Address Outlines Sweeping Plan, Rescue of Social Security

The White House launched its defense of President Clinton on two broad fronts Tuesday, flat-out denying in his Senate impeachment trial that he committed perjury or obstructed justice in the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal and asserting that such “private” misconduct did not meet the standard for his removal from office.

White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff insisted that the president never intentionally lied to the grand jury and never sought to reward the former intern with a new job for her silence.

He further maintained that federal judges, several of whom have been impeached and removed from office for similar offenses, are held to a higher standard because they are appointed for life, unlike a president, who is elected to serve a four-year term.

“William Jefferson Clinton is not guilty of the charges that have been preferred against him,” Ruff said. “He did not commit perjury, he did not obstruct justice. He must not be removed from office.”

He roundly attacked the prosecution’s case, arguing that it had misrepresented key evidence on the timing of efforts to help Lewinsky find a job.

The House Republican managers said that Lewinsky submitted an affidavit denying her affair with Clinton only after presidential friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. arranged a job for her. But Ruff’s chronology showed that Jordan began helping Lewinsky even before a federal judge ruled that she could be called as a witness in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

Ruff, speaking largely extemporaneously for more than two hours from his wheelchair, closed his presentation nearly in tears as he gave an emotional tribute to his father and attempted to refute a suggestion by House Republican prosecutors that Americans killed in past wars would expect the Senate to convict the president.

In their statements to the Senate, the House managers last week recalled the countless U.S. fighting men lying in graves around the world--patriots who gave their lives to uphold the rule of American law. They most passionately described the national cemetery at Normandy, France, and its rows of white crosses and stars of David marking the graves of soldiers killed on D-Day during World War II.

But Ruff managed to neutralize that image with the story of his father’s heroism on Omaha Beach on that morning, June 6, 1944.

“He fought, as all those did, for our country and our Constitution,” Ruff said, his head bowed, his lips quivering.

“And as long as each of us--a manager, the president’s counsel, a senator--does his or her constitutional duty, those who fought for their country will be proud.”

Senate Democrats--predictably--quickly hailed his address, seeing it as a powerful counterpoint to three days of strong but largely legalistic arguments by the House managers.

“Ruff blew a hole as big as a barn door in the prosecution’s case,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

Others were equally impressed, even though they at times had to strain to hear his voice, which sounded muffled when he had problems with his microphone.

“You really had to strain to listen,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “And then at the end, you could probably have heard a pin drop in there.”

Even Republican Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado, who insisted he has yet to decide how he will vote on Clinton’s fate, acknowledged that Ruff’s presentation was at times spellbinding.

“It was very difficult to hear him. I had to lean a little forward to make him out,” Allard said. “And he was very well spoken.”

Managers Find Fault With Ruff

But House managers found fault with Ruff’s presentation, particularly his attempts to cast doubts on whether Clinton purposely misled the grand jury and conspired with others to obstruct justice by keeping Lewinsky from becoming a witness against him in the Jones case.

“He did what I thought he would do,” said Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), one of the managers. “There was a miscarriage of facts.”

The House managers also complained that Ruff twisted and misrepresented their statements to the Senate. But the managers will have to wait until later this week to fire back, when senators will begin submitting written questions to both sides.

Republican senators said they believe Ruff actually strengthened the argument for witnesses in the trial--something the White House opposes--because he showed the contradictions in the accounts of Clinton, Lewinsky, presidential secretary Betty Currie and Jordan.

“I think he really made the case for calling Lewinsky and Currie,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Added Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine): “I thought he made an excellent case for witnesses. I’m beginning to wonder whether in fact the White House wants witnesses.

“This is a search for the truth,” she stressed, “and if the president’s counsel by aggressively cross-examining witnesses is able to bring out information to help their case, they should be given that opportunity.”

‘Monica-Free Day’ Put in Perspective

The White House legal team, which had been sitting quietly in the Senate chamber, began speaking in Clinton’s defense on Tuesday, 365 days after the nation’s last “Monica-free” day, closing the circle on a year that has seen Clinton’s presidency rocked by the fallout from his illicit affair with the young woman from Beverly Hills.

Tuesday was also the day for Clinton’s annual State of the Union message and, to minimize the political dissonance between his trial and his night-time address in the House chamber on the other side of the Capitol, the Senate proceedings adjourned early.

