<snip>
St. Louis | William Hungate, a former federal judge and congressman who sponsored one of the articles of impeachment against President Nixon, died Friday, his family said. He was 84.
Hungate had complications from surgery June 6 after suffering a blood clot in the brain, they said.
A Democrat, Hungate represented Missouri's 9th District from November 1964 to January 1977. Hungate sponsored the second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon before the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate proceeding. Approved by the panel July 29, 1974, it said Nixon repeatedly failed to carry out his duty to uphold the law.
That fall, Hungate, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on criminal justice, led the investigation of the presidential pardon of Nixon by his successor, President Ford. The new president appeared and gave sworn testimony before the subcommittee in October 1974, the first time a sitting president had given such testimony.
The subcommittee then voted 6-3 not to pursue the matter further, with Hungate voting with the majority. The three dissenters had wanted Ford and his aides to answer more questions.
The following year, Hungate announced he would not seek another term in 1976. He said that the pressures of the job had sapped his enthusiasm, and politics had gone "from the age of 'Camelot,' where all things were possible, to the age of Watergate, when all things were suspect."<snip>
Link:
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/article/20070624/NEWS/706240374/1051/NEWSTo William Hungate, as a Democrat and an American, I salute and thank you for your service.
:patriot:
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