Impeachment Panel Summons Memos on Clinton Campaign

The Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee, armed with four subpoenas approved on Tuesday, urged a federal judge to turn over internal memos from the Justice Department’s campaign-financing investigation so that it could broaden its impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.

The search for fund-raising memos allegedly detailing evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the Clinton administration comes about 10 days before the committee is slated to vote on articles of impeachment related to the president’s attempts to conceal his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.

The Republicans’ effort to obtain the campaign-finance information represents a departure into an area that two other congressional committees already have investigated at length, and it creates doubts about what connection, if any, the new focus might have on their push to punish Clinton for allegedly lying and obstructing justice in the Lewinsky matter.

Partisan Clashes Follow Move

The broadening of the probe only deepened the already bitter partisan divisions on the panel, and members clashed over the righteousness of their efforts either to destroy or to salvage the Clinton presidency.

Republicans insisted that they are authorized and obligated to determine whether Clinton was involved in any campaign fund-raising violations that would warrant impeachment.

“We just want to look at the documents and see where they lead,” said Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.). “And see if they lead back to the White House.”

He argued that 95 people had taken the 5th Amendment in refusing to answer questions about Democratic fund-raising tactics, and others had “fled the country” to avoid scrutiny by previous congressional and Justice Department investigators.

“We’re going to take a look and it’s justifiable we take a look,” said Hyde, who reiterated his commitment to conclude the inquiry by the end of the year.

But Democrats warned that the fund-raising subpoenas send the impeachment inquiry into “unrelated matters.”

“We’re hurtling headlong into a constitutional crisis which the American people, in their wisdom, have begged us to rein in and reject,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “These new subpoenas wave a red flag that common sense and common wisdom are not welcome here.”

Added Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.): “This is the last desperate gasp of a group of people who were determined to impeach the president and haven’t yet gotten their way. It’s a desperate effort that demeans this process.”

Other Democrats dismissed the new line of inquiry as a fishing expedition.

The Judiciary panel also heard Tuesday from legal experts and two convicted perjurers on the subject of the strongest charge against Clinton, and it now awaits word from the White House today on whether it will accept an offer to defend the president at a session tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.

The president already has decided not to appear before the committee, a determination his supporters defended in light of the political infighting of Tuesday’s hearing.

“I think anyone who watched the proceedings would understand why the president of the United States has no business in that room,” said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.

Later next week, the panel is scheduled to hear presentations on the evidence from chief GOP counsel David Schippers and Abbe Lowell, his Democratic counterpart.

Committee debate on articles of impeachment could begin as soon as Dec. 10.

After the subpoenas were approved Tuesday on a 20-15 party-line vote, Republican staffers went before U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to again appeal for her release of the Justice Department documents. The judge and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno have refused to turn them over because they include secret federal grand jury material and their release could hinder ongoing investigations.

Sources said the judge set a closed-door hearing for this morning to review the matter, and there were indications that the Justice Department--considering an impeachment inquiry more authoritative than the House oversight committee that earlier sought but failed to obtain the same records--would support a decision by the judge to release the memos.

The main subpoena was directed to Reno, who was ordered to turn over internal reports from her fund-raising probe.

Those reports include a memo from Charles G. LaBella, former head of her campaign financing task force, in which he recommended the appointment of an independent counsel to continue the investigation, and a follow-up report from FBI Director Louis J. Freeh supporting that request.

Panel Summons Freeh, LaBella

Other papers sought include reviews of the LaBella memo by Lee J. Radek, chief of Justice’s public integrity section, and James K. Robinson, assistant attorney general for the criminal division.

Two of the subpoenas order LaBella and Freeh to answer questions in depositions about the fund-raising investigation.

The fourth orders independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr to turn over all of his files on John Huang--a central figure in the fund-raising scandal who allegedly assisted Webster L. Hubbell, a former high-ranking Justice Department official who Starr believes has information about the actions of the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Whitewater matter.

The Republicans had planned to subpoena Clinton to force him to order Reno to release the materials, but they dropped that idea when they believed the other subpoenas would influence Johnson to act.

“We understand we will be served with a subpoena, and we will work with the committee in every way possible consistent with the law,” said Myron Marlin, Reno’s chief spokesman.

Freeh declined comment when asked if he would ease his opposition to releasing his memo. LaBella, now the U.S. attorney in San Diego, could not be reached Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Starr also declined to comment.

The committee’s scramble to obtain the campaign finance memos follows a similar effort by a separate House panel several months ago.

In August, the Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted along party lines to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the LaBella and Freeh memos. Later, Reno showed portions of the memos to panel chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and ranking minority member Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). Although Burton saw the documents as far more damning than did Waxman, his final report, issued last month, cited no evidence of impeachable offenses by Clinton.

Also on Tuesday, two convicted perjurers and a panel of legal experts testified in a carefully scripted hearing on the impact of lying under oath.

“Because a president is not a king, he or she must abide by the same laws as the rest of us,” testified Barbara Battalino of Los Osos, Calif., a former Veterans Affairs psychiatrist who was fined and sentenced to home detention for lying about a sexual encounter on government property.

At her side was Pam Parsons, who recounted how she pleaded guilty to a federal perjury charge in the mid-1980s for lying in a civil case about a sexual relationship she had with one of the players she coached on the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team.

Parsons said she had acknowledged her lying and paid the consequences, including probation and community service, and that Clinton should, too.

Later in the day, experts stepped to the witness table to spar over the seriousness of Clinton’s alleged perjury.

Retired Adm. Leon A. Edney of Annapolis, Md., spoke of the necessity of ethics and integrity among leaders. “Leadership by example must come from the top,” Edney said. “ ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ will not hack it in the military.”

But U.S. Circuit Judge Charles E. Wiggins of the Court of Appeals in Las Vegas surprised Republicans by saying impeachment was a close call, one he would probably rule against.

Wiggins said he could understand the committee sending impeachment articles to the House floor but that he would recommend against approval by the full House.

“I don’t think you must impeach for every finding of perjury or every finding of obstruction of justice,” said Wiggins, a former GOP congressman from California who served on the panel during Watergate.

Staff writers Ann L. Kim and Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.

Times on the Web

* Video excerpts from Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing are available online athttps://www.latimes.com/scandal