Ruff will be followed today by other White House lawyers, who will challenge the two impeachment articles. The White House case will be summed up by recently retired Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), a longtime close Clinton ally.

Bumpers, 73, who often has chatted with Clinton about the Lewinsky scandal, was a noted orator in a chamber filled with them. When he arrived on the Senate floor with the Clinton legal team Tuesday, several senators from both sides of the aisle immediately welcomed him with outstreched hands.

Then Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist opened the day’s proceedings, and the spotlight quickly fell on Ruff. There it stayed all afternoon as he meticulously recited the history and facts of the case and conjured up images of the Founding Fathers defining the word “impeachment” and the senatrs of a generation ago grappling with the misdeeds of President Nixon.

He said the framers of the Constitution insisted that a president be removed only for crimes that threaten the government, and not for less significant offenses such as “maladministration” or personal failings.

Ex-President Ford Is Quoted by Ruff

He also quoted former President Ford, who once noted that presidents and vice presidents “can be thrown out of office by the voters at least every four years.”

Ruff added that Ford saw impeachment as someting that would “require crimes of the magnitude of treason and bribery.”

The House managers last week used the example of federal judges who have been impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice to argue that such offenses also are impeachable for a president.

Noting that judges serve for life and can be removed only through impeachment, Ruff argued that only high crimes against the state should be considered impeachable for a popularly elected president.

Ruff warned about overzealous prosecutors, specifically the Republican-led House that impeached the president last month. “Be wary, be wary of the prosecutor who feels it necessary to deceive the court,” he said.

He acknowledged that many people find Clinton’s sexual antics with Lewinsky in the White House to be “despicable.” For himself, Ruff carefully skirted any description of those antics, except to say at one point, “I won’t use the critical term.”

But, he told the senators, “we are not here to defend William Clinton, the man. He, like all of us, will find his judges elsewhere.

“We are here to defend William Clinton, the president of the United States, for whom you are the only judges.

“You are free to criticize him, to find his personal conduct distasteful. But ask whether this is the moment when, for the first time in our history, the actions of a president have so put at risk the government the framers created that there is only one solution.”

“Are we,” he asked, “at that horrific moment in our history when our union can be preserved only by taking the step that the framers saw as a last resort?”

Ruff argued that the impeachment articles drawn up by the House managers were flawed due to their broad, imprecise nature. Specifically, he said the House managers never listed line by line the alleged perjurious remarks uttered by the president.

The prosecutors later told reporters there were at least four examples of lies by the president in his grand jury appearance. One was Clinton’s statement that his goal in the deposition in the Jones case “was to be truthful.”

Rep. James Rogan (R-Glendale) said the House prosecutors used the articles drafted by Democrats during Watergate as a guide for the allegations against Clinton.

Ruff, using charts containing phone records and other evidence, attempted to refute the charge that Jordan tried to help Lewinsky get a job because of her appearance on the witness list in the Jones case.

He demonstrated that Jordan was on a trans-Atlantic flight when the judge in the Jones case issued the key ruling that made Lewinsky a potential witness. Jordan had made telephone calls on Lewinsky’s behalf before the judge’s ruling, Ruff argued, and was not influenced by that decision.

“Prosecutorial fudge-making,” Ruff called the assertion.

Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Judy Lin, Art Pine and Heidi Sherman contributed to this story.

You can watch live video coverage of today’s Senate impeachment proceedings on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/impeach

Highlights of Ruff’s arguments:

On the Charges: “William Jefferson Clinton is not guilty of the charges that have been preferred against him.”

The House Case: “We believe the managers have misstated the record, have constructed their case out of tenuous extrapolations without foundation, have at every turn assumed the worst without the evidence to support their speculations.”

Perjury and Obstruction: “He did not commit perjury. He did not obstruct justice. He must not be removed from office.”

Seriousness of the Charges: “Are we at that horrific moment in our history when our union can be preserved only by taking the step that the framers saw as a last resort?”

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Who’s Up Next

Special Counsel Gregory Craig will open today’s session attacking the evidence used by House prosecutors to charge that Clinton lied at least four times before a grand jury. He is to be followed by White House Deputy Counsel Cheryl Mills, who will analyze the evidence of alleged obstruction.

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