources in the United States, found new attorneys for Paula Jones and became heavily involved in her case. Sometime around this time, Linda Tripp, with whom Monica Lewinsky had shared her most intimate details of her involvement with the president, begins talking with these attorneys.

Now that's sort of the status of the case as of December of 1997.

And here I would like to insert an article from the New York Times dated January 24, 1998 -- 1999, which documents this.

So now, we have the involvement of Linda Tripp, who is giving information for the Paula Jones' attorneys. From about November, 1997 until January, 1998 a lawyer by the name of Jerome Marcus, in Philadelphia, who had done extensive work for the Jones' legal team, had been talking with a friend of his, former classmate, Paul Rosensweig, a prosecutor on Mr. Starr's team and talking to him about the Lewinsky matter.

Mr. Rosensweig also had knowledge of the Jones case and had considered doing work for the Jones case before he got involved with Ken Starr and got on his independent counsel team.

Now, we don't know the exact nature of the discussions between Mr. Marcus and Rosensweig, but we do know that they talked frequently. What we do know is that on January 8, 1998 Marcus contacts Rosensweig, tells him about the relationship between Lewinsky and the president. Rosensweig tells this to Jackie Bennett, another member of the independent counsel team on January 9, the next day.

Right after this, Linda Tripp contacts the Office of Independent Counsel to talk about Lewinsky and tells them about the tapes she has made of their phone conversations.

The day after that, Tripp is wired by FBI agents working with Starr, meets with Lewinsky and records their conversation without Lewinsky's knowledge.

Now all of this is done prior to President Clinton ever giving a deposition or testifying before a grand jury. And so, Clinton hasn't done anything yet in terms of testifying. One might ask, what was Starr and his team after if in fact this was a consensual sexual relationship between Clinton and a young woman who was an adult?

What did this have to do with anything dealing with Whitewater or anything else they were investigating? Well, here's why it has something to do with it.

Let me quote from an article written by Joseph Eisenberg (ph), a professor of law at the University of Chicago. Here's what he said: "What is perverse about the impeachment of President Clinton is the idiotic premise on which it rests. The president wasn't forced to respond to judicial process in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit because he committed a crime of paramount public concern. That case, remember, was dismissed as meritless.

"The misconduct at issue here had no independent significance. It is itself merely a byproduct of a judicial process directed at the president -- essentially a sting set-up in the courts."

A sting set-up in the courts. That's what Ken Starr was doing. Setting him up. And you can see this clearly when you watch Clinton on the videotape in the deposition before the Paula Jones attorneys in January. And they present him with this definition of sexual relations that is sort of fuzzy and worded kind of funny. They knew what they were getting after. President Clinton did not know that they had all this information about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. Classic sting operation.

The night before this deposition, Linda Tripp had met with these attorneys, given them all her information, and the tapes she had recorded of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.

So the president, as you can see clearly on the videotape, was caught off guard. He bobs, he weaves. He tries in some way, while not being untruthful, to get his way out of this minefield. That's quite evident.

Also, as I said, keep in mind, Linda Tripp briefed these attorneys just the night before.

In light of this it's interesting to note that in today's February 10th New York Times, the conduct of the independent counsel is so suspect and potentially violative of Justice Department policy and law that now he is under investigation for a number of reasons.

One, whether he and his staff leaked grand jury material and to determine, secondly, whether his contacts with Monica Lewinsky and the denial of her request to call an attorney violated rules of ethics.

Also under review by the Justice Department, to determine whether his conduct -- conduct -- contact with Ms. Lewinsky violated agency rules on dealing with people without their counsel.

And now we know, for example, that he was not honest with the attorney general about his and his office contacts with the Paula Jones attorneys when he was asking the attorney general for authority to investigate the president for involvement in the Paula Jones case.

To understand the nature of Mr. Starr's contacts with the Paula Jones attorneys, before he became independent counsel, his firm was contacted to represent Paula Jones. Mr. Starr himself had half a dozen or more conversations with her attorneys to provide legal advice.

Even when he was independent counsel, his law firm was still paying him and he was still providing legal advice. In early January, Linda Tripp, through her friend, Lucianne Goldberg, contacted Mr. Starr's law partner, Richard Porter, who then contacted a deputy independent counsel to tip them off about Monica Lewinsky.

And on January 12, the independent counsel met with Linda Tripp and gave her immunity for her illegal taping of Ms. Lewinsky and yet never asked her not to pass on Paula Jones attorney the contacts of those -- the contents of those illegal tapes, which we now know that she did the very night before they deposed the president.

Well, I want to end this part of my discussion by saying that we've heard a lot about the rule of law recently and how the rule of law as applied to those who are supposed to enforce the law. Well, how does it apply to Ken Starr and the Office of Independent Counsel?

Mr. Hyde went on many times in his opening and closing arguments about what this teaches our kids about honesty and truthfulness and that the rule of law means something. Well, yes, but it also means something to our kids and future generations that honesty and truthfulness and the rule of law also applies to those who are cloaked with the authority and the responsibility of enforcing those laws.

We must teach our kids that the ends do not justify the means, that law enforcement officials cannot break the law in order to bring someone to the bar of justice.

So now in this process, we have the case before the Judiciary Committee, the only one they called to testify is Ken Starr. All the documents he gives them before the election have to do with his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. It's only after the election that he files the dismissal of the charged on Whitewater, Filegate and Travelgate.

It's interesting to note at the end of Ken Starr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, all of the Republicans give him a standing ovation. What kind of political statement does that make?

And again, no witnesses. The first time ever that the House of Representatives -- Representatives has ever sent an impeachment case to the Senate without having called witnesses.

This was not, like the kind of balanced evidentiary material given -- given to the Judiciary Committee in the House by Leon Jaworski in the Watergate case concerning then-President Nixon.

So now it comes out of Judiciary Committee, it goes to the House. The stories are replete about the arm-twisting in the House by Congressman DeLay and others to ensure that they get the votes and that they don't have a censure motion.

And so, in summary, what we have here is an out-of-control independent counsel, with his own political agenda and vendetta, with a blank check to spend millions looking into every nook and cranny of President Clinton's public as well as his private life. You add this to a zealous group of House Republican Judiciary Committee members who fanned the flames of the Starr report, some members of whom had already filed a resolution to impeach the president.

And so what we have before us a counterfeit case, a totally counterfeit case.

It looked real on the surface, but when you examined it under a microscope, you saw it was counterfeit. A case that in the beginning, through it and at the end was all about sex.

Finally, I want to say that two wrongs don't make a right. What President Clinton did was wrong. What Ken Starr did was wrong. The American people figured this out a long time ago. The president had an affair, an illicit affair. He covered it up and he misled others to cover it up.

The American people made a judgment about this. They said it was wrong, but it was personal. It viThis was a sin, but not a crime. It was between him and his wife and his God, but not between him and the American people.

The American people, I have said many times, will abide sin and give forgiveness. But they will not abide hypocrisy. And hypocrisy abounds throughout this case.

At the beginning of the trial I said the House had a heavy burden, given the history and partisanship of the case, to prove Articles I and II, and that they rise to impeachable level. They have never met that burden. Not on perjury, not on obstruction of justice.

When you look -- I don't think the article on perjury will even get one-third of the Senate votes.

And on obstruction of justice, that was blown out of the water, quite frankly, by the Monica Lewinsky videotape that we saw on Saturday when Mr. Bryant asked her. He said, now you don't have a personal reason -- you didn't have a personal reason for filing a false affidavit? And she said yes, as a matter of fact I did. And he said why? She said, because, one, I didn't think it was anyone's business, and secondly, I didn't want to get involved in the Jones case.

End of obstruction of justice.

So since -- I have concluded that the House has never proved Article I and Article II, that their case -- their entire case -- has been based on inferences and conjecture. The White House case has been based on facts and direct evidence.

And since they never proved their Articles I or Article II, and it is a well-settled point of law that a court must decide only the case in front of it.

We have Article I on perjury and Article II on obstruction of justice; that's what we must decide. And accordingly, I will vote not guilty on both charges.

Lastly, there's been much talk of a censure resolution. As I have said before, I believe the appropriate forum is for each senator to express his or her opinion on this matter.

I see no need to join 99 others and in doing so set a dangerous precedent that could easily be abused in the future. So, here is my censure of the president:

I want to state emphatically that I do not condone the behavior of President Clinton that has been so thoroughly exposed and seared into the American conscientiousness, ad nauseam. I would be surprised to find anyone within this body or who thinks otherwise.

It is the sorted affair of all sorted affairs. The president has brought dishonor to himself, brought tremendous pain and embarrassment to his family, his friends and his colleagues, and I consider myself one of those.

And rather than ennobling the presidency, this particular behavior has made it the butt of jokes and ridicule. This behavior was totally at odds with his many achievements and his conduct in his official capacity as president.

The president has stated clearly that he has sinned, that he misled his family, his friends, his staff and the American people. He has said he is sorry and has asked for forgiveness.

I do so now and say it is time to put this sad chapter behind us and move on to the important work of the nation.