House Judiciary Committee Republicans outlined four proposed articles of impeachment against President Clinton on Wednesday, even as the White House wound up a two-day defense in which the president’s counsel said Clinton was guilty of “morally reprehensible” behavior but not criminality.
The GOP majority accused the president of two counts of perjury and single counts of obstruction of justice and abuse of power, all related to his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The charges were in an eight-page draft impeachment resolution that it hopes to send to the House floor by the end of the week, probably Saturday.
As the historic committee and House floor votes drew closer, both sides scrambled for support from undecided Republican moderates who hold the key to impeachment. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, urged his colleagues to “keep your powder dry” and not commit themselves until the issue comes to the floor next week. Democrats and Republicans alike agreed the floor vote will be extremely close.
As an alternative to impeachment, Democrats offered a censure resolution that would condemn the president for “making false statements concerning reprehensible conduct with a subordinate” and demand that he sign the resolution.
Hyde said that he would allow his committee to vote on the censure resolution after it votes on articles of impeachment.
The impeachment drama intensified Wednesday with release of the proposed articles and White House counsel Charles Ruff’s point-by-point challenge of the evidence in Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s report, which Republicans relied on in their impeachment resolution.
As a team of White House officials, including deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, surrounded him, Ruff also revealed that Clinton would not pardon himself if impeached by the House nor accept a pardon if he were impeached and removed from office.
On censure, Ruff said: “We’re looking for an end to the process. We are open to any reasonable suggestion from the other side.” A resolution imposing a fine on the president was given little chance unless Clinton offers to pay one.
Democrats, who were expecting the Republican-dominated committee to approve the articles, said they weren’t surprised by their contents. But Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), a panel member, called it “nothing more than a hanging jury. . . . I am 37 years old, and this is the scariest day of my life.”
Republicans said the abuse of power and obstruction of justice articles are weaker than those alleging perjury. The proposed obstruction of justice article alleges that Clinton tried to cover up his relationship with Lewinsky in a variety of ways, including encouraging Lewinsky to submit a false affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, helping in a plan to hide gifts that she gave him, and that he helped Lewinsky get a job to prevent her truthful testimony.
The proposed abuse of power article says Clinton “misused and abused” his office by deceiving the American people about his affair. The article says Clinton made false and misleading statements to his Cabinet and aides, frivolously asserting executive privilege to defend himself and making perjurious statements to Congress in answering the committee’s 81 questions.
The resolution called for Clinton to be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” cited in the Constitution.
By lying under oath and covering up the affair, the impeachment resolution said, Clinton “has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the presidency, has betrayed his trust as president, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
On a day that four former prosecutors, including former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan of the Northern District of Illinois, testified that the perjury allegations were bogus and would never be brought to trial by a typical prosecutor, GOP members insisted that lying by the nation’s chief executive is different because it thwarts the country’s judicial system and its system of government.
Democrats denied that Starr had proved the president had lied under oath and asserted that even if he had, it would not amount to an impeachable offense. They ridiculed allegations dealing with obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
The GOP listed two perjury counts, one alleging Clinton lied in his testimony before the federal grand jury and another in his deposition in the Jones suit. The reason for two counts is that many House members believe that grand jury perjury is more serious and deserves a separate article. It takes approval on only one of the articles to impeach the president and sets the stage for a trial in the Senate to remove him from office.
In committing grand jury perjury, according to the resolution, Clinton lied about the nature of his relationship with Lewinsky, repeated false testimony he gave in the Jones deposition, and lied about efforts to influence witnesses and the discovery of evidence in the Jones case.
At the heart of the allegation is Clinton’s definition of a sexual relationship, which his attorneys said Clinton understood to exclude oral sex. Even when he told the country in a nationally televised statement from the Roosevelt Room that he never had sex with Lewinsky, he had this peculiar definition in his mind, Ruff said.
Asked about whether the president had lied, Ruff came close to admitting it. He said that “reasonable people could determine that he crossed over that line and that what for him was truthful but misleading, or non-responsive and misleading, or evasive was, in fact, false. But in his mind– and that’s the heart and soul of perjury–he thought and believed that what he was doing was being evasive but truthful.”
To the White House’s argument that perjury could not be proved because Lewinsky’s testimony could not be corroborated, Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) said the former White House intern told at least seven of her friends at the time about details of the relationship that contradicted Clinton.
Ruff said Clinton has suffered publicly and privately. “He recognizes that like any citizen, he is and will be subject to the rule of law,” Ruff said.
He said the president’s conduct, “although morally reprehensible, does not warrant impeachment, does not warrant overturning the mandate of the American electorate.”
Democrats on the panel took heart from Ruff’s lengthy presentation, praising him for challenging the independent counsel’s referral to Congress alleging the president committed 11 impeachable offenses.
The White House counsel said, in essence, that Starr overreached in his report and alleged crimes that would not hold up in court.
For example, Ruff said, allegations that the president sought a job for Lewinsky to get her to sign an affidavit in the Jones case denying a sexual relationship with Clinton are false.
In an FBI interview, Lewinsky said there was no such agreement, he said. “Linda Tripp was the one who recommended she not sign the affidavit until she had a job,” he said.
Hyde said the draft impeachment resolution is a working document and could be amended when debate gets under way later on Thursday after Democratic and Republican counsels sum up their cases before the panel.
Earlier Wednesday, Sullivan joined former prosecutors, including former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, in declaring that the perjury case in Starr’s report is weak.
“The case simply would not be given serious consideration for prosecution,” Sullivan said. “It wouldn’t get in the door; it would be declared out of hand.”
Weld also said he favors censure of the president, along with a fine and apology.
