|
First day's questions provide platforms for attorneys' arguments
Updated January 22, 1999
6:45 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV) — As senators began their two-day question session in President Clinton's impeachment trial, an influential Democratic senator has said he will present a motion to dismiss the case on Monday, forestalling the White House counsel's anticipated motion to dismiss.
"I am convinced that the necessary two-thirds for conviction is not there and that they are not likely to develop," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia. "I have also become convinced that this trial will only prolong and deepen the divisive, bitter, and polarizing effect this sorry affair has visited upon our nation."
"I believe that the time has now come for us to dismiss the case," agreed Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, on Court TV after the Senate session.
In response, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, announced that Republicans will unite to quash Byrd's motion. The Republicans have a 55-45 majority in the Senate but 67 votes are needed to remove the president from office.
After the Senate adjourned on Friday evening, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told CNN that to vote for dismissal, the senators must believe that even if all the House prosecutors' allegations are true, the articles don't rise to the level of impeachment.
Hatch allowed that he didn't believe that the Republicans have 67 votes for impeachment yet, but "this is not the end of the matter," he said.
The question and answer session was dominated by lengthy responses from the prosecutors and defense counsel, in answer to often leading or broad softball questions lobbed to them from the senators from their respective political parties.
The questions passed solemnly passed from one court officer to the next until they reached the hand of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who asked the two sides to respond in fewer than five minutes — although many replies ran closer to ten minutes.
Many of the answers repeated points previously outlined in the exhaustive opening statements, and recited hotly-contested snippets of grand jury testimony. Friday, however, the competing arguments were sharply juxtaposed after having been presented days apart.
For instance, senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., inquired "isn't it true that the allegedly perjurious statements have changed in number and substance" as the investigation has progressed?
"The answer is yes," replied White House counsel Greg Craig. "And they have been changing right up until the day of this trial. There were allegations added, allegations subtracted."
After Craig finished, the next question came from Sen. Trent Lott, asking the House managers "do you wish to respond to the answer just given?"
"They have seen these facts since Kenneth Starr submitted his report to Congress," answered Rep. James Rogan. "Nothing has changed except their attempt to wiggle out from under the truth."
The Republican senators' questions, in turn, have offered the prosecutors a chance to rebut the White House counsel's arguments, and to repeat their call for witnesses. One asked prosecutors simply to elaborate on the historic import of oath-taking.
"In the long march of civilization, the oath has taken the place of trial by fire, trial by combat," Rep. Henry Hyde answered. "The oath underscores our humanity, the oath is an aspect of our sacred honor."
The session did take on a punchier tone as the afternoon wore on, with senators standing up and objecting to the responses provided. Rehnquist ruled that he would not determine whether an answer was inadequate and thus barred senators from objecting to the answers.
The Senate went into recess at about 6 p.m. after roughly 50 questions had been asked, according to Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott. It reconvenes at 10 a.m. on Saturday to continue the question-and-answer session.
The questions have given Senators a chance to participate in the trial after six days of listening in silence to opening arguments and an emotional appeal on behalf of the president from former Ark. senator Dale Bumpers on Thursday.
Democrats were buoyed by Thursday's defense speeches, but Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., said Friday that he is advising his fellow party members not to become smug and declare victory prematurely.
"I think we need to give our Republican colleagues a dignified
retreat out of this case," he said on NBC's "Today."
Democrats have opposed calling witnesses. Most would likely vote for an expected motion to dismiss the case without voting on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice regarding Clinton's alleged efforts to cover up his affair with Lewinsky. Even some Republicans seemed undecided about the need for witnesses.
The motion to dismiss and votes on witnesses, which will probably occur on Monday, may end the bipartisanship that has sustained the trial
inside the Senate, although political unity already has evaporated
in front of television cameras stationed just outside the chamber.
"There's so much acrimony in Washington, tragically, and so
much division over issues and personalities ... You may dislike
Bill Clinton, and God knows he's given us all some reasons to be
disappointed. Rise above it," Torricelli said.
The senators' questions follow former Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers' closing presentation Thursday, which was praised by both Republicans and Democrats for its eloquence.
In an hour-long speech, Bumpers combined a law professor's lecture on the framers of the Constitution and a family friend's appeal on the "moral agony and sleepless nights" that the First Family has suffered throughout the five-year investigation.
Bumpers said that when the framers developed the constitutional standard for impeachment, they relied on an English law that defined "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" as "offenses, distinctly political, against the state."
The charges against the president, he said, "don't even come close" to the standard that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had in mind. This investigation, he added, is not about perjury but sex and marital infidelity.
Bumpers also pleaded with the Senate to heed the people's desire to get on with the political agenda awaiting the 106th Congress, as evidenced by polls that show that the majority of the public approves of Clinton's performance and wants him to complete his term.
"They're asking for an end to this nightmare," he said. "It's a legitimate request."
After Bumpers' speech, not all Republicans were echoing the party stances on witnesses or the strength of the case presented last week by the all-Republican House prosecution team. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said the White House "created reasonable doubt for me and many of my colleagues" on a majority of the contested issues.
"It doesn't mean they can't be reclarified to the comfort of all of us," Smith said, holding open his ultimate judgment.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said that witnesses should only be called if they will add new information to the case.
"I don't think we ought to hear witnesses unless they will add a lot to the case," Shelby added. "I would want to know what they would say over and above what they already said in testimony that is now part of the written record developed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr."
Clinton lawyer David Kendall, who spoke prior to Bumpers, recited Lewinsky's testimony that "no one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence." He repeated that the President Clinton did not commit perjury and did not try to obstruct justice.
After the White House presentation, House prosecutors maintained that their case against the president was stronger and applied more directly to the factual evidence. One impeachment manager, Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., said, "Any jury is instructed not to set aside their common sense."
| 
Full Coverage