GOP Offers Watergate-Style Resolution for Proceedings

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee prepared a draft resolution Wednesday for a formal impeachment investigation of President Clinton that, following the so-called Watergate model, would permit the White House to present testimony and evidence at hearings.

The resolution, which will be debated when the committee meets Monday, is the first step toward a full House vote on whether enough evidence exists to investigate whether Clinton should be ousted for allegedly committing perjury and obstructing justice in his attempts to hide his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

The proposal includes five key sections that Democrats on the committee wanted included to ensure that Clinton and his lawyers are allowed to vigorously defend the president in any hearings and closed-door sessions.

Under these provisions, the president and his counsel would be able to attend all executive sessions and hearings, cross-examine witnesses, object to evidence, suggest consideration of additional evidence and be allowed to respond to all evidence presented to the committee.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), who chairs the panel, said in a letter to the ranking minority member, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), that bipartisanship can be attained if the committee adheres to standards set out in the early 1970s when the committee was taking up the impeachment of President Nixon.

Conyers was a member of that committee, and Hyde noted in his letter that the Clinton resolution “follows the Watergate resolution, word for word.”

Hyde also included a bar chart showing that all five provisions that give Clinton a voice in the draft resolution also were accorded the Nixon White House.

“I am hopeful,” Hyde wrote, “that the draft will continue the bipartisanship that we both want.”

Clinton’s defenders insist that his actions do not constitute the “high crimes and misdemeanors” set out as impeachable offenses in the Constitution.

In a press conference, Conyers said he was pleased that Republicans included the “Watergate-like” provisions for investigating Clinton.

However, Conyers and other Democrats still want to place a strict time limit on the investigation. Conyers also renewed his complaint that Republicans had rushed to release thousands of pages from the report filed by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

And he insisted that there are major differences between Watergate and the current scandal.

“Watergate involved a wholesale corruption of government which extended through the FBI, the CIA and other federal agencies,” he said. “This matter involves the concealing of a private affair for which the vast majority of facts are already known.”

Conyers was seconded by the White House, where spokesman Mike McCurry said that the two scandals are completely different.

“The notion that there is any parallel is laughable,” McCurry said. “Look at the facts, look at the sorry long list of crimes committed, Constitution subverted, that was Watergate.”

McCurry also made light of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who supported Nixon during Watergate but said earlier this week that he considers mere presidential “bad conduct . . . enough, frankly, for impeachment.”

Joked McCurry: “Yeah, you know, bad table manners is grounds for impeachment.”

In another development Wednesday, the General Accounting Office announced that the cost of Starr’s investigations of Clinton’s Whitewater dealings, his relationship with Lewinsky and other controversies has topped $40 million.

Starr has estimated that he spent at least $4.4 million on the Lewinsky investigation alone this year.

The most expensive independent counsel inquiry to date was Lawrence E. Walsh’s $48.5-million, six-year investigation of the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra scandal.