Rep. Hyde Set for Tough Call on Starr’s Report

Nobody knows exactly when the delivery will occur. But sometime after all the evidence has been compiled, witnesses deposed and documents drafted, the independent counsel’s report on President Clinton’s alleged affair with a former White House intern is likely to land in one of the most judicious laps on Capitol Hill.

The politically charged case is enough to make some Republicans’ mouths water, others to run for cover. But for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, a towering, white-haired septuagenarian known for his willingness to make tough calls, it is just one more judgment to render.

Unlike GOP colleagues who compete to deliver the highest-voltage criticism of Clinton’s conduct, the Illinois Republican insists he will approach the case in the same way he would want someone to proceed in judging him. “An effort should be made by everybody to hold their fire until we get all the facts,” he cautioned in typical Hyde-speak.

But that sense of restraint has not kept him from closely following the cascade of reports about the president’s alleged sexual involvement with Monica S. Lewinsky. “I’m bewildered, like a lot of people are, about the abundance of stories that are negative,” he said. “There’s just so many of them.”

White House aides say privately that they could do much worse than to have the case against the president evaluated by Hyde, despite his reputation as a devout Republican. And Clinton’s most vehement critics say Hyde’s principled demeanor is exactly what is needed to make any case against the president stick.

Hyde, whose reputation for evenhandedness is leavened by a feisty personality, oversees a Judiciary Committee packed with vigorous partisans on both sides of the aisle. The 34-member roster runs the gamut from Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), an archconservative who began calling for impeachment proceedings against Clinton long before Lewinsky’s name surfaced, to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an outspoken liberal who has bitterly attacked independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s inquiry into the Lewinsky matter.

Maintaining decorum with so many forceful personalities, Hyde muses, is like keeping order at a rambunctious playground. As for a president who evokes so many strong reactions from others, Hyde states matter-of-factly, “I neither hate him nor love him.”

In fact, Hyde keeps a photo of himself with the president hanging on the wall of his Washington office, in what he considers a show of respect for the institution of the presidency. (“With regards,” Clinton signed.)

After slipping up once by speculating about the likelihood of impeachment in a television interview, Hyde now studiously avoids the I-word, even as some of his more vociferous colleagues publicly denounce the president as “shameless” and a “scumbag.”

Slumped in a chair during a break in a recent floor debate, Hyde noted that impeachment would be impossible without broad support from Democrats and that the process could be treacherous for his own party if the public views it as a partisan attack.

Hyde, who began his congressional career in the wake of Watergate, is reluctant to discuss the specifics of the Clinton case. He allowed in one interview that the key question is whether any lying by the president, if proved, would “rise to the level of an abuse of the highest office of the land.”

“I can’t answer that now,” he concluded.

The 74-year-old lawmaker, currently serving his 12th term in Congress, resists categorization. His staunch opposition to abortion--an issue upon which he will not bend--makes him a favorite of conservatives. But he has parted ways with his leadership on hot-button issues like term limits and gun control, and sometimes strays across the aisle to form odd-couple alliances with key Democrats.

It was the grandfatherly Hyde who once counseled incoming freshmen that they should decide early in their congressional careers the principle or policy for which they would be willing to forfeit their office. “There are things worth losing for,” he said.

Despite what he characterizes as a regrettable decline in congressional comity in recent years, Hyde says he cannot imagine doing anything else. “I enjoy the cut and thrust of this place--no matter how picayune things can be,” he said.

For occasional escape, he buries himself in books, follows the Chicago Bulls and makes weekly trips to a movie theater. (One favorite is “Amistad,” particularly the scene in which Anthony Hopkins, playing Martin van Buren, delivers an emotional argument before the Supreme Court. There is no word on whether he has seen “Primary Colors,” the fictional portrayal of a hyper-ambitious Southern president.)

With his imposing physical presence and booming voice, Hyde was the first choice of many Republicans to become the next House speaker at a point last year when it appeared Newt Gingrich might not survive his ethics travails.

Decades ago, Hyde was a Chicago courtroom attorney and a registered Democrat. His first step after winning a $1.3-million boost in his panel’s budget last month was to hire a Chicago Democrat as his chief counsel: former organized crime prosecutor David P. Schippers.

Schippers ostensibly was hired to help Hyde with an ongoing review of the Justice Department. But Hyde acknowledged that the two men, who have known each other for decades, have discussed the Clinton inquiry and that Schippers and other new staffers may have to “make a lateral move if that is required.”

Democrats say the key to whether an investigation proceeds fairly will be the degree to which Hyde runs it himself, rather than taking marching orders from the Gingrich cabal. In 1994, they note, Hyde subordinated his own objectives to those of House leaders by moving much of the “contract with America” agenda through his panel.

So far in the Clinton inquiry, Hyde has shown restraint, but not acquiescence.

He responded frostily last week to a Democratic proposal to change the law so parents and children could not be compelled to testify against each other in federal matters, an idea that surfaced after Lewinsky’s mother was called before Starr’s grand jury.

Hyde told supporters of the proposed parental privilege that they should have been just as concerned during the Iran-Contra affair when the wife, sister, baby-sitter and minister of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, an aide to former President Reagan, were questioned.

Starr’s camp has signaled in recent days that the Lewinsky investigation may continue beyond May, when many lawmakers were assuming his report would reach Capitol Hill. That could be good news for Republicans who are reluctant to delve into such a politically volatile issue just before this fall’s midterm congressional elections.

Gingrich, anxious to avoid mishandling the case, at one point considered sidestepping the judiciary panel altogether. But many lawmakers objected, and Hyde hinted he might disengage completely if other GOP committee chairmen were allowed to chip away at his turf.

Gingrich’s current plan is to gather a small group of lawmakers--led by Hyde--to review Starr’s evidence. Aides say the review group would include at least one woman, even though all the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are men. The special panel would be less unruly than the full Judiciary Committee, Gingrich has argued, and better able to keep a tight lid on secret grand jury information.

As Republicans map out their strategy behind closed doors, they are showing markedly different levels of anticipation about the fruits of Starr’s investigation.

“I think we have to have the facts before we make any judgments about what we’re going to do, because we simply don’t know what the independent prosecutor has,” said Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.), a junior member of the Judiciary Committee. “If he does send us a report that contains evidence . . . relating to impeachable offenses, we have to take that seriously. . . . But that’s a big if at this point.”

Others are champing at the bit to get their hands on any evidence Starr has assembled. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, the third-ranking member of the GOP leadership, is already lining up in his mind a potential witness list for impeachment proceedings. He hopes to solicit testimony directly from Lewinsky and Kathleen Willey, a former White House employee who accused the president of groping her near the Oval Office.

Barr, the Judiciary Committee member who tried to launch immediate impeachment proceedings, is frustrated because only 22 Republicans supported his effort and party leaders seem to be pulling their punches.