Sam Garrison - National Politics, and Watergate

National Politics, and Watergate

In 1971, he moved to Washington to be staff counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, and just 16 months later, he joined the staff of newly elected Vice President Spiro Agnew as legislative liaison. After Agnew resigned in 1973, Garrison began working on the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment staff, and eventually replaced the committee's chief minority counsel, Albert E. Jenner Jr., who called the impeachment case against Nixon persuasive.

In an obituary the The Washington Post wrote:

Garrison, then 32, was the last-minute replacement chosen by the committee's 17 Republicans to present the minority view of the case against Nixon. With just days to prepare, he submitted a 41-page argument against impeachment.

"By all accounts, Sam Garrison did not exactly hit a home run", reporter William Greider wrote in The Washington Post on July 23, 1974. "But his performance satisfied the senior Republicans who wanted someone, for appearance's sake if nothing else, to argue the soft spots in the Judiciary Committee's evidence."

"The question," Mr. Garrison said at the time, "is whether the public interest would better be served or not served by the removal of the president."

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