House Committee Votes for Inquiry

A sharply divided House Judiciary Committee voted Monday night to recommend the start of a formal inquiry into whether President Clinton should be impeached for obstructing justice and lying about his sexual affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.

As expected, the vote followed party lines, with the panel’s 21 Republicans supporting the motion while its 16 Democrats opposed it. The vote followed an often-heated all-day session during which the Republicans made their case for proceeding with the inquiry while the Democrats argued that Clinton’s offenses did not rise to the level of such a probe.

The committee’s action sets the stage for all 435 members of the House of Representatives to vote Thursday on whether they believe there is enough evidence to warrant a full-scale impeachment investigation. The GOP-controlled House is expected to approve the inquiry; what will be closely watched is how many Democrats support it.

House passage would mark the third impeachment inquiry of a president in U.S. history.

Under the inquiry proposal the committee adopted Monday, the panel will review the Lewinsky matter but can broaden its scope if other allegations of presidential misconduct are sent to Congress by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. Democrats strongly opposed such an open-ended approach.

The inquiry, patterned after the one launched for the Watergate scandal, also will not have a timetable for completion. However, Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) has said he would like the committee to complete an impeachment inquiry by the new year.

If the panel approves articles of impeachment against Clinton, the full House would then vote on whether to adopt them, with a simple majority required for passage. If that occurred, the case would go to the Senate for trial, where a two-thirds majority would be required to remove Clinton from office.

“The 20th century has been referred to often as the American Century,” Hyde said at the start of Monday’s meeting. “It is imperative we be able to look back at this episode with dignity and pride. . . . In this difficult moment in our history lies the potential for our finest achievement--proof that democracy works.”

But the senior Democrat on the panel, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, complained that House Republicans are simply trying to elevate Clinton’s morals into a national scandal.

“This is not Watergate,” he said. “It is an extramarital affair.

“There’s no question that the president’s actions were wrong,” Conyers continued. “He may be suffering more than any of us will ever know.”

But reflecting the Democratic strategy of shifting the focus from Clinton’s actions to the relentless pursuit of the case by Starr and his aides, Conyers said: “I suggest to you in every ounce of friendship that I can muster that even worse than an extramarital relationship is the use of federal prosecutors and federal agents to expose an extramarital relationship.”

Before voting to recommend the impeachment inquiry, the panel defeated several Democratic amendments--each time on strict party-line votes of 21 to 16--that would have limited the time and scope of the impeachment review.

Both sides did agree on the solemnity of the occasion, and also were mindful of the precedent of Watergate 24 years ago, when articles of impeachment against President Nixon cleared the same committee. But as Democrats frequently noted, the Watergate hearings often exhibited a spirit of bipartisanship that they charge has been woefully lacking in the current proceedings.

Partisan Divide Expected to Continue

One sign of the difference likely will come when the full House votes on authorizing an impeachment inquiry. In Watergate, after receiving a report from the House Judiciary Committee on the matter, the full House voted 410-4 to give the committee the power to conduct an investigation. Thursday’s vote is not likely to demonstrate anything close to such unanimity of purpose.

Watergate culminated when Nixon resigned after the Democrat-controlled committee--with some GOP support--approved articles of impeachment against him.

In the nation’s other presidential impeachment in 1868, Andrew Johnson remained in office after the Senate fell one vote short of convicting him on the charges the House had approved against him.

During Monday’s debate, Republicans insisted that an impeachment inquiry was necessary to determine the extent of Clinton’s misbehavior.

Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) noted that there are 115 people serving time in federal prisons for committing perjury--one of the offenses Clinton is accused of in his attempts to conceal his sexual liaisons with Lewinsky.

“That’s enough for us to impeach and that’s enough for him to be thrown out of office,” McCollum said. “We do have the basis for going forward.”

His colleague, Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-Ind.), said it is even simpler than that. Reminding the committee that many soldiers have been court-martialed for sexual misconduct, he recalled a scene from the Starr report in which the president allegedly received oral sex from Lewinsky while talking on the telephone about whether to send U.S. troops to Bosnia.

“At a minimum, that is conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman,” he said.

And Rep. George W. Gekas (R-Pa.) said that enforcing the perjury statute is essential “whether it’s a traffic ticket or murder in the first degree.”

But Democrats insisted the Republicans were going far beyond what the Founding Fathers had viewed as grounds for impeachment.

At one point, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) opened a paperback copy of the Federalist Papers--the basis for the Constitution--and encouraged her colleagues to read it.

Referring to some of the nation’s early political theorists and key figures in the current scandal, Lofgren said, “We would be better off if we spent more time reading what George Mason and James Madison said to each other than what Ms. Lewinsky and Ms. Tripp [the friend who recorded her conversations with Lewinsky] said to each other.”

