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WASHINGTON (Court TV) — House prosecutors asked Senate leaders Monday to issue subpoenas for three people who have challenged the deposition testimony of White House aide Sidney Blumenthal in connection with the president' impeachment trial.

"This new evidence indicates that Sidney Blumenthal may have testified falsely before the Senate," Rep. Henry Hyde, the chief prosecutor, wrote Senate leaders.

He said the possible falsehood included Blumenthal's claim that he had "never told any reporters the false story that the president relayed to him that Monica Lewinsky was 'a stalker.'"

Blumenthal has denied giving false testimony when he was questioned under oath last Wednesday by prosecutors Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-SC. and Rep. James Rogan, R-Calif.

But free-lance journalist Christopher Hitchens and his wife have both signed sworn affidavits saying that Blumenthal, at a lunch in March 1998, had referred to Lewinsky in those terms.

In his affidavit, Hitchens wrote that Blumenthal told him, "Monica Lewinsky had been a stalker and that the President was the victim of a predatory and unstable sexually demanