House Votes Signal Partisan Senate Fight

By RONALD BROWNSTEIN

Dec. 20, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

WASHINGTON —

In a dizzying day of drama, emotion and even surprise, the historic House votes to impeach President Clinton set the stage for a bitterly partisan struggle focused on the central question of whether the president lied under oath.

By approving two articles of impeachment but rejecting two others, the House both narrowed and clarified the terms of battle between Clinton and his Republican critics. But rather than providing a clear burst of momentum for Clinton’ critics, the split decision--combined with the resignation under fire of Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.)--sent a much more mixed message that left Clinton and his aides all promising a sustained fight.

“We are going to defend this vigorously in the Senate,” said Clinton attorney David E. Kendall.

The House eliminated the charges on which Clinton’s factual defense was weakest: those based on his testimony last January in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case. And the razor-thin margin of victory for the article accusing the president of obstructing justice reflects uncertainty over whether independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr had proved his case on those grounds.

Yet Clinton remains in grave danger because Saturday’s votes are likely to leave the legal debate in the Senate squarely focused on whether the president lied in his grand jury testimony. That’s the terrain on which Republicans have demonstrated that they feel most comfortable, as is evident from the relatively wide margin of approval for the impeachment article covering those alleged offenses.

“That becomes an easier thing to make the public understand,” said GOP consultant Greg Mueller.

The votes also indicated that the Senate debate ahead is likely to proceed in an atmosphere of sharp partisan division. Though Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) initially said that impeachment could proceed only if it attracted support from both parties, just five Democrats voted for any of the articles--while virtually all Republicans backed the two articles that passed.

A Complication for GOP Efforts

The failure to attract meaningful Democratic validation is likely to complicate Republican efforts to build public support for removing the president. And the virtually united stand against impeachment by House Democrats--a statement underscored by the televised image of them literally lining up behind Clinton outside the White House after the House votes--is likely to increase pressure on Democratic senators to stand by their president, at least initially.

“If you are a Senate Democrat you have to think long and hard about going against this guy,” said a top House Democratic aide. “You can get yourself . . . a lot of aggravation.”

In a struggle that has routinely defied expectations and repeatedly changed direction, Livingston’s resignation added another volatile and unpredictable element. Livingston’s decision--in the wake of his admission of repeated extramarital affairs--gave Republicans a powerful new argument in their growing drive to demand that Clinton resign rather than subject the country to a partisan Senate trial.

“I was shocked, but it was the honorable thing to do,” said Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.). “He sets an example the president ought to follow.”

Yet other conservatives worried that Livingston’s decision could muddy the message that the GOP has worked so tirelessly to project in the last two weeks. While Republicans have tried to steer the impeachment debate toward perjury and away from adultery, some in the GOP worry that Livingston’s resignation sends the country a contrary message that Washington is obsessed with allegations of sexual immorality.

“My first gut reaction,” said Pete Wehner, policy director at the conservative think tank, Empower America, “is that, in an odd way, Livingston’s resigning will help Clinton, not hurt hi1831608321because Republicans had done a fairly good job at focusing this thing less on sex and more on perjury. And Livingston having done this conflates it to sex again.”

GOP Lawmakers Shift on Articles

Almost as surprising as Livingston’s announcement was the willingness of Republican legislators to pick and choose among the four impeachment articles. Article 4, which alleged that Clinton abused his power by lying to the country and Congress, was handily defeated, with 81 Republicans voting against it. That defeat did not change Clinton’s situation much, because few analysts expected the Senate to seriously consider those allegations as a basis for removing the president.

The defeat of Article 2, charging Clinton with lying last January in the Jones case, could have more impact. As the vote demonstrated, many Republicans were dubious about impeaching Clinton over questionable testimony in a civil case that was later dismissed and settled out of court--as Rep. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) repeatedly argued during the Judiciary Committee hearings.

But even the president’s own camp acknowledges that its defense was weakest on that count. In the 180-page brief the White House filed earlier this month with the Judiciary Committee, the sections trying to rebut the allegations of perjury in the Jones case were tentative and tortured.

In one instance, the White House tried to defend Clinton’s efforts to suggest that he had never been alone with Lewinsky by writing: “The term ‘alone’ is vague unless a geographical space is identified.” Making such a case in the glare of a Senate trial would seem a recipe for driving down Clinton’s public support. But after Saturday’s vote, the White House will not have to directly contest that issue.

What remains for the Senate trial are the articles embodying the most serious charges against Clinton: that he obstructed justice and committed perjury in his testimony before Starr’s grand jury in August.

Article 3, which passed by a narrow 221 to 212, contains the most explosive charges against Clinton: that he arranged a job for Lewinsky to buy her silence in the Jones case; that he engaged in witness tampering by leading his secretary, Betty Currie, through a series of leading questions after his testimony in the Jones case and that he tried to conceal evidence in the Jones case by directing Lewinsky to return gifts he had given her.

It’s on these counts, though, that the White House defense has been most specific and aggressive. For instance, in its legal brief, the White House pointed out that Clinton began helping Lewinsky try to find a job long before she was subpoenaed in the Jones case and that Lewinsky insisted in her testimony that she “was never promised a job for my silence.” The White House defense also pointed out that at the time Clinton led Currie through his questions she was not a witness in any proceeding and that she testified she felt no pressure to agree with his conclusions.

The White House is contemplating a more fundamental challenge to Article 3: Since it passed by a smaller margin than Republicans will hold in the House next year, Clinton could challenge whether one Congress has the constitutional authority to pass along an article of impeachment to the next--as Yale University professor Bruce Ackerman proposed during the House Judiciary Committee hearings.

All these questions could leave Article 1--that Clinton made “perjurious, false and misleading” statements to the grand jury--as the most serious threat to the president in a Senate trial. In his report in September, Starr accused Clinton of three specific lies before the grand jury. The Judiciary Committee widened that allegation, accusing Clinton of at least a dozen lies in four broad areas of his testimony.

Those allegations include the relatively trivial: Clinton’s claim, for instance, that the affair started in 1996 rather than 1995, as Lewinsky testified. But they also raise the obstruction allegations from a different angle--alleging, for instance, that Clinton lied when he told the grand jury he was not trying to coach Currie.

Yet at the heart of the perjury charges remains the allegation that Clinton lied when he claimed he did not touch Lewinsky in a way that would qualify as “sex” under the definition used in the Jones case. Lewinsky, of course, testified that Clinton did intimately touch her and even many Democrats suspect she’s telling the truth.

But proving that Clinton lied would be inherently problematic in a situation for which there were no other witnesses. “I don’t think you can hypothesize more of a classic ‘He said, she said’ situation,” said one of Clinton’s lawyers, foreshadowing the difficulties that could face the Senate if it cannot reach a deal to avoid a trial next year.

The Votes

ARTICLE 1: PASSED

That Clinton “willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony” to grand jury Aug 17.

YES: 228

NO: 206

ARTICLE 2: FAILED

That Clinton “willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony” in Paula Jones case.

YES: 205

NO: 229

ARTICLE 3: PASSED

Seven alleged acts of obstruction in Monica Lewinsky case.

YES: 221