Hyde Invites President to Testify Before Panel

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) sought to ratchet up the pressure on President Clinton on Wednesday by inviting him to testify in person before the panel or have his lawyers call witnesses on his behalf.

In a letter to Clinton, a clearly frustrated Hyde declared that the committee’s impeachment inquiry had reached a “critical stage” but had not received sufficient cooperation from the White House in determining the facts in the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

Although it is unlikely Clinton will take Hyde up on his offer to appear in person, the invitation was designed to put the onus on the White House to provide an alternative explanation to the allegations against Clinton, including perjury and obstruction of justice, that independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr detailed in a lengthy report to the House.

Hyde wrote to Clinton, in part, quoting the president’s own words: “Just over 10 months ago, you promised the American people that you wanted to present the facts: ‘I’d like for you to have more rather than less, sooner rather than later.’ I respectfully suggest that now is the time to present the facts; now is the time for cooperation.”

Hyde’s efforts to put Clinton on the spot come as the prospects for impeachment charges winning a majority in the House appear to have receded. Instead, in a scenario that seemed unthinkable only a few weeks ago, some observers are discussing the possibility that Clinton might emerge from the scandal without any formal punishment at all. “I’m not sure it’s that much of a longshot anymore,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

That such an outcome is even being mulled points to the unpredictable course of the scandal--and Clinton’s uncanny ability to bounce back from adversity.

The president is hardly out of the woods, especially with several Democrats talking about reprimand or censure as the alternative to impeachment. But the potential of Clinton’s escaping unscathed looms because many House Republicans--as well as leading constitutional scholars--insist that impeachment is the only appropriate remedy available to Congress.

At the same time, many Republicans and some Democrats oppose censure as an “extra-constitutional” act that would set an undesirable precedent, legitimizing a partisan cudgel that Congress could wield against future presidents.

Meanwhile, a small but significant group of Democrats, emboldened by the party’s election gains, may be willing to let Clinton off the hook altogether as a way to register their unhappiness with Starr’s work.

“When you put those groups together, you may have a majority,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

Hyde, in his letter to Clinton, encouraged the president to quickly respond to the 81 questions that the chairman sent to the White House earlier in the month. Hyde said that if Clinton does not reply by Monday, his investigators might subpoena whatever he had drafted so far.

Presidential aides said Wednesday that they probably would deliver the responses Friday and that the answers would be in line with previous White House rebuttals to Starr’s allegations. On the key issue of perjury, which stems from Clinton’s denial of having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky, as he understood the term, the president is expected to stick with his previous statements, aides said.

A refusal by the president to acknowledge that he lied under oath on the sexual relations question likely would galvanize GOP committee members to support an impeachment charge of perjury.

In his letter, Hyde also said he would set aside a day, possibly Dec. 8, for Clinton or his lawyers to make their case before the committee.

Also Wednesday, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, focused his scrutiny on Starr. He sent a letter to the independent counsel asking him to answer 19 questions clarifying his testimony before the committee.

The questions deal with such issues as when and why Starr broadened his Whitewater probe to include the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. In addition, the committee Democrats want to know whether Starr or his staff leaked secret grand jury material to the media, which would be a violation of federal law.

Another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), sent a separate letter to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno asking her to investigate whether Starr’s testimony before the committee last week indicates that he engaged in misconduct during his investigation.

With most House Republicans still pursuing an all-out impeachment strategy, it would be up to the Democrats to initiate a censure of Clinton. Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said earlier this week that he intends to do just that.

But whether many Republicans would go along is very much in doubt, especially in the face of an ardent campaign by the party’s Christian activists to buck up the resolve of GOP lawmakers to impeach Clinton.

This week’s issue of Human Events, a conservative magazine, published a list of “the GOP’s pro-perjury caucus”: seven members who have “gone around the bend” and two it believes are on the verge of doing so. The message is clear: They would do so at some political risk.

These various dynamics have prompted even Democrats who think Clinton should be reprimanded for his conduct with Lewinsky to fret that he will go unpunished.

“The road we’re headed on now is a vote on impeachment and not getting enough votes to censure the president,” said Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), a Judiciary Committee member. “And I think that’s as dangerous as anything. I think the Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves if the president gets off without anything at all.”

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a moderate, summarized the dilemma this way: “The impeachable offenses were not proven, and the proven offenses are not impeachable. But if we start to censure a president for conduct we think is wrong or illegal, we’ll head down the road of ‘censure of the week’ or ‘censure of the month.’ ”

Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), a Judiciary Committee member, suggested that the panel may end up sending to the full House both articles of impeachment and a censure resolution, with the measure that garners the most votes prevailing.

But he conceded that approval of censure is hardly a foregone conclusion. “You’d have a lot of Republicans voting against it.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), a panel member, said she is utterly uncertain how the controversy will end, even though “a huge number [of lawmakers] believes some censure or rebuke is appropriate.”

She concluded with a weary sigh: “Anything is possible.”

Times staff writer Richard A. Serrano contributed to this story.