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Strategies & Market Trends : Waiting for the big Kahuna -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Philipp who wrote (27788)	9/14/1998 5:33:00 AM
From: flickerful	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 94695

financial times. MONDAY SEPTEMBER 14 1998ÿÿAmericasÿ Clinton urged to tone down legal attacks By Richard Wolffe and Adrian Michaels in Washington President Bill Clinton was urged yesterday to drop his aggressive legal defence against perjury charges in the Starr report and accept he had lied under oath in his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Mr Clinton came under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to tone down his lawyers' attacks on Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel. The president was urged to bring his legal strategy in line with his own contrite apologies for the 18-month affair with the former White House intern. However, White House lawyers continued to argue defiantly against Mr Starr's findings and vigorously rejected all 11 grounds for bringing impeachment charges against the president. In a detailed rebuttal released over the weekend, Mr Clinton's legal team dismissed the Starr report as "a hit-and-run smear campaign" with no credible evidence to support charges of perjury, obstruction of justice or tampering with witnesses. David Kendall, the president's personal attorney, said yesterday: "From the beginning, we were told and assured this is not a case about sex. It turns out to be a case about sex and only sex. "The question is not about private misconduct - the president has acknowledged that. The question really is whether there is substantial evidence of something that might constitute public high crimes and misdemeanours." White House lawyers insisted that Mr Clinton had not committed perjury in denying a sexual affair with Ms Lewinsky in his evidence in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. They argue that the president was technically correct in "narrow answers to ambiguous questions". But Bob Kerrey, the Democrat senator from Nebraska, said the president would lose his fight for survival if his lawyers continued such a defence while Mr Clinton apologised for lying. "If you come and say to the American people that I'm legally correct, I didn't have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky; you're going to lose," he said. "And I hope that the president understands that." Other Democrats said the president's apologies had already been sufficient to avoid impeachment. David Bonior, the Democratic whip in the House of Representatives, said a motion of censure was now "a very real option" in place of impeachment. Mr Clinton came under continued pressure from Republican leaders to consider resignation. But Orrin Hatch, the Republican head of the Senate judiciary committee, suggested that the president could avoid impeachment if he admitted perjury and continued to apologise to the public. "He is being very badly served with this legal hair-splitting," he said. "Nobody believes that. Nobody wants to hear that. What they want to hear is a president who is truly contrite. The American people are a lot smarter than these $400-an-hour lawyers think they are." The Starr report is now in the hands of the House judiciary committee. This month, the committee will consider whether there are sufficient grounds for beginning impeachment hearings. Opinion polls conducted since the release of the Starr report are mixed. An ABC News poll said 57 per cent of those questioned think Mr Clinton should be impeached if he encouraged Ms Lewinsky to lie. But an NBC News poll found the president's job approval rating at 67 per cent.