OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, January 16, 2020
East Oregonian
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Impeachment: 51 votes needed to approve rules, call witnesses
Continued from Page A1
charges with a tally reflecting
the nation’s split.
The House impeached
Trump last month alleging he
abused his presidential power
by pressuring Ukraine to
investigate Democratic rival
Joe Biden, using military aid
to the country as leverage.
Trump was also charged with
obstructing Congress’ ensu-
ing probe.
“This is what an impeach-
ment is about,″ Pelosi said
before the vote. “The pres-
ident violated his oath of
office, undermined our
national security, jeopardized
the integrity of our elections.”
Trump’s political cam-
paign dismissed the House
effort as “just a failed attempt
to politically damage Presi-
dent Trump leading up to his
re-election.”
The top Republican in the
House, Kevin McCarthy of
California, said Americans
will look back on this “sad
saga” that tried to remove the
president from office with the
“weakest case.”
The president’s team
expects acquittal with a Sen-
ate trial lasting no more than
two weeks, according to
senior administration offi-
cials unauthorized to dis-
cuss the matter and granted
anonymity.
That’s far shorter than the
last presidential impeachment
trial, of Bill Clinton, in 1999,
or the first one, of Andrew
Johnson, in 1868.
As McConnell sets the
rules for the trial, Trump has
given mixed messages about
whether he prefers lengthy
or swift proceeding, and
senators are under pressure
with the emerging new evi-
dence to call more witnesses
for testimony.
House Television via AP
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California speaks as the House of Representatives debates the impeachment managers reso-
lution at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday.
The seven-member pros-
ecution team was led by
the chairmen of the House
impeachment proceedings,
Reps. Adam Schiff of the
Intelligence Committee and
Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary
Committee, two of Pelosi’s
top lieutenants.
“President Trump gravely
abused the power of his
office,” Nadler said. “He did
all this for his personal polit-
ical gain.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s
session, Schiff released
new records from Lev Par-
nas, an associate of Trump
lawyer Rudy Giuliani,
about the Ukraine strategy,
including an exchange with
another man about surveil-
ling later-fired Ambassador
Marie Yovanovitch.
Schiff said the new evi-
dence should bring more
pressure on McConnell, who
is reluctant to allow witnesses
to testify and prefers swift
acquittal. The White House
has instructed officials not
to comply with House sub-
poenas for testimony and
documents.
“The challenge is to get
a fair trial,” Schiff said in an
interview with The Associ-
ated Press. “It shouldn’t be a
challenge — if the senators
are really going to live up
to their oath to be impartial,
they’ll want a fair trial. That’s
obviously not where Mitch
McConnell is coming from.”
The managers are a diverse
group with legal, law enforce-
ment and military experi-
ence, including Hakeem Jef-
fries of New York, Sylvia
Garcia of Texas, Val Dem-
ings of Florida, Jason Crow of
Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of
California.
Two are freshmen law-
makers — Crow a former
Army Ranger who served in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Gar-
cia a former judge in Hous-
ton. Demings is the former
police chief of Orlando and
Jeffries is a lawyer and mem-
ber of party leadership. Lof-
gren has the rare credential
of having worked on the con-
gressional staff investigation
of then-President Richard
Nixon’s impeachment — he
resigned before the full House
voted on the charges — and
then being an elected law-
maker during Bill Clinton’s.
For the roll call, all but
one Democrat, Rep. Col-
lin Peterson of Minnesota,
voted to transmit the arti-
cles. All Republicans voted
against. One former Repub-
lican-turned-independent,
Rep. Justin Amash of Mich-
igan, joined Democrats.
McConnell faces compet-
ing interests from his party
for more witnesses, from
centrists who are siding with
Democrats on the need to
hear testimony and conser-
vatives mounting Trump’s
defense.
Senate Republicans sig-
naled they would reject the
idea of simply voting to dis-
miss the articles of impeach-
ment against Trump, as
Trump himself has sug-
gested. McConnell agreed he
does not have the votes to do
that.
Sen. Susan Collins of
Maine is leading an effort
among some Republicans,
including Mitt Romney of
Utah, Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska and Lamar Alexan-
der of Tennessee, to consider
Senate witnesses. She told
reporters she was satisfied
the rules will allow votes on
that.
Romney said he wants
to hear from John Bolton,
the former national secu-
rity adviser at the White
House, who others have
said raised alarms about the
alternative foreign policy
toward Ukraine being run by
Giuliani.
Those or any four sena-
tors could force an outcome.
Republicans control the
chamber, 53-47, and are all
but certain to acquit Trump.
But it takes just 51 votes
during the trial to approve
rules or call witnesses. It also
would take only 51 senators
to vote to dismiss the charges
against Trump.
Sen. Rand Paul of Ken-
tucky and other Republicans
want to subpoena Biden and
his son, Hunter, who served
on the board of a gas com-
pany in Ukraine, Burisma,
while his father was vice
president.
McConnell prefers to
model Trump’s trial partly on
the process used for Clinton’s
impeachment trial in 1999,
which considered witnesses
later.
McConnell is hesitant
to call new witnesses who
would prolong the trial and
put vulnerable senators who
are up for re-election in 2020
in a bind with tough choices.
At the same time, he wants
to give those same senators
ample room to show voters
they are listening.
Whiskey: 1920s high school prom
was once held in the basement
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Tracey Bosen, co-proprietor of the Pendleton House bed-and-breakfast, takes 10 pint bottles
of 1913 whiskey from where they were found by a workman in the attic under a pile of old
roofing tiles.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A workman discovered a cache of 1913 whiskey in the attic under a pile of vintage terra cotta
roofing tiles while prepping for insulation work.
found out about Harp’s dis-
covery when the workman
hurried noisily down the
house’s ornate staircase.
