Key Republicans Say Senate Likely to Call Witnesses

Key Republicans said Sunday that the Senate is virtually certain to proceed with initial questioning of witnesses in President Clinton’s impeachment trial, while Democrats conceded the votes are not there to dismiss the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

A day after House impeachment managers finished their opening arguments, Washington peered ahead to a week of extraordinary juxtapositions: a State of the Union address by an impeached president, opening arguments by Clinton’s lawyers in the Senate, and what looms as a partisan vote on whether to call witnesses.

The question of whether to call witnesses has emerged as a critical test of impeachment sentiment, dividing the Senate along party lines. It’s widely agreed that Clinton’s accusers are far short of the two-thirds majority, 67 votes, needed to convict him. Calling witnesses would not only delay Clinton’s likely acquittal, it would give his foes a chance to change the outcome by persuading more senators to vote for conviction.

“I believe that witnesses will be called,” Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) said Sunday on ABC-TV’s “This Week.” “I’m not sure now that the White House is even going to make a motion to dismiss the trial. I think that would fail, and I think there’s a very real question of whether they are going to want to begin the process with two defeats.”

Under bipartisan rules crafted for the Clinton trial, the Senate will vote first on taking closed-door depositions from witnesses; a separate vote is required to allow public, televised testimony before all 100 senators.

Irked by the prospect of a prolonged trial, Democrats suggested that White House lawyers might call independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr to testify.

In a moment of candor, Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), one of 13 House trial managers, said the evidence that Clinton obstructed justice would not meet the standard of proof required for conviction in a criminal courtroom. Nor would it, he added, without the testimony of witnesses.

Several lawmakers suggested that direct testimony could help clarify such ambiguities as whether former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky--even if she was not directly asked to lie--believed she had an implicit promise of help in finding a job in exchange for denying her sexual encounters with Clinton.

“It is a lot of circumstantial evidence there,” Hutchinson, a former prosecutor, said on the ABC program. “I don’t think you could obtain a conviction [in a criminal court], or I could fairly ask for a conviction until we have testimony. How can you vote to remove a president without hearing the key witnesses? How can you vote to dismiss . . . these charges without hearing their testimony as well?”

Hutchinson’s statement was hailed as “an extraordinary admission” by White House spokesman Jim Kennedy. “It accounts for why they lack confidence in their case,” he said. The Senate, however, does not have to adhere to the strict standard of proof required in a criminal court.

While acknowledging that the House has made a strong enough case to withstand an attempt at summary dismissal, Democrats were not ready to give up the fight over calling witnesses.

Asked on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” if there are sufficient votes to end the trial now, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) flatly answered: “At this stage, I do not believe there are.”

But Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) warned that Republicans might come to regret a decision to call witnesses.

“I can assure you, if I’m any reader of the tea leaves in this situation, [then] front and center is going to be Kenneth Starr, and we will go through the prosecutorial abuse, how he came by information, who he talked to, and we are going to put the system of justice on trial,” Torricelli said on the same program.

“That may have some partisan benefits,” he added, “but it is not good for the Senate, it is not good for the country.”

Republicans were noncommittal as to whether they would allow Starr to be called to testify. But they underscored their desire to hear from several “core witnesses,” including Lewinsky; Betty Currie, Clinton’s personal secretary; and Vernon E. Jordan Jr., an influential Washington lawyer and a close friend of the president. They also said Clinton’s testimony would be welcome, although it appears extremely unlikely the Senate will ask for it.

Democrats said there are already voluminous transcripts of testimony from these witnesses in the record. One Clinton defender, former White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis, insisted the president has nothing to fear from witnesses.

“We believe witnesses help our case,” Davis said in an interview. “The reason we don’t want witnesses is not that we’re afraid of them, it’s that we think they’re unnecessary.”

Following a powerful oratorical performance Saturday by lead prosecutor Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), there was considerable speculation about the strategy the president’s lawyers will pursue this week. Democrats said they expect the White House team to attack the legal arguments of the House prosecutors, as well as their interpretation of the facts.

The House trial managers repeatedly underscored the fact that federal judges have been impeached and removed from office for perjury. But Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) argued that the facts in those cases were so different as to invalidate any useful comparison.

“What the judges did affected . . . the process of the court itself,” Kerry said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “What will it say to the rule of law . . . if a government investigator, charged with one responsibility to investigate one thing, winds up investigating the private life . . . of a politician and uses [that] as the underlying act of incrimination?

“That’s the difference that will be at the center of the debate.”

While nearly one in five members of the 100-member Senate debated the impeachment case on TV talk shows, the president spent his Sunday practicing his State of the Union message. The Clintons also attended church services, during which they joined in singing the hymn “We Shall Overcome” in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

Last year, Clinton’s State of the Union address drew a larger than normal TV audience, apparently because of curiosity about the White House scandals. He avoided that issue but presented a long list of popular policy proposals.

Some Republicans have suggested that Clinton should send Congress a written State of the Union message this year, but the White House has declined to do so. Instead, accused and accusers will take part together in an annual ritual of politics and policy.

“It’s like adjourning a trial to have the accused give a pep rally before the jury,” Gramm observed.

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