‘The Constitution Is on Trial’

Asserting that impeachment is far too weighty a punishment to consider in the Lewinsky case, Lofgren said, “Ben Franklin referred to it as the alternative to assassination.”

Other Democrats suggested that by pursuing impeachment, their GOP adversaries were making a mockery of their congressional mandate.

“The Constitution is on trial,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) said that the president did nothing to merit impeachment, but had “engaged in a dangerous game of verbal Twister” in denying under oath that he and Lewinsky had engaged in sexual relations.

After the statements by the lawmakers, the case against the president was outlined by the GOP’s chief investigator, David Schippers, a registered Democrat hired by Hyde for the Clinton probe. Assuming House approval of the committee’s inquiry, Schippers in essence will serve as the lead prosecutor.

Unlike the 11 counts that Starr suggested constituted impeachable offenses in a report he submitted last month, Schippers laid out 15 acts by the president that both incorporated Starr’s material and included new details involving Clinton’s sworn statements in his January 1998 deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

Schippers also dropped Starr’s allegation that Clinton obstructed justice by invoking executive privilege to shield his staff from testifying before the grand jury that the independent counsel’s office had convened.

Investigator Alleges Possible Conspiracy

“Although he is neither above nor below the law, he is, by virtue of his office, held to a higher standard than any other American,” Schippers said of the president. “As chief executive officer and commander in chief, he is the repository of a special trust.”

He charged that Clinton “may have been part of a conspiracy” with Lewinsky and others to obstruct justice by assisting her in filing a false affidavit in the Jones case.

In an affidavit Lewinsky provided in that case--which has since been dismissed--Lewinsky maintained that she and Clinton did not have a sexual relationship. She has since acknowledged that it was inaccurate.

Schippers noted that Clinton actually was given a copy of the false affidavit by his attorney shortly before he was deposed in the Jones suit, and that the president then patterned his testimony to fit Lewinsky’s affidavit.

Schippers next accused the president of coaching Lewinsky on how to lie in her affidavit, and charged that Clinton and Lewinsky dreamed up a “cover story” to conceal the details of their relationship.

Schippers said Clinton also took “affirmative steps to conceal those felonies,” even to the point of lying to his own lawyers by insisting Lewinsky’s affidavit “is absolutely true.”

Another accusation said Clinton himself lied in his deposition in the Jones case by denying a “sexual relationship” with Lewinsky, by denying having an “extramarital affair,” and by saying he had never had “sexual relations” or “an affair” with her.

But, Schippers said, “there is substantial evidence obtained from Ms. Lewinsky, the president’s grand jury testimony, and DNA test results that Ms. Lewinsky performed sexual acts with the president on numerous occasions.”

He added: “Those terms, given their common meaning, could reasonably be construed to include oral sex.”

That definition is important because Clinton and his lawyers have maintained that, in the president’s mind, sexual relations means only sexual intercourse.

Schippers went on to charge that Clinton lied in his Aug. 17 appearance before Starr’s grand jury when he “described himself as a non-reciprocating recipient of Ms. Lewinsky’s services.”

Schippers said Clinton further lied in that testimony--shown to the nation on videotape two weeks ago--when he said he “could not recall” being alone with Lewinsky and when he minimized the number of gifts they had exchanged.

He said Clinton tried to hide evidence, such as gifts he had given Lewinsky, by having Currie place them under her bed at home. Schippers further charged that the president conspired with his friend, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., to find Lewinsky a new job in return for winning her silence.

Schippers noted that when Lewinsky first visited Jordan, an influential Washington lawyer, he told her she came “highly recommended,” and that on one day alone, Jordan placed 14 phone calls to find her a position in New York.

A job was secured for Lewinsky on the day after she signed the false affidavit in the Jones case, Schippers said, and then Jordan contacted the White House with the message: “Mission accomplished.”

Lastly, Schippers said Clinton engaged in witness tampering by repeatedly lying to several key White House aides who later testified before the grand jury.

John Podesta, the president’s deputy chief of staff, told the grand jury that the president told him he did not have sex with Lewinsky “in any way whatsoever.”

And Sidney Blumenthal, an assistant to the president, testified that Clinton claimed Lewinsky was a “stalker” who, Schippers said, “came at him, made sexual demands of him, and threatened him, but he rebuffed her.”

Democratic Side Says Case Falls Short

The Democratic side of the case was presented by attorney Abbe Lowell, who said Schippers had failed to show that Clinton committed any impeachable offense.

Lowell said Schippers was adding charges by “subdividing” the existing facts and making a “laundry list of laws” Clinton might have violated.

He argued that it is impossible to separate the allegations against Clinton from the case’s underlying context--that it involved an extramarital affair, rather than anything approaching high government malfeasance.

“The clothes of Watergate do not fit the body of the conduct in this referral,” he said.

