Senate Jurors Begin Private Debate on Clinton Verdict

WASHINGTON — After rejecting a bid to open its impeachment deliberations, the Senate on Tuesday began debating privately whether to remove President Clinton from office in only the second such proceeding in U.S. history.

The anticipated acquittal verdict is expected Thursday or Friday.

The Senate ended its first day of deliberations after about four hours, with 18 of its 100 members having spoken. Deliberations are to resume at 7 a.m. PST today.

“People are giving very good statements,” said Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). “Now, as far as give-and-take, no.”

Several senators said they heard nothing that they found surprising about a case that has consumed Washington for more than a year.

Meanwhile, momentum appeared to stall for a drive by Democrats to censure Clinton for his conduct in the scandal arising from his affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

“I’m afraid I’m a bit less optimistic,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a strong censure proponent. “Instead of ending with a strong, unified statement of values, the prospect is that we’ll end in gridlock” over the censure resolution that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is helping to spearhead.

The impeachment articles passed by the House allege that Clinton committed perjury and obstructed justice as he sought to conceal his affair with Lewinsky.

In the private deliberations, senators have as much as 15 minutes each to express their views on the case, argued before them by House prosecutors and lawyers for Clinton during the last month. If all senators use their full allotment, the discussions would consume 25 hours, possibly going into Friday.

Just before the deliberations began at 2:06 p.m. EST, Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) made a pitch for brevity, reminding senators that “Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address in less than three minutes and [John F.) Kennedy’s . . . inaugural was slightly over seven minutes.”

But Lott’s gentle exhortation apparently fell on deaf ears.

“Everybody is taking [the) full 15 minutes,” Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) said during a recess.

The leadoff speaker was Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.). He was followed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Gorton Says Clinton Obstructed Justice

Late Tuesday, Gorton announced that he would vote to oust Clinton on the article alleging obstruction of justice. “It is clear that he obstructed justice,” Gorton said in a statement. “I cannot will to my children and grandchildren the proposition that a president stands above the law and can systematically obstruct justice simply because both his polls and the Dow Jones index are high.”

Gorton did not say how he would vote on the perjury charge, which many Republicans have said they consider the weaker of the two. But his statement indicated that he shared that opinion.

With neither article expected to get close to the requisite two-thirds majority needed for Clinton’s removal, the main suspense is over how many Republicans will vote to acquit Clinton and whether any Democrats will vote to oust him.

Lieberman predicted Tuesday night that at least one or two Democrats will support one of the articles.

Several Republican sources, meanwhile, have predicted that at least a handful of GOP senators--and perhaps more--will break ranks by voting not guilty on one or both of the charges.

The private debate is taking place in the Senate chamber despite a strong bipartisan bid to open the session to public viewing.

The open-debate motion won a majority, 59 to 41, but failed because two-thirds support is needed to change the rules for impeachment trials. Fourteen Republicans joined all 45 Democrats--including Feinstein and California’s other senator, Barbara Boxer--in supporting the motion.

Proponents argued that discussions on such a momentous decision should be open to the public. But opponents said that closed debate would allow for more candidness.

In deference to open-debate advocates, senators will be allowed to insert their comments into the Congressional Record after the trial is over. And, like Gorton, they can release them publicly beforehand.

At the end of the deliberations, the Senate will reconvene in open session for two immediate roll-call votes, with members casting their votes on each of the two articles of impeachment.

The battle over censure could come to a head at that time.

Most, if not all, Democrats would like to censure the president as the final chapter in the controversy. But many Republicans vehemently oppose censure, saying that it is not allowed under the Constitution. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) has vowed to filibuster any attempt to censure Clinton.

Feinstein has filed a motion to bring a censure resolution immediately after the votes on the articles of impeachment--but technically before the trial ends.

Under the Senate’s complex parliamentary procedures, however, Lott does not have to call her motion, and his aides said Tuesday that he is unlikely to do so.

Censure advocates also could try to introduce the motion immediately after the trial ends, but various parliamentary procedures still could be used to stall it.

“The problem is now procedural,” Lieberman said.

Another barrier to a censure resolution is that Feinstein and her main GOP ally on the issue, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), are having a difficult time getting members to agree on the language of a censure resolution.

“I don’t think censure is going to go anywhere. You can’t get 100 senators to agree on anything,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa.).

A Public Gesture by President Is Expected

Meanwhile, White House officials indicated Tuesday that the president is likely to make some public gesture after the trial ends to try to bring a close to the painful period.

“I think we need to find closure to move on as a country,” said one senior White House advisor. But the aide added that Clinton has not decided how he will attempt to accomplish this.

During Tuesday’s deliberations, speakers alternated between parties. Democrats chose to go largely by seniority; Republicans took a more free-wheeling approach, with members signing up for speaking slots.

“It’s been very honest and open,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Senate rules bar members from discussing specific conversations that occur in closed sessions.

In contrast to the serious tenor of most of the trial, the parliamentary machinations instigated by open-debate advocates before the Senate vote Tuesday led to several humorous moments that broke the tension in the Senate chamber.

At one point, as senators engaged in a brisk debate on the circumstances under which their deliberation statements could be entered into the Congressional Record, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is presiding over the trial, interrupted with the wry comment:

“The parliamentarian tells me this is all out of order.”

After raucous laughter abated, senators merrily resumed their debate.

After open-debate proponents lost their bid to force public deliberation, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) invoked an obscure rule that requires the chamber’s door to remain open--unless the Senate votes to close them. With the doors open, a closed debate could not take place, she suggested.

A roll-call vote on a Lott motion to close the doors followed, with 53 senators voting to do so and 47 opposed. All 45 Democrats voted against the motion, along with Republican Sens. Hutchison and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, (R-Utah) defended the closed deliberations, saying that privacy offers “a greater chance of depoliticizing this process.”

In a closed session, he said, “there are aisle conversations. . . . There’s more reasoning. There’s more openness.”

Most senators expressed doubt that even private deliberations would sway many of their colleagues. “It’s all very doubtful we’re going to have any movement,” said Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.). “To honestly believe you’re going to change any minds . . . is a remarkable leap.”

Earlier in the day, Democrats defeated a GOP attempt to raise anew allegations that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal committed perjury in his Senate deposition by denying that he had leaked to reporters a Clinton comment to him that characterized Lewinsky as a “stalker.”

House GOP prosecutors this week provided three affidavits that disputed Blumenthal’s denial. In a unanimous consent request, Specter sought to have additional testimony taken not only from Blumenthal but also from three journalists: Christopher Hitchens, his wife, Carol Blue, and R. Scott Armstrong.

Specter said that the additional testimony was needed to determine whether Blumenthal had been engaged in “possible fraud” in his sworn deposition last week.

But Daschle immediately objected, a move that squelched the GOP bid under rules agreed to earlier by both parties.

Existence of Taping System Is Questioned

Also on Tuesday, Lott sent a letter to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr asking him to ascertain whether a White House taping system exists that may have picked up conversations related to the scandal.

The White House repeatedly has denied the existence of a taping system.

GOP staff members would not reveal the source of the allegation, but they acknowledged that the reports are unlikely to delay the trial.

Asked about Lott’s letter, Hagel said that the majority leader “had a responsibility to follow up on that. It’s irresponsible to let stuff like that hang out there.”

Clinton attended a retreat at a ski resort in nearby Wintergreen, Va., on Tuesday with about 100 House Democrats.

Lawmakers said that Clinton sought support for a wide range of his domestic initiatives, including overhauling the Social Security program. The subject of impeachment was never directly broached, the lawmakers said.

Times staff writers Janet Hook and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.