“I heard John quickly
stomping
downstairs,”
Bosen said.
They trekked back to the
attic where they stared at
the cache of bottles. No way,
Bosen thought, not again.
He grinned and called his
partner.
“He said, ‘You bet-
ter come home — we
found more whiskey,’” said
Michel, who at first thought
Bosen was joking.
The pair peered at the
bottles. The label said the
whiskey was “bottled in
bond,” which refers to the
Bottle-In-Bond Act of 1897,
in effect the country’s first
consumer protection law.
The law required that whis-
key must be the product of
a single distillery, aged in a
federally bonded warehouse
for four years and bottled at
100 proof.
These bottles weren’t in
as pristine a condition as the
first cache of bottles. A few
bore cracks. One contained
only sediment.
Since buying the house at
311 N. Main in 2014, Bosen
and Michel have found
other clues about past occu-
pants. When they tore out
the dumbwaiter, they found
a large stack of stogie butts.
Lowell Rogers, the
house’s original owner
with his wife Minnie, was
reportedly a cigar smoker.
“There were a bunch of
“THESE ARE
TREASURES
THAT BELONG
TO THE HOUSE”
— Tracey Bosen
stogie butts on top of the
dumbwaiter box,” Bosen
said. “He had stuck them
through a knothole and they
had landed there.”
The men have heard
plenty of stories of a still in
the house and how Mr. Rog-
ers may have moonlighted
from his day job as founder
and owner of the Rogers
cannery.
“A gentleman came to
the house and said that as a
kid he and his father would
come here during Prohibi-
tion,” Bosen said. “As a kid,
he didn’t know what was
going on. As they would
shake hands and part, Mr.
Rogers handed his father
a brown paper bag with
something shaped like a
bottle inside.”
Bosen and Michel,
who are partners in busi-
ness and in life, fell in love
with the 7,000-square-foot
house when it belonged to
last owner and friend Mar-
ijo Baird. The home boasts
ornate ceilings, thick walls,
four garages, a chandelier in
a bathroom and a four-per-
son elevator installed in
1947 for the Rogers’ daugh-
ter Gwendolyn, who had
polio.
One year in the 1920s, the
high school held the prom in
the basement. Many of the
rooms remain a pale pink,
Mrs. Rogers’ favorite color.
After a trip to Italy in 1922,
Mrs. Rogers had the brick
home covered in stucco and
painted in pinkish hues.
The
couple,
whose
wealth came from a pea
growing and canning oper-
ation, often held parties at
the home.
“I have this image of
this house as a party place,
but not in a negative way,”
Bosen said. “People came
here to be entertained. They
were gracious and very
generous.”
The couple was also
known for its philanthropic
giving, Michel said.
Ernest and Carolyn Ros-
tock, who bought the house
in 1988 for $110,000, trans-
formed the home into a
bed-and-breakfast.
Bosen and Michel aren’t
yet sure what they will do
with their growing collec-
tion of Prohibition-era whis-
key. When they remodel
the third story into a guest
suite, they may call it the
Whiskey Room. Both men
love a good glass of whis-
key, so they are considering
uncorking one or more of
the bottles, but then again,
maybe not.
“These are treasures that
belong to the house,” Bosen
said. “I don’t even care
about finding gold coins or
stock certificates. This is
just perfect.”
If they do open any of
the whiskey, Michel said,
the uncorking would likely
take place on July 4, the day
Lowell Rogers died in 1954.
Deer: ‘Mule deer are still susceptible, but not nearly to the same degree’
Continued from Page A1
disease was found, a dis-
ease spread by biting gnats
that breed in pools of stag-
nant water — sometimes as
small as a hoof print.
Rimbach said he believes
the late summer and early
fall weather contributed to
the spread of the disease.
“My opinion is it was
a perfect storm for biting
midge production,” Rim-
bach said. “Starting with
archery season, we had a lot
of moisture and warm tem-
peratures and there were
puddles everywhere.”
The outbreak seems to
be somewhat limited to
Umatilla County, but Rim-
bach said wildlife manag-
ers in Southeastern Wash-
ington also reported seeing
fewer white-tailed deer this
fall.
Mule deer, Rimbach
said, are not nearly as sus-
ceptible to hemorrhagic
diseases and have not been
affected by the outbreak,
which he said could be due
to a genetic disposition.
“Mule deer are still sus-
ceptible, but not nearly to
the same degree,” he said.
Not all deer infected with
the virus die, Rimbach said,
but will be sick for a while,
compromising their health
as winter approaches.
White-tailed deer num-
bers are on the rise in East-
ern Oregon, but the die-off
has the state wildlife depart-
ment determining whether
to reduce the number of deer
tags or cancel hunts in the
Walla Walla, Mount Emily
and Ukiah hunting units.
The state agency reported it
will inform hunters of any
changes by April 15 so they
have time to change their
controlled hunt application
choices before the May 15
deadline.
“It’s unfortunate, but
the only thing we can do is
manage our hunters,” Rim-
bach said.
If Rimbach does decide
to cancel some of the tags in
the Walla Walla, Mt. Emily
and Ukiah hunting units,
he said it won’t affect buck
deer rifle hunting.
Meat from game with
EHD is consumable and
the disease is not transmit-
table to humans, according
to the wildlife department,
but experts recommend
thoroughly cooking any
meat from animals from an
infected area. Well-cooked
venison, Rimbach said,
would be just fine.
“I would eat it,” he said.
———
La Grande Observer
Editor Phil Wright contrib-
uted to this report.