Urging committee members to assess the facts without regard to party affiliation, Lowell said, “It should be the weight of the evidence and not the number of votes that matter.”

The televised debate raged on well into the evening, pitting Republicans and Democrats on opposite sides of what at times resembled a law school tutorial.

Yet there was little consensus on the law.

“All over America, law professors are throwing tomatoes at their TV sets,” said a frustrated Lofgren.

Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.

Video clips of key statements from the House Judiciary Committee hearing and the full text of Starr investigation documents released by the panel are available on The Times’ Web site:

https://www.latimes.com/scandal

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Vote Scorecard

VOTING FOR (21)

All Republicans

Henry J. Hyde, Ill.

Bill McCollum, Fla.

Charles T. Canady, Fla.

F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wis.

George W. Gekas, Pa.

Howard Coble, N.C.

Lamar S. Smith, Texas

Elton Gallegly, Simi Valley

Bob Inglis, S.C.

Bob Goodlatte, Va.

Stephen E. Buyer, Ind.

Ed Bryant, Tenn.

Steve Chabot, Ohio

Bob Barr, Ga.

William L. Jenkins, Tenn.

Asa Hutchinson, Ark.

Edward A. Pease, Ind.

Chris Cannon, Utah

James E. Rogan, Glendale

Lindsey O. Graham, S.C.

Mary Bono, Palm Springs

****

VOTING AGAINST (16)

All Democrats

John Conyers Jr., Mich.

Barney Frank, Mass.

Howard L. Berman, Mission Hills

Charles E. Schumer, N.Y.

Rick Boucher, Va.

Jerrold Nadler, N.Y.

Robert C. Scott, Va.

Melvin L. Watt, N.C.

Zoe Lofgren, San Jose

Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas

Maxine Waters, Los Angeles

Martin T. Meehan, Mass.

William D. Delahunt, Mass.

Robert Wexler, Fla.

Steven R. Rothman, N.J.

Thomas M. Barrett, Wis.

Note: Listed by seniority

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The 15 Counts

Investigators working for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee allege President Clinton committed 15 impeachable offenses:

* A conspiracy with Monica S. Lewinsky and others to obstruct justice and the due administration of justice by: a) providing false and misleading testimony under oath in a civil deposition and before the grand jury; b) withholding evidence and causing evidence to be withheld and concealed; and c) tampering with prospective witnesses in a civil lawsuit and before a federal grand jury.

* Aiding and abetting, counseling and procuring Lewinsky to file and cause to be filed a false affidavit in the Paula Corbin Jones case.

* Aiding and abetting, counseling and procuring Lewinsky in obstruction of justice when she executed and caused to be filed a false affidavit in the Jones case with knowledge of the pending proceedings and with the intent to influence, obstruct or impede those proceedings in the due administration of justice.

* Misprision of Lewinsky’s felonies, submitting a false affidavit and obstructing the due administration of justice both by taking affirmative steps to conceal those felonies and by failing to disclose the felonies, though under a constitutional and statutory duty to do so.

* False testimony under oath in Clinton’s deposition in the Jones case regarding his relationship with Lewinsky.

* False testimony under oath before the federal grand jury on Aug. 17, concerning his relationship with Lewinsky.

* False testimony under oath in Clinton’s deposition given in the Jones case regarding a statement that he could not recall being alone with Lewinsky and regarding his minimizing the number of gifts that they had exchanged.

* False testimony under oath in Clinton’s deposition on conversations with Lewinsky about her involvement in the Jones case.

* Endeavoring to obstruct justice by engaging in a pattern of activity calculated to conceal evidence from the judicial proceedings regarding his relationship with Lewinsky.

* Endeavoring to obstruct justice in the Jones case by agreeing with Lewinsky on a cover story about their relationship by causing a false affidavit to be filed and by giving false testimony in his deposition.

* Endeavoring to obstruct justice by helping Lewinsky to obtain a job in New York City at a time when she would have given evidence adverse to Clinton, if she told the truth.

* False testimony under oath in Clinton’s deposition concerning his conversations with Vernon E. Jordan Jr. about Lewinsky. The record tends to establish that Jordan and the president discussed Lewinsky on various occasions from the time she was served until she fired Francis Carter and hired William H. Ginsburg.

* Endeavoring to obstruct justice and engage in witness tampering in attempting to coach and influence the testimony of Betty Currie before the grand jury.

* Engaging in witness tampering by coaching perspective witnesses and by narrating elaborate detailed false accounts of his relationship with Lewinsky as if those stories were true, intending that those witnesses believe the story and testify to it before a grand jury.

* False testimony under oath before the federal grand jury concerning his knowledge of the contents of Lewinsky’s affidavit and his knowledge of remarks made in his presence by his counsel.