3 GOP Senators Say They’ll Vote to Acquit Clinton

Three Republican senators announced Wednesday that they will oppose the two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, dealing a jolt to GOP unity as the Senate heads toward delivering its verdict in the case today or Friday.

The three are James M. Jeffords of Vermont, John H. Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, all political moderates. A fourth GOP senator, Slade Gorton of Washington, has said that he will vote to acquit Clinton of the perjury allegation but support conviction of obstruction of justice.

The GOP crossovers, announced publicly as the Senate completed a second day of closed deliberations, came as a blow to those Republicans hoping that the two charges would at least win majority support. Although impeachment sponsors never expected to muster the 67 votes needed for conviction, a failure to win a simple 51-vote majority would be a symbolic slap in the face for House managers.

Moreover, several senior Republicans predicted that there could be as many as three or four more GOP defections on the perjury charge and one or two on the obstruction allegation when the votes finally are taken. “I think it won’t be just three,” Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) told reporters.

With 55 Republicans in the Senate, it would only take the shift of five to deny House managers a 51-vote majority, presuming that the 45 Democratic senators vote as a bloc to acquit.

In a last-ditch attempt to prevent further crossovers, Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) broke his earlier posture of neutrality on the impeachment question and issued a statement strongly urging senators to vote to convict the president.

“We’ve come to the point many of us hoped we would never reach,” Lott said. “The evidence shows that the president has committed perjury and obstructed justice. The only question left is will the Senate vote to find him guilty of committing these high crimes?”

Meanwhile, prospects continued to dim that Democrats and moderate Republicans will be able to push through a separate resolution to censure Clinton for his conduct in the scandal arising from his affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Strategists said that a bipartisan task force, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), still has not been able to find language that will attract enough senators to overcome procedural hurdles facing the effort.

Under Senate rules, the group would need the backing of two-thirds, or 67, of the senators to force a vote on a censure resolution before the trial ends. Although the team continues to sound out members on wording, strategists said that the effort is in serious trouble.

After about four hours of deliberations Tuesday, the Senate met behind closed doors again Wednesday for about eight hours, with an hour for lunch and occasional short breaks.

After Wednesday’s session ended, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said that 49 of the 100 senators had spoken so far.

Under the trial’s rules, each senator has a maximum of 15 minutes to speak. Baucus said that so many senators were overrunning their allotted time that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is presiding over the trial, has frequently cut them off before their remarks were finished.

But Baucus said that several senators who have yet to speak are considering simply providing written statements for the record to save time.

Harken Reads His Remarks to Media

Lott said that he still hopes to bring the debate to a close today and begin voting on the articles of impeachment at 2 p.m. PST. But, he said, the votes may not come until Friday if senators continue to use the full time allotted to them for debate.

In a symbolic move, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who tried to persuade the Senate to open the debate to the public, read his remarks to reporters Wednesday before delivering his speech in closed session. Harkin, a fierce impeachment foe, called the charges “a counterfeit case.”

Harkin’s gesture of defiance immediately drew sharp criticism from Lott, who complained that the Iowan had gone public “while 90-plus other senators are sitting in the [Senate] chamber” in closed session.

Harkin, though, had obtained specific approval for his action from Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, who told him during open-floor discussion Tuesday that “you have every right to release your statement.”

Jeffords, the first GOP senator to announce that he would oppose both pending articles of impeachment, told reporters that--while Clinton had committed “shameful acts”--his offenses did “not reach the high standard of impeachment.”

He said he feared that a vote to convict Clinton on such charges would establish so low a threshold that it “would make every president subject to removal for the slightest indiscretion” and possibly “imperil every president who faces a Congress controlled by the opposing party.”

Chafee said that he believes the charges met the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors” justifying removal of a president. But he declared that he does not think the House managers had proved Clinton was guilty. He said the evidence they presented was “conflicting” at best.

By contrast, Specter said that he has not been convinced that Clinton is not guilty of the charges and he complained that the House impeachment managers had not been given full opportunity to make their case. As a result, Specter said, he would vote “not proven”--effectively a vote to acquit.

Several senators said privately that they thought Jeffords’ floor speech had a visible impact on some Republicans, particularly with regard to the perjury charge, widely considered the weaker of the two.

As lobbying on the censure resolution continued, Feinstein insisted late Wednesday that the effort is “not dead.” But she conceded that proponents still do not have enough votes to bring it to the floor today or Friday.

Indeed, the California senator and other sponsors already were turning to a weaker alternative, circulating a simple letter to be signed by senators that condemns the president’s actions. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said that 30 senators had signed the document so far.

Proponents had hoped to force a vote on a censure resolution before the trial ends to guarantee that it would be part of the impeachment proceedings and could not be retracted by future lawmakers.

Some Democratic senators also issued written statements or verbally confirmed their intentions to vote to acquit Clinton on both charges.

These included Sens. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin, Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii, Lieberman and Feinstein. Among this group, there had only been doubt about Lieberman, who in a widely reported Senate speech last fall harshly attacked Clinton for his conduct in the Lewinsky scandal.

Lugar Says Clinton ‘Must Be Removed’

At the same time, Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a moderate Republican, announced that he would vote to convict Clinton on both articles. “It will not be enough simply to condemn the tragic deeds of President Clinton,” he said in a statement. “He must be removed from office.”

In the statement he read to reporters, Harkin criticized Republicans and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, calling the impeachment move “one of the most blatant, political, vindictive actions taken by the House of Representatives since Andrew Johnson’s case” 131 years ago.

“The Radical Republicans of 1868 [who pushed through the impeachment charges facing Johnson] have been replaced by the zealous Republicans in the House of Representatives of 1998,” Harkin said. He called Starr a prosecutor who was “out of control.”

After a trial that lasted for more than three months, Johnson remained in office after the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him.

No transcript was kept of the secret deliberations in that case.

Times staff writer Faye Fiore contributed to this story.

When the Senate returns to open session for the votes on the two articles of impeachment, you can watch it live on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/impeach

* STARR INQUIRY URGED: Democrats press Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to investigate independent counsel’s office. A25