Experts Differ, but GOP Pushes Impeachment

In the face of public disapproval and conflicting advice from law professors and historians, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee showed a fierce determination Monday to push ahead with their impeachment inquiry.

While the 19 academicians disagreed on whether President Clinton’s alleged crimes warrant impeachment, GOP members of the panel’s constitutional subcommittee evinced scarcely a doubt on that point, often engaging the witnesses in animated debate.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), the Judiciary Committee chairman, said that despite signs from last week’s elections that many Americans wanted to put impeachment behind them, “I’m not letting it interfere with my intention to proceed with the inquiry.”

Hyde said he was “frightened for the rule of law” if the committee did not punish the president for his alleged perjury about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr also has alleged that Clinton obstructed justice and abused the powers of his office in trying to conceal the affair.

Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.), the subcommittee chairman, said Clinton “must be called to account for putting his selfish personal interest ahead of his oath of office and his constitutional duty.”

Another outspoken impeachment advocate, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), said that “perjury and obstruction of justice are grave offenses that strike at the heart of our legal system.”

In light of the Republicans’ poor showing in last week’s elections and the resignation Friday of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, many Washington pundits and Democratic lawmakers had declared the impeachment proceedings against Clinton all but over. But Republican committee members expressed renewed outrage over Clinton’s behavior and appeared to reject any alternative punishment, such as censure.

Panel Democrats, meanwhile, continued to attack Starr, who is scheduled to appear before the full Judiciary Committee on Nov. 19 as its only major witness.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat, said that “perjury based upon an illegal invasion of privacy relating to sex is not the ‘treason, bribery or other high crimes’ referred to in the Constitution.”

Other Democrats said that if the inquiry is not abandoned, grounds for impeachment should first be clearly established and key witnesses questioned publicly, including Lewinsky, the former White House intern, and Linda Tripp, her former friend who secretly taped about 20 phone calls in which Lewinsky told of her encounters with the president.

“If the majority is determined to move forward with this inquest, it will ultimately have to choose between rubber-stamping Ken Starr’s findings or moving forward with the inquisition and calling all of the relevant witnesses for examination and cross-examination,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) declared.

The daylong hearing, scheduled by Republicans in response to Democratic criticism that Clinton’s actions did not meet the constitutional impeachment standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” was expected to be a relatively uneventful preliminary to full impeachment hearings. But following Hyde’s announcement last week of a truncated hearing schedule, committee members used the experts’ testimony as a platform to restate their own views, often vehemently and at length.

Sparking debate, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. argued that Clinton’s alleged offenses dealt largely with “private misbehavior” and noted that no one had spoken of impeaching former President Reagan for his public conduct in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Schlesinger, who is closely associated with the Kennedy family, called impeachment “a remedy for grave crimes,” adding that Starr’s allegations against Clinton “plainly do not rise to the level” of impeachable offenses historically.

“Lying to the public is far from an unknown practice by presidents,” he said. He argued that “lowering the bar” for impeachment to include such actions would tip the constitutionally mandated balance of powers to the legislative branch.

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) replied sarcastically, “Lie if you wish, because according to Prof. Schlesinger it doesn’t matter. But I believe the rule of law is crucial to this country.”

Schlesinger protested that Inglis was distorting his views. He said he was not defending Clinton’s conduct “in lying about his love life.”

“It’s certainly disgraceful,” he said. “He will feel such shame in the eyes of himself, his family, his country and history that he will punish himself.”

But William Van Alstyne, a law professor at Duke University, agreed with the GOP majority by testifying that the alleged crimes Clinton committed--such as perjury, witness tampering and obstruction of justice--”may certainly be impeachable offenses.”

Van Alstyne disputed the argument that Clinton, by virtue of being elected rather than appointed, should have greater protection from removal than, say, a federal judge. “The president is not different . . . as to what constitutes an impeachable offense,” he said.

Joining Van Alstyne, John O. McGinnis, a law professor at Yeshiva University, said there could be “no checklist of impeachable offenses in a constitution that would stand the test of time.” However, perjury would be among them, he said, because it reflects “on the fitness of those officials who have sworn to uphold the law.”

But another expert, law professor Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago, told the panel that removing Clinton from office based on such insufficient charges “would threaten to convert impeachment into a legislative weapon to be used on any occasion in which a future president is involved or said to be involved in unlawful or scandalous conduct.”