The Fall of Bob Packwood Preview (Special Series)

In this preview we look back at arguably the biggest game changer of 1995 for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. It was the loss of his chief Lieutenant in the United States Senate, Bob Packwood. 
Dole and Packwood were friends, and both men were experts on the Federal budget. 
Packwood’s loss cannot be overstated. 

In this special series we will examine the scandal that brought him down, the agonizing three years it unfolded and the shocking 24 hours in which one of the most brilliant and powerful leaders in modern Senate history saw his two decade career collapse. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

It is my duty to resign. It is the honorable thing to do for this country for the Senate. So I now announce that I will resign from the Senate. And I leave this institution not with malice. But with love. Good luck. Godspeed.

SPEAKER_11 0:54

Why don't I just make an energy too? I've just been an outstanding, like this player. An outstanding United States energy. Someone who likes to be able to be around for a long, long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I resent assumptions that all men in this institution require an object lesson made of Bob Packwood so that we might learn to treat one half of humanity with dignity.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

One of the masters of the tax code. One of the giants of the United States Senate. Laid low by scandal.

SPEAKER_12 1:56

First of all, no workplace in America ought to tolerate the kind of offensive, degrading sexual misconduct that the Ethics Committee finds Senator Packwood to be guilty of. And it certainly cannot be tolerated in the United States Senate either.

SPEAKER_08 2:16

None of us as individual members take any personal satisfaction in this. That this was a calculated and designed effort to deceive and mislead the committee with respect to the nature of the charges.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

And why did the Justice Department never press charges? The fall of Bob Packwood.

SPEAKER_09 3:51

On the Senate floor, when Barbara Boxer brought her resolution, he had an opportunity by voting with Senator Boxer. And those who voted for that. And I voted for Senator Boxer, and he declined to do so. So on two occasions, Senator Packwood had an opportunity to request a hearing, to face his accusers, and then chose in August to reverse his position.

SPEAKER_10 4:11

You voted on the floor. In fact, you spoke on the floor, unless I'm sadly mistaken, in favor of public hearings, and then after he said, Okay, I have changed my mind. You say we are not going to have public hearings. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_09 4:25

Speak only for myself. Our responsibility was to examine the evidence. We did so. It was overwhelming, it was powerful, it was compelling, clear and convincing that the senator was guilty on each of the charges.

SPEAKER_10 4:40

That this was this was not due process, that he did not get his day in court, came from two of your fellow Westerners, Senator Simpson of Wyoming and Senator Stevens of Alaska. I think fairly well-respected figures in the Senate, not extremists or nut nut cases. Uh uh isn't it, isn't it, would you want to go through that process where you cannot face your accuser, you cannot question your accuser, uh, that there is it's everything is done behind closed doors. But he had the right to do that.

SPEAKER_09 5:13

He had that right. He had the right in late July, he was asked, you know, he was before the committee for three consecutive days, and he notified us in writing, but I do not desire a publicity.

SPEAKER_10 5:26

Well we have a we have a trial going on in in in Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson, and every witness is is it can be interrogated, you have preliminary hearing. He could not interrogate any of these people, and he says that the witnesses he wanted you to question that gave conflicting evidence you wouldn't even call.

SPEAKER_09 5:45

It's not true. We asked the senator to provide a list of witnesses. He delayed weeks and months. Finally, we got the list. All of those, all of those witnesses were questioned by the committee.

SPEAKER_10 5:58

Now let me ask you this you're the judge, you're the jury, you're the prosecutor, you're everything that we don't have in our criminal justice system. You're all wrapped up. Did you personally question a single witness? I did not. I reviewed the side. No senator didn't do that.

SPEAKER_09 6:16

But but Bob, you're missing the point. You're missing the point. The senator had the right to do so, and he waived that right. He expressly declined. You've said that, sir. And on the floor of the United States Senate.

SPEAKER_10 6:28

Let me finish my point. You've said that several times. Because it is factual. No, but I want to go on to say. You cannot one time say, look, I don't want across the conversation, not importantly. And then later say, look, I want to move on to something else. I want to say that no, I don't think our viewers know that after you had made that before you had made a decision to expel one of your colleagues, not one of you, of these six senators, had ever questioned one of these complaints.

SPEAKER_09 6:52

We had we had the depositions before us. We had not personally examined. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_10 7:01

Johnny Cochran will be calling you tomorrow. You're talking about deflecting because he's still making it a firm trial, you're making it a system trial. I mean, I'm talking about the system trial.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

The fall of Bob Packwood. Fourteen episodes. A thorough examination of the remarkable rise and the swift and tragic fall. And even some of the life after the Senate. And the high cost to the presidential campaign of Bob Dole. Coming this season to the Randall Wallace Presents Podcast, The Fall of Bob Packwood.

SPEAKER_07 7:46

Senator Packwood, thank you for being uh with us. Happy to do it. The first question one has to ask is how are you feeling? You look pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Actually, uh Barbara, I feel like a gigantic cancer has been lifted off of my shoulders and uh much relieved and uh frankly very happy.

SPEAKER_07 8:06

Senator, the first time you went public about this, we did that first interview, you and I together, and you said I don't want to be remembered uh as the senator who was forced to resign. Is that inevitable now?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Oh, is it going to go down in history this way? Yes. Would I like to be remembered for the uh author of the Tax Reform Act? You bet. Would I like to be remembered for saving Hell's Canyon, uh, that great gorge between Oregon and Idaho? You bet. But I uh I understand after uh three years of headlines in the press uh that I will go down remembered for this one thing in this one case. Do I like it? No. Can I stop it? No, uh, therefore go on with life.

SPEAKER_09 8:47

Senator from California, Mr.

SPEAKER_06 8:51

President. I I did not know Senator Patwood well. Don't let a man be known for the last thing he does, let him be known for the best thing he does. And I think that is the legacy that hopefully is being written here this afternoon.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Join us for the fall of Bob Packwood on Bob No 1995, Clinton's Comeback on the Randall Wallace presents I the fall of Bob Packwood.