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House managers interview Lewinsky,
Lott seeks to submit questions to Clinton
January 24, 1999
Updated 4:10 p.m.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House prosecutors brushed off Democratic fury and
interviewed Monica Lewinsky informally Sunday -- a sudden turn in President Clinton's
impeachment trial that triggered new partisan convulsions and led to a barrage of
efforts to end the case.
"We would be derelict in our duty ... if we didn't talk to her," said Rep.
William McCollum, R-Fla., one of the 13 House managers presenting the case for
Clinton's removal from office to the Senate. "We've never even met her."
Three House prosecutors, Reps. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., Ed Bryant, R-Tenn., and
McCollum arrived in midafternoon at Washington's stately Mayflower Hotel. Ms.
Lewinsky's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, came earlier.
Hutchinson said earlier that he met with the lawyer for presidential friend
Vernon Jordan, "laying the groundwork ... in the eventuality that he is called as
witness. And hopefully, I'll be able to talk to Mr. Jordan."
The House managers said they wanted to ask substantive questions of Ms.
Lewinsky about her relationship with Clinton. McCollum said he wanted to question her
about "her current state of mind on the grand jury testimony that she gave." In that
testimony, the former intern said Clinton never asked her to lie about their
affair.
Three Republican senators expressed skepticism about calling any witnesses, an
issue that is likely to be put to the Senate this week.
"I do not want the Senate to become a spectacle, a scene," said Sen. Richard
Shelby of Alabama, adding he would support only witnesses who "can add a lot." Sens.
Slade Gorton of Washington and Olympia Snowe of Maine expressed similar misgivings.
Snowe commented she does not want the trial "to turn into the Jerry Springer
show."
At the Mayflower Hotel where Ms. Lewinsky was housed, concierge John Dignan
said the former White House intern has received about a dozen messages by phone and
fax -- some with off-color comments but most offering support.
"She really doesn't want to see these things, so we've been throwing them
away," he said, specifying that the hotel checked with Ms. Lewinsky before discarding
the messages.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, meanwhile, said he would go ahead with a
plan to submit written questions to Clinton, even though White House lawyers -- who
first suggested the questions -- now say the attorneys would respond rather than the
president.
"We will continue to prepare a letter in hopes that the president will respond
to the senators' interrogatories," Lott said in a statement. A response by Clinton
attorneys "is not a substitute for the president answering the questions," he
said.
And in Reno, Nev., former President Bush said Saturday night that he was
"deeply concerned" by "what appears to be a lack of respect" for the presidency by
Clinton. But Clinton's predecessor said the case "will soon pass away and once again
our country will be respected and strong around the world."
In a move that shattered the Senate's bipartisan approach to the impeachment
trial and caught senators from both parties off guard, Independent Counsel Kenneth
Starr's office obtained a court order to help the House schedule the interview.
Starr's staff told a judge Friday she was obligated to cooperate under an
agreement giving her limited immunity from prosecution. But Charles Bakaly, Starr's
spokesman, said, "This is not our interview. The substance of the questions are not
ours."
For the second consecutive Sunday, many of the key players had a say: 21
senators appeared on the Sunday talk shows, as did five of the 13 House
prosecutors.
Lead House manager Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said the interview, an often-used tactic
in court trials to size up witnesses, was to learn "the kind of witness she would
make."
But in the now-rancorous atmosphere, the surprise move by House Republicans
gave Senate Democrats a new opening to denounce the perjury and obstruction of justice
case presented by the prosecution team.
The managers "are swinging wildly for the fence for a home run" to save a case
"in serious trouble," Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., said. On Saturday, Senate
Democratic Leader Tom Daschle called the Republican tactic "raw partisanship."
The Lewinsky interview was injected into the trial just as the Senate faced
crucial decisions this week and just as a bipartisan agreement governing the first
phase of the trial was about to run its course.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the chamber's respected expert on history and
traditions, said he will move to dismiss the case. If that fails, senators would
decide whether to call witnesses, initially for depositions. Most Republicans support
testimony; most Democrats do not.
Several senators said they were intensifying work on means to end the trial and
end the political gridlock that confronts the Senate: Republicans possess the votes
needed to call witnesses, and Democrats hold enough votes to block the president's
removal. It takes a two-thirds majority to oust the president but only a majority for
other motions in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 55-45 edge.
On the Sunday talk-show circuit, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, suggested that
witnesses "could be limited to only the obstruction of justice charge," because that's
where the major conflicts in testimony exist.
Sen. John Breaux, D-La., acknowledging that Byrd's motion is unlikely to
generate Republican support, proposed a "motion to dismiss-plus."
"That motion in essence would contain the facts that the president has
dishonored the office, that he had an inappropriate relationship, that he misled the
American public. It does allow us to dismiss based with sort of a censure resolution
contained in that dismissal."
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