A Question of Truth and Consequences

Republicans, moderate and otherwise, have said he ought to do it. A key undecided Democrat has said he ought to do it. A majority of the public has said he ought to do it.

So why doesn’t President Clinton simply admit that he lied under oath about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky?

“He can’t,” the president’s advisors insisted, for a mountain of reasons: legal, political and personal.

The legal reason, Clinton’s lawyers said, is that admitting he lied would be like handing a confession to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr--a confession that could haunt the president after he leaves the White House.

The political reason, Clinton’s advisors said, is that there is no guarantee it would work--no guarantee that an admission of guilt really would head off a vote of impeachment in the House.

And the personal reason, Clinton’s friends and aides said, is that the president still insists he did not lie. Clinton knows his testimony about Lewinsky was misleading and evasive--he designed it that way--but he believes he steered clear of perjury.

“I am convinced that President Clinton sincerely does not believe he lied,” said Lanny J. Davis, a former White House aide. “He is quite stubborn about that.”

That has not convinced several members of Congress, whose votes are expected to be critical late this week when the House is scheduled to consider the four articles of impeachment against Clinton.

Several Republicans--and at least one swing Democrat--have said they will vote for at least one of the articles but are willing to switch if Clinton makes a straightforward admission that he lied under oath.

“Unless the president comes forward soon and admits his guilt, I am prepared to vote for articles of impeachment,” said Rep. Bob Franks (R-N.J.).

“I think it would be an important statement . . . “ Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.) told reporters as he flew to Israel on Saturday aboard Air Force One, several dozen rows behind the president. “It’s not too late, but it’s very late in the game.”

Maverick Democrat Paul McHale (D-Pa.) told his hometown newspaper, the Allentown Morning Call, that he is likely to vote for impeachment unless Clinton acknowledges “knowingly providing false information under oath.”

“I want him to be a man,” McHale said. “I want him to be a stand-up guy.”

Clinton’s Rose Garden statement Friday--in which he acknowledged “errors of word and deed” and expressed “profound remorse”--fell far short of what is needed, these members of Congress said.

Most of the public agrees: A Gallup Poll taken for CNN and USA Today on Friday evening, after Clinton’s statement, found that 67% believe he committed perjury, and 56% believe he should admit it.

But Clinton’s political advisors said they doubt that a fuller public confession by the president would change enough votes in the House to make it worthwhile.

“I think that those who are in Congress who are asking him to come clean will vote to impeach him anyway,” said Jane Sherburne, a former White House counsel. “I don’t think that’s where the ballgame is. I think it’s a red herring.”

“Every time he does something, they’ll want him to do more,” said Davis. “If he says, ‘I lied,’ they’ll ask him to say, ‘I perjured myself.’ ”

“Who would believe the sincerity of what he was doing at this point . . . ?” asked a former aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. “At this stage in the game, I think I would advise him to hold the line.”

The legal danger Clinton would face is also significant, several lawyers said.

“Anything that looks like an admission [of guilt] could be admitted against him as evidence,” said E. Lawrence Barcella, a former independent counsel. “He’d be handing Ken Starr an admission that he can use against him.”

On a personal level, Clinton has convinced the people around him that he genuinely believes his misleading statements under oath--in the sexual misconduct civil suit brought by former Arkansas employee Paula Corbin Jones and Starr’s ensuing grand jury investigation--should not qualify as lies.

The president, a former law professor, believes that he managed to stay just inside the line of outright falsehood in a legal proceeding where evasiveness was well within the rules.

“He thinks that he stayed within the confines of the definition [of sexual relations] and Paula Jones’ lawyers didn’t ask him the right follow-up questions,” said Davis. “I think he’d pass a lie detector test on that.”

“He’s a guy who believed he wasn’t being unfaithful if he wasn’t having intercourse,” another former aide added. “If he’s capable of believing what he did with Monica Lewinsky was not unfaithful, he’s certainly capable of believing he didn’t lie.”

Inescapably, however, Clinton’s view of his own veracity seems shaded by his passionate conviction that the case against him is politically motivated and illegitimate.

“He’s a defense witness in a very hostile, aggressive and political proceeding, and he’s not going to go out of his way to help the adversary,” Sherburne said.

Now the president’s advisors are wrestling with the question of what--if anything--he can say after his return from Israel on Tuesday that might sway some House votes.

Before Clinton’s brief statement Friday, one advisor drafted a statement for the president that came closer to admitting lies. Borrowing a phrase that Clinton’s counsel, Charles F. C. Ruff, used before the House Judiciary Committee, the abortive draft said: “I understand today how reasonable people could read from my testimony in the Jones case and conclude I crossed the line.”

But Clinton’s lawyers objected to that phrase--”the only line that would have made a difference,” one advisor mourned.

Their reasoning: It was one thing for the president’s counsel to say those words but legally too risky for Clinton himself.

Another proposed formula, under which the president would say, “I was less than truthful,” was shot down earlier, apparently for the same reason.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.