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Clinton's lawyers: defense will show impeachment case weak on facts and law
Updated January 18, 1999
4:15 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — Resigned that some witnesses may be summoned,
President Clinton's lawyers will use past testimony, federal laws
and the Founding Fathers' own words to dispute that House
prosecutors have made a lies-and-obstruction case worthy of ousting
the president.
A senior White House adviser said Monday that "we can't worry
about" the repercussions of delving into the facts of the Monica
Lewinsky case to aggressively highlight inconsistencies among
various accounts of witnesses, including some House prosecutors
want to question.
Witnesses "seem to us to be a foregone conclusion," said the
adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We plan to make the
most forceful case we can against the evidence."
Another source in the Clinton camp said that by focusing on the
facts of the case, the president's legal team has made a "major
shift in strategy" which will look at contradictions in evidence
even if it hands House managers a reason to request witnesses.
This source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said
presidential lawyers believe "witnesses will help our case."
Among the witness testimony that could come up in a protracted
Senate trial:
—Ms. Lewinsky says that she got a call from Clinton's secretary
Betty Currie arranging to pick up presidential gifts, a few hours
after Ms. Lewinsky told Clinton of her concern that she'd have to
turn over the presents he'd given her to Paula Jones's lawyers.
Mrs. Currie says she thinks it was Ms. Lewinsky who initiated
the gift return and Mrs. Currie has testified that she has no
recollection of ever talking to Clinton about returning the gifts,
before or after she picked them up. The Clinton legal team credits
Mrs. Currie's account, while noting that both witnesses testify
that the president did not ask Ms. Lewinsky to surrender the gifts.
—In rebutting the obstruction charge, Clinton's lawyers in a
Senate filing last week highlighted Mrs. Currie's testimony that
she didn't feel any pressure "whatsoever" when Clinton asked
questions like "I was never really alone with Monica, right?" In
another part of her testimony, however, Mrs. Currie said she felt
as though Clinton wanted her to agree with his statements.
"We are actually looking forward to turning the lights on for
the American people on how little evidence there is to back up the
smoke and innuendo of the House Republican case," former White
House special counsel Lanny Davis said.
Beyond challenging the evidence, the White House is expected to
make several political points as well:
—The charges against Clinton, even if proven, don't meet the
"high crimes and misdemeanors" standard for impeachment. In a
Senate filing last week, the Clinton team highlighted the views of
one of the framers of the Constitution that impeachment refers to
"great and dangerous offenses" or "attempts to subvert the
Constitution."
—The evidence doesn't meet the standard that a federal
prosecutor would use to bring perjury or obstruction charges
against an average citizen and therefore shouldn't be used to
reverse the will of Americans expressed in two elections.
—The differences between Clinton's and Ms. Lewinsky's testimony
on the details of their relationship — when it began and what sort
of intimate contacts it involved — are insignificant, not criminal,
and are nothing more than honest differences of recollection.
—Clinton isn't on trial for denying his affair with Ms.
Lewinsky, something he did in the Jones case, but which the House
rejected as an article of impeachment.
"Most polls show that a majority of the American people think
President Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky
before the grand jury," said Davis. "The American people are
going to be amazed when they learn that the president told the
truth before the grand jury about his relationship."
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