Porteous Impeachment

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, it has been a privilege to serve as a member of the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee over the past year. We have been part of a rare event in the history of this Congress and our country and it has been fascinating to watch this process unfold. I want to join my fellow committee members in thanking Chairman McCaskill and Vice-Chairman Hatch for leading a fair, effective, and efficient operation. They provided remarkably decisive leadership on complex legal issues while also respecting the rights and the interests of both parties to this matter.

I am proud of the report our bipartisan committee produced, and I would like to once again thank and recognize the trial committee's staff for their hard work. Their efforts were an indispensable part of this unique and historic undertaking.

Judging Articles of Impeachment drawn up by the House of Representatives is one of the more solemn duties given to Senators by our Constitution. After spending more than a week with my fellow committee members hearing the evidence against Judge Thomas Porteous, and after reviewing the parties' final submissions, I concluded that he should be convicted on all four articles and removed from office. I would like to explain the principles I used to reach this conclusion and touch on some of the evidence that supported conviction.

There has been much discussion by the parties about the standard of proof to be employed in an impeachment proceeding, and what constitutes an impeachable offense. The Constitution provides us with limited guidance on these issues. Ultimately, in keeping with precedent established by this body in the past, each Senator must individually decide what conduct is impeachment-worthy and how much proof is necessary to reach that conclusion.

In my opinion, the question before us is whether Judge Porteous's conduct calls his integrity and impartiality into question and whether we must remove him from office to protect the reputation of the judiciary and preserve the public's trust in it. Our courts are the places where citizens expect to receive a fair and legitimate resolution of their disputes. This is a cornerstone of civil society. Any conduct by a judge--whether on the job or off that causes people to seriously question his honesty and basic willingness to dispense justice fairly is a violation of the public trust.

Unfortunately, I think any reasonable citizen walking into Judge Porteous's courtroom would have ample reason to question his commitment to doing justice. This is a judge who used his judicial offices at both the State and Federal levels to routinely obtain personal perks, including meals, alcohol, a bachelor party for his son, trips, and eventually cash kickbacks totaling some $20,000.

Any reasonable citizen would also doubt this judge's ability to be impartial. The House presented substantial evidence related to a multimillion dollar piece of litigation in which Judge Porteous had an obvious conflict of interest but failed to recuse himself. He took thousands of dollars in cash gifts from a lawyer friend representing a party to the case during the course of his deliberations. He then turned around and issued a decision favoring his friend's client. Judge Porteous's ruling was overturned in an absolutely scathing opinion by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which called his decision ``inexplicable'' and ``close to being nonsensical,'' among other rebukes.

While on the State bench, the Judge maintained close relationships with bail bondsmen working for defendants in his courtroom. The evidence showed that he continuously set favorable bail levels that while perhaps within the bounds of his legal discretion had been suggested by the bondsmen to maximize their profits. For this, the judge enjoyed complimentary steak lunches, midday martinis, at least one trip to Las Vegas, as well as home and car repairs.

I was totally unpersuaded by the defense team's argument that Judge Porteous's ``pre-Federal'' conduct should be outside the scope of our deliberation. I do not believe the act of being confirmed to a Federal judgeship by the Senate erases or excuses an individual's conduct up to the point of confirmation.

Had the Senate known in 1994 what we know now about Porteous's conduct as a State judge, it would have undoubtedly disqualified him from becoming a Federal judge. No judge at any level should accept gifts that would even appear to be designed to affect his judgment or influence his decisions. Yet there is no doubt Judge Porteous did just that.

It is unfortunate that those charged with investigating Judge Porteous's fitness for office in 1994 did not raise more flags about his history. This does not eliminate our duty to act. I see no reason not to remove him from office today when these events still bear on his integrity and impartiality. Plain and simple, the judge perjured himself before this body during his confirmation by representing that nothing in his history would cast doubt on his fitness to hold office.

Finally, Judge Porteous also perjured himself during his own personal bankruptcy proceedings. The House presented evidence that he failed to disclose gambling debts during his bankruptcy, failed to disclose a number of assets, and made other willful misrepresentations in his filings like using a false name in his initial petition. I understand that this conduct may not have been a direct abuse of the judge's office, but his deception during this period reflected a lack of respect for the law and an unwillingness to follow it. A sitting Federal judge should have erred on the side of overdisclosure. Instead, I believe the House has shown that Judge Porteous repeatedly committed perjury.

Serving as a judge is a privilege, and it demands strict adherence to the highest ethical standards. The evidence in this case, taken as a whole, showed that Judge Porteous failed this test routinely over the course of some 15 years. The House presented ample credible evidence to support the charges in each of the articles, and I felt compelled to vote to convict on all four to protect the integrity of the judiciary and its credibility in the eyes of the public.

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