House Moving Quick on Starr Report
By Larry Margasak
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 10, 1998; 7:18 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thrust into the first presidential impeachment case since Watergate, the House is moving rapidly to release some of the ''substantial and credible'' information gathered by prosecutors against President Clinton.
A day after Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr surprised Congress and the White House by delivering 36 boxes of impeachment material to the Capitol with extraordinary security, lawmakers planned today to finalize arrangements to make at least 445-pages public Friday. The information would be posted on the Internet.
Sources familiar with the report said it lays out evidence of alleged obstruction of justice, perjury and abuse of power by Clinton in his effort to conceal his affair with Monica Lewinsky -- in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against the president and the subsequent criminal investigation. The sources, who spoke only if not identified, were not more specific.
Clinton's personal attorney, David Kendall, immediately went before microphones Wednesday at the White House to insist, ''There is no basis for impeachment.''
But Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly told reporters the independent counsel had turned over ''substantial and credible information that may constitute grounds for impeachment of the president of the United States.''
When the Starr material arrived at the Capitol, Clinton was in Florida for two fund-raisers, assuring key supporters that he is contrite and willing to do what it takes to weather the controversy, aides said.
Now facing the gravest challenge in a career of political crises, Clinton planned to meet today with Senate Democrats and his Cabinet.
Following a dizzying series of meetings among House members Wednesday, much remained unsettled on how lawmakers would proceed. Republicans balked at Democratic requests that the White House be given a day or two to review the Starr material and respond.
''The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee feel this is important as a matter of basic fairness,'' said a Democratic committee official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''I don't think we're going to win the fight.''
Discussions also were under way on whether to quickly make public some 2,500 pages of backup material Starr gathered in his grand jury inquiry, said Rep. Gerald B. Solomon, chairman of the House Rules Committee and a key Republican negotiator.
But Starr cautioned in a letter to House leaders: ''Many of the supporting materials contain information of a personal nature that I respectfully urge the House to treat as confidential.''
Other unresolved matters include how much authority Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., should be allowed to wield without Democratic consent, and a timetable for determining whether Starr's report warrants a full-scale impeachment inquiry by the House.
The 445 pages include a 25-page introduction, a 280-page narrative and 140 pages detailing grounds for possible impeachment, Solomon, R-N.Y., said.
Solomon told reporters he recommended to colleagues that a Judiciary Committee review of the material be completed this year, possibly before the November election. If need be, the House could recess when legislative business is completed for the year and return to vote on conducting a full impeachment inquiry next year, he said.
However, the new Congress seated in January would have to reconfirm any decision to move ahead.
Republicans and Democrats alike emphasized repeatedly Wednesday their wish to keep politics out of the serious issue of impeachment. However, Solomon said, ''Some would like to stonewall on both sides'' of the political aisle.
Only one president -- Andrew Johnson in 1868-- has been impeached by the House, and he was acquitted by a single vote in a trial in the Senate. In 1974, Richard Nixon stood on the brink of impeachment over the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate, but he resigned before any votes were taken by the full House.
Watergate has cropped up frequently in recent weeks as House lawyers studied precedents in anticipation of Starr's report. And in a speech in the Senate on Wednesday, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., accused Clinton of handling the current scandal as ineptly as Nixon did his.
''We seem to be living history over again,'' said Byrd, who long served as his party's leader in the Senate. ''Time seems to be turning backward in its flight. And many of the mistakes that President Nixon made are being made all over again.''
Starr's grand jury has questioned numerous witnesses since January, when a former colleague of Ms. Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, precipitated Starr's inquiry by providing prosecutors with taped conversations in which the former White House intern alleged an 18-month affair with the president.
On Jan. 21, Clinton publicly denied having sex with Ms. Lewinsky or telling anyone to lie. In the intervening months, the White House battled Starr's office over his right to question Secret Service agents and White House lawyers.
Clinton confidants such as Vernon Jordan and Oval Office secretary Betty Currie were questioned as Starr looked into whether Clinton tried to buy Ms. Lewinsky's silence with job offers and gifts.
Clinton made a speech to the nation on Aug. 17 about Ms. Lewinsky in which he described his relationship with her as wrong and ''inappropriate.''
The 36 boxes delivered by Starr arrived outside the Capitol late Wednesday afternoon in two vans. Hundreds of tourists and reporters watched the boxes handled like they were filled with gold bars, with police officers standing by as the material was transferred by congressional vehicles to a secure room at a congressional office building nearby. No member of Congress was allowed to see the information.
With the fate of his presidency possibly residing in that locked room, Clinton made an appeal to Democrats on Wednesday. His voice falling to a murmur in a banquet hall of supporters, Clinton told Democrats in Orlando, Fla.: ''I ask you for your understanding, for your forgiveness.'' He promised to set the Lewinsky matter right before the November elections.
''I'm determined to redeem the trust of all the American people,'' he said. |
