House Panel Drops Election Finances as Impeachment Item

The House Judiciary Committee abruptly dropped plans Thursday to include campaign financing in its impeachment inquiry, with the panel’s chairman declaring that there is “more than adequate” information available on the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal to merit a continued push against President Clinton.

In addition, the Senate majority leader gave his first indication that “it would be very hard not to” have a Senate trial to consider removing Clinton from office if he is impeached by the full House.

The swiftly moving developments signal that, should the House approve articles of impeachment, a Senate trial may follow quickly. It was not clear whether the certainty of a Senate trial would encourage or discourage House members from voting for impeachment.

Although House passage of one or more articles of impeachment is seen as something too close to call, it appears very unlikely that the two-thirds majority required for removing Clinton would be reached in the Senate.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House panel, said in a letter to the White House that, after reviewing sealed Justice Department memos on campaign fund-raising irregularities, his committee will take up those matters only after it decides whether Clinton should forfeit his office for allegedly lying and obstructing justice as he attempted to conceal his affair with Lewinsky.

“We will work with other committees of the House to get to the bottom of these lingering charges,” Hyde pledged. “We are far from satisfied that existing campaign finance laws have not been violated.”

He added that campaign fund-raising will be a “top oversight priority” in the new Congress that convenes in January.

“In the meantime,” he wrote, “we feel that there is more than adequate information before the committee to pursue the debate leading to articles of impeachment.”

Democrats and White House officials were clearly pleased that the fund-raising matter was being dropped. But some still questioned the Republicans’ rationale for bringing it up in the first place, since two other congressional committees already have studied the matter and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has refused to seek an independent counsel to review it.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a committee member, said that he thinks the fund-raising offshoot was a fool’s errand all along.

“I expected it,” he said of the Hyde decision to scrap the fund-raising matter. “It was obviously just a bone that he was throwing to his extremists on the committee.”

The White House is to present its case to the committee Tuesday, and Clinton’s lawyers have said that they may call their own witnesses. The committee directed the White House on Thursday to submit its witness list today, adding that the Republican-led committee will determine which witnesses will be permitted to testify.

After the White House presentation, lawyers for both sides of the committee will argue the evidence. The panel will then debate and vote on proposed articles of impeachment.

Should the matter clear the committee, the full House probably would take up the issue the following week. Both parties continued furious behind-the-scenes head-counting Thursday in an attempt to predict how the full House might come down on Clinton’s fate.

Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), whom the Republicans have chosen as their next speaker, said that he would not be “perfectly happy” about having the matter carry over into next year.

“My preference would be to get it over with this year,” Livingston said. “But if the Judiciary Committee doesn’t complete its work next week, it would be pretty certain that it would have to be carried over into the following year.”

The full House vote appears to be a nail-biter. Lawmakers said that the strongest case for impeachment seems to be allegations of perjury, with charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering receiving less support.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), asked if a trial would be automatically mandated if the House votes to impeach, said in his first public comments on the issue: “No, I don’t think you’re required to, no.

“But I think that it would be very hard not to, if the House in fact acted.”

Added Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.): “If the House voted to impeach the president, I’m inclined to think the Senate would be required to hold a trial. But there’s not a chance in the world he would be convicted.”

Lott cautioned that he has not taken any steps to prepare for having the impeachment matter land on his desk.

“We’re not making any plans or any preparation at this time,” he said.

“We have rules and procedures that were approved years ago in the wake of Watergate,” he added. “At the appropriate time, if need be, we will have a bipartisan effort to make sure that we know how to proceed if it’s necessary. But we’re not at that point.”

Lott’s surprise comments were significant because they marked the first time that he has openly raised the prospect of a Senate trial--after maintaining a near-total silence for much of the year on the controversy.

But Democrats in the Senate said that a trial would amount to nothing.

“My sense today is, there’s overwhelming sentiment in opposition to conviction,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said in an interview.

He based that conclusion on conversations with Republicans as well as Democrats.

“Some Republicans have volunteered to me already” that, at a minimum, a handful of the 55 GOP senators would join all 45 Democrats in voting against ousting the president, Daschle said.

“I don’t think the antipathy toward the president [in the Senate] is as consequential or as deep as in the House,” he added.

Daschle’s assessment was echoed by a number of Democrats and, in private, by some Republicans.

“The Senate doesn’t have the votes,” declared Tom Korologos, a prominent GOP lobbyist close to Senate GOP leaders. “It takes a two-thirds vote, and there aren’t 67.”

In a trial, he said, “the Senate huffs and puffs, decides the votes aren’t there and then says: ‘That’s enough. Case closed. That’s censure.’ ”

Some lawmakers are still discussing a middle ground, where Clinton might be subjected to a censure or a rebuke to stave off a draining, drawn-out impeachment process.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) circulated a censure proposal that would roundly chastise Clinton for alleged wrongdoing surrounding his affair with Lewinsky and order him to pay a fine and acknowledge his misconduct.

Democrats, either on the committee or in the full House, are likely to submit such a censure proposal in the weeks ahead.

The president, traveling in Newport, R.I., was asked by a reporter if he would accept censure. He did not comment, although White House aide Bruce Lindsey responded: “I have no earthly idea.”

Times staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this story.

The House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings can be seen on The Times’ Web site at:

https://www.latimes.com/scandal

* AFTER ESPY: Special prosecutor who lost Espy case urges new system to probe official wrongdoing. A19