Hyde Insists That Clinton Attorneys Stick to Allegations

Saying he may give the White House more time to press its case, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde demanded Saturday that President Clinton’s legal team reveal its witness list and directly address charges that he lied and obstructed justice in the Monica S. Lewinsky case.

Hyde’s insistence prompted a quick response from the White House, which provided the names of three of their witnesses: two legal experts and a historian. But this only served to further anger Republicans who complain that the Clinton administration is trying to dodge the central question of whether the president is guilty of impeachable offenses.

Hyde was responding to a last-minute request by the White House for up to four days of hearings before the panel votes on whether Clinton should be impeached. Sources said the two sides may end up compromising today on a schedule of two days for the Clinton defense that allows the committee to still vote on articles of impeachment by week’s end.

Hyde is concerned that the White House, in its request for up to four days, is merely trying to delay the impeachment inquiry until next year and that the Clinton lawyers would rather call historians and constitutional experts than specifically answer whether the president sought to conceal his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

In another development Saturday, some Democratic staffers on the committee admitted being upset with the White House’s failure to discuss with them the current strategy for presenting a Clinton defense.

The staffers said they knew nothing beforehand of the Friday night request from the White House for three to four days of testimony. And they agreed that, as Republicans have charged, the Clinton administration may be trying to extend the matter over until next year, when a friendlier Congress with more Democratic members will be sworn in.

However, the dissatisfaction is not expected to undercut the support Clinton enjoys among Democrats on the Judiciary panel, who have vigorously maintained that, while his conduct may have been wrong, it did not rise to the level of impeachable offenses.

The latest skirmishing between Hyde and the White House signals an even more divisive showdown in the committee as its 21 Republicans and 16 Democrats head toward an expected vote later this week on whether to send articles of impeachment to the full House floor.

While at least one article is expected to pass in the committee, the jockeying over Clinton’s defense strategy could be seen as a way for the White House and the Republicans to influence the rest of the House, where the outcome on impeachment remains too close to call.

The White House wants to challenge the very legitimacy of the inquiry; Republicans argue that Clinton’s lawyers are trying to change the subject because they cannot defend the president based on the federal grand jury evidence gathered by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, on Saturday identified three of the witnesses the White House wants to call this week as former Atty. Gen. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Bruce A. Ackerman, a leading constitutional scholar at Yale University, and Robert Sean Wilentz, a Princeton University historian.

Committee Republicans scoffed that the White House--as it did during a hearing last week--wants to put on testimony from experts who will expound on the theory of what constitutes an impeachable offense rather than witnesses who could speak directly to the charges against the president.

Hyde, an Illinois Republican, made it clear in his statement Saturday that in considering the White House request, he will be guided by whether he views the strategy mapped out by Clinton’s lawyers as relevant to the charges.

“I have instructed my staff to contact the president’s attorneys to request specific information regarding proposed witnesses and . . . to remind them of the committee’s rules, which we will insist they observe,” Hyde said.

Without saying exactly how much time Clinton’s defense team will get to present its case, Hyde said, “In the interest of fairness, I intend to make a sincere effort to accommodate” the White House.

He added: “Our final decision must be guided by what is reasonable. . . . Given the limited amount of time remaining for the committee to act, we can only hope that the White House will not request witnesses who will duplicate testimony the committee has already received.”

Hyde also warned: “I hope this last-minute flurry of possibly redundant witness requests is not intended to delay this inquiry.”

Jim Jordan, a spokesman for the Democrats on the committee, said the White House is simply trying to shape the strongest case for Clinton.

“Clearly the White House counselors are doing their best to mount an effective defense in the face of the committee’s chaos, confusion and almost daily changes of direction,” Jordan said.

But other Democratic aides are worried that the White House is operating out of “panic” and that they want to slow down the process because the odds are gaining that impeachment could be headed toward a Senate trial for Clinton.

“They are reacting really scared right now,” said one aide.

Democratic gains in last month’s midterm elections narrowed the Republican majority in the House and would make it even harder for impeachment to pass there in the next session.

On CNN’s “Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields” talk show Saturday, Rep. Thomas M. Barrett (D-Wis.), a member of the committee who has supported the president, acknowledged that he had no advance knowledge of the White House’s latest legal maneuvers.

But, he added, “I was surprised, as I’m sure many others were, when the White House came in and said that they wanted four days. But if that’s what they feel they need, I still think we can fit that into the parameters of having a vote by the end of this session.”