Clinton Defense Team to Begin Making Its Case

After a surprisingly strong performance by House prosecutors, President Clinton’s legal team will lead off his defense in the Senate today with a full day of arguments presented by low-key White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff.

Ruff is expected to make a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of the case against Clinton, focusing both narrowly on the facts of the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, and broadly on the Constitution’s standard for impeachment.

“We think there are significant holes in the House case, as well as many overreaching characterizations,” said Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for the counsel’s office. “We will challenge the allegations by going through the entire record.”

The White House defense is expected to last three days, although the lawyers and Clinton spokesmen were mum on most details.

After the presentation of Clinton’s case, senators at week’s end are likely to get a chance to ask questions of the prosecution and defense teams. Early next week, the senators are scheduled to vote on whether to hear additional testimony from witnesses.

Most Democrats continue to oppose calling witnesses, but Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) on Monday conceded that it “may be inevitable.” The House prosecution team last week stressed that witnesses would underscore their case, and most Republican senators seemed convinced by that argument.

“I think, judging from what Republicans have said with almost unanimity, it appears there will be witnesses,” Daschle said in an interview. If so, however, the trial will “last much, much longer” than forecast, perhaps into the spring, he said.

The Senate has not established the procedures for how it would handle witnesses.

Under one plan, the House prosecutors would submit a list of potential witnesses, and explain why each is needed. The Senate would vote, and if a majority approved, the prosecutors and defense would have two weeks or so to interview the witnesses.

After that, the senators could read the transcripts and then vote again on whether the witness would be called to testify. Later, the White House would get a chance to submit its list of preferred witnesses.

A second option would have both sides submit their lists of witnesses at once. Senate Democrats have suggested the White House lawyers might want to call independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and his top prosecutors to explore how the case was constructed from the start.

The exact makeup of the team that will defend Clinton in the Senate remained uncertain Monday night. According to some reports, the president’s lawyers were considering asking Democrats from the House Judiciary Committee to become part of the defense effort.

Candidates being mentioned among the House Democrats were John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Thomas M. Barrett of Wisconsin and Rick Boucher of Virginia. Conyers, the Judiciary panel’s ranking minority member, was an ardent Clinton defender, but the other two lawmakers took a more moderate approach. Boucher sponsored a tough-worded censure resolution of the president as an alternative to impeachment, but the panel’s Republican members thwarted the proposal.

Ruff, in his opening presentation, will be seeking to head off the need for witnesses, but his task has grown harder.

Until last week, Clinton’s lawyers had hoped the House case would look thin and trivial, hardly worthy of the Senate’s attention. If so, the defense team could take the high road and argue the articles of impeachment warranted a quick vote of dismissal.

But many senators--including some Democrats--said the House prosecutors made effective opening arguments. They presented a strong circumstantial case that Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice in seeking to hide his affair with Lewinsky, and that he should be expelled from office as a result.

Ruff will try to unravel the fabric weaved by the prosecutors.

For example, Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) used dates, times and other evidence to show that the arrival of Lewinsky’s subpoena to testify in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case against Clinton set off a near frantic search to find Lewinsky a job in New York. Moreover, a visit by Lewinsky to the White House after receiving the subpoena was followed a few hours later by the president’s secretary, Betty Currie, retrieving the gifts Clinton had given the former White House intern.

Hutchinson argued this was part of an obstruction of justice scenario orchestrated by Clinton.

But Ruff, in a brief already submitted to the Senate, noted that no witness said Clinton told Currie to hide the gifts, and no one said the president told Lewinsky to lie when testifying in the Jones case.

Ruff, in his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee late last year, acknowledged that a “reasonable” person might conclude Clinton lied in his deposition in the Jones case when asked a series of questions about his relationship with Lewinsky.

But Ruff stressed that Clinton told the truth in August before Starr’s grand jury, the testimony that is the basis of the perjury charge against him. At that time, Clinton admitted he had sexual contact with Lewinsky on “certain occasions” at the White House. Does it make sense to charge the president with perjury, Ruff asked in his brief, because the president said “certain occasions” and not the precise 11 instances cited by the House?

While senators seem to be paying close attention to the impeachment trial, most Americans are not, according to a poll taken over the weekend. Only one-third of those surveyed said they had watched at least “some” of the trial on television, and only 15% watched all or a lot of it.

And Clinton’s popularity remains solid, according to a new Gallup poll. Among the Gallup respondents, 69% approved of Clinton’s job performance, while 29% gave him low marks.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.

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Defending the President

Phase two of the Senate trial begins today, with the White House defense team laying out its case.

Chief White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff: A long-respected Washington attorney, Ruff is the architect of the White House defense based on constitutional issues.

White House Special Counsel Gregory B. Craig: A veteran of the staff of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the State Department, Craig was brought to the White House last year to help defend the president.

Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl D. Mills: Mills has been active in White House damage control.

White House Special Counsel Lanny A. Breuer: A graduate of Columbia Law School, Breuer’s expertise is in executive privilege and interrogation.

David E. Kendall, Clinton’s personal attorney: Kendall is a private criminal attorney who has had a lead role so far in Clinton’s defense.

Nicole K. Seligman, Clinton’s personal attorney: Seligman is a law partner of Kendall and was instrumental in defending Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal.