Decorum Is Only Scene-Deep in Senate

As the Senate jury of 91 men and 9 women listened Thursday in unaccustomed silence to the case against President Clinton, their seeming passivity belied the roiling emotions and fierce partisan jockeying behind the scenes.

Even before the trial resumed shortly after 10 a.m. PST with the cry of “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!” Republicans and Democrats were convening one-sided strategy sessions that raised the hackles of the opposing party.

Each accused the other of bad faith--raising fresh doubts about whether the bipartisan truce struck just last week in the second presidential impeachment in the nation’s history can be maintained.

And at the end of the first day’s proceeding, many rushed eagerly toward microphones, anxious to break their silence and toe the party line.

“What we heard today was nothing new. What we heard today was the same thing I heard in the House,” said newly elected Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who last year actively opposed the articles of impeachment as a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “What we seem to be doing is repeating the same arguments over and over and over again.”

Senate Republicans, Prosecutors Meet

On the eve of the trial, Senate Republicans met privately with the House prosecution team to discuss the volatile issue of which witnesses should testify--a decision that the Senate had unanimously voted to put off until later in the trial.

But even as Democrats cried foul, they acknowledged that they too had huddled behind closed doors with Democratic attorneys on the House Judiciary Committee for a pretrial strategy session and a briefing on weaknesses in the prosecution’s case.

The GOP meeting, which included three Republican senators who favor calling witnesses, elicited bitter complaints from Democratic senators. Only days ago, the two parties reached a tentative deal on how to proceed in the politically charged trial.

“I’m very disappointed and somewhat surprised that there has been that kind of activity this early,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) before the opening gavel. “It certainly violates the spirit of agreement that we just all agreed to last week.”

Republicans had approached Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) about Democratic participation in such a meeting. But Daschle told Lieberman that he opposed such a session. No Democrats showed up.

“Since we had admonished our Republican colleagues that this was in violation of the spirit of the agreement, I was under the assumption that there would not be any meetings,” Daschle said Thursday.

Top GOP aides said the session was not the secret meeting described by Democrats.

“Overtures were made. And their answer was ‘No, thanks,’ ” said John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

While such sniping reached high-decibel intensity in the tiled corridors just outside the chamber, decorum carried the day inside.

Rarely do all 100 senators take their seats at once, even during fierce debates. Unheard of is a roomful of senators unable to speak.

Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) said that such silence reminded him of his school days when the teacher did the talking. “This is not a normal day at work,” he said. “This is a very, very serious, special procedure.”

“Senators function based on the expulsion of air,” added Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) during a late-afternoon break in the proceedings. “It’s hard to sit there quietly.”

When the jurors spilled out of the chamber for breaks, some could not contain their instinctive attraction to television cameras.

“I think Asa did a really tremendous job in connecting the dots and putting the dates in sequence,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said of the lengthy presentation by Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), one of the 13 House prosecutors.

He also called the oral arguments of Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.) “absolutely brilliant, very well done.”

At day’s end, the reviews flowed in from the jurors with a fury.

“We’re going to hear the other side then we’ll have an opportunity to see if this rises to the level that the Founding Fathers had in mind,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), sounding unconvinced.

Republicans, however, were generally eager to hear more.

Stevens, for one, said that the daylong presentation reinforced for him the need to hear directly from Monica S. Lewinsky and Betty Currie, whose names came up repeatedly throughout the day.

“Today changed my mind on calling some of those witnesses,” Stevens said. “This will not be resolved unless they are called.”

Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called Day One “a good start, a solid foundation, useful.”

The power was in the presentation, he said.

“There was not a lot of new information but they laid it out in a succinct, straightforward, disciplined manner, which I was impressed by,” Frist said.

For every loose-lipped senator, however, there were others who insisted on remaining silent.

“I’m not going to make any comment during a trial,” said Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.). “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Said Ashcroft: “I think it’s best for me not to give impressions after hearing one side of the case.” But, he quickly added, “I can’t guarantee I won’t change my mind about that,” he said.

Some Did Research on Their Own

As senators prepared to hear a second day of the prosecution’s case this afternoon, it was clear that many intended to supplement the testimony with research of their own.

Republicans met with House prosecutors Wednesday night “to educate themselves” on the need for witnesses, said Czwartacki. He said that the session, involving Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, does not taint the fairness of the proceedings or blow up the agreement reached Friday.

“I don’t see a sinister plot here,” said Brook Simmons, spokesman for Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles (R-Okla.).

The Democrats met on their own in a session designed to walk senators through the case from their party’s perspective and answer their questions, according to Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), a participant in the Wednesday afternoon session.

Others who huddled with Democratic lawyers from the House Judiciary Committee were Kennedy, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, John B. Breaux of Louisiana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, Charles S. Robb of Virginia and Richard H. Bryan of Nevada.