WASHINGTON (AFP) — Henry Hyde, the congressman who led impeachment hearings against former president Bill Clinton, died Thursday aged 83, his Republican party said.
Hyde, who also served as chairman of the House International Relations committee, did not run for reelection last year, ending a 30-year career in Congress.
President George W. Bush, who last month awarded Hyde the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said he was deeply saddened by the veteran lawmaker's passing.
"This fine man believed in the power of freedom, and he was a tireless champion of the weak and forgotten," the president said in a statement.
Hyde, a proud conservative Republican was awarded South Korea's highest civilian honor, the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit Gwanghwa Medal, last year for his work in firming South Korea-US ties.
While head of the House Judiciary Committee Hyde, who represented a district in Illinois, shepherded impeachment proceedings against Clinton over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He later acted as chief prosecutor in Clinton's trial in the Senate.
But the assignment was bruising for him personally, as an online magazine accused him of hypocrisy after revealing his own affair 30 years before.
John Boehner, current Republican leader in the House, Thursday praised Hyde, who had been in ill health for several years, as a gentleman who stood as a "beacon for the bedrock principles" of liberty and justice.
"Hard as it is to let go, we can be comforted knowing that God gave us a man of Henry Hyde's character who did his patriotic duty to the fullest."
Mitch McConnell, top Republican in the Senate added: "Today we lost a true statesman."
Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi also paid tribute.
"Though we were often on opposite sides of various issues, we were able to join together on certain issues ... to make progress for all Americans," she said.
Internationally, Hyde was a staunch anti-communist who opposed abortion, strongly backed Israel, and supported the Iraq war.
When he was awarded the Gwanghwa medal in Washington by South Korea's ambassador Lee Tae-Sik last year, he cited a Korean proverb which he said summed up the ties between the two peoples: "Even a sheet of paper seems lighter when two people lift it together."
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