Ousting a Peer

Panel votes to expel Williams

The U.S. Senate was only eight years old when it first expelled a member.

The crime committed by William Blount of Tennessee: inciting Indians to attack the Spanish colonies of Florida and Louisiana. Since then another 14 Senators have been ousted, all for their treasonous support of the South in the Civil War. By comparison, Harrison Williams' involvement in the Abscam bribery scandal seems rather prosaic. But last week all six members of the Senate Ethics Committee recommended that Williams, 61, become the 16th Senator in history--and the first in 119 years--to get the heave-ho.

The committee made its decision after reviewing videotapes and other evidence of the New Jersey Senator's dealings with undercover FBI agents. The tapes, which caused a sensation during Williams' trial in federal court last April, show him meeting with an agent dressed in sheik's clothes and boasting of his close ties to then President Carter and other officials. The panel, like the federal jury, concluded the Senator had abused his office by accepting a secret share in a Virginia titanium mine, attempting to obtain a $100 million loan for the venture, and promising to use his influence to secure government contracts for the mine and immigration papers for the bogus sheik. His conduct, said Chairman Malcolm Wallop, "was ethically repugnant to the point of warranting his expulsion."

Still, in one respect, the Senators gave their colleague a break. They recommended that the Senate postpone the vote on expulsion until Federal Judge George Pratt has ruled on an appeal of Williams' conviction, probably by November. The Senator has claimed that he was "entrapped" by federal agents, who led him to commit crimes he was not otherwise disposed to commit. Says he: "There are major matters still confronting the court."

These matters may not impress Judge Pratt. Four of the six U.S. Representatives stung by Abscam made similar appeals in his court and lost. Of the six, only one, Michael Myers of Philadelphia, has been expelled from the House. Two others resigned and three lost their seats in elections. Williams believes that his case is the strongest: tapes show that he refused a bribe from FBI agents and that a bureau informant coached him to "tell anything" to the sheik. Should his appeal fail, Williams will probably resign. Expulsion, as the Senator glumly admits, would mean an unwanted "note in the history books," though it would not affect his pension--a generous $43,500 a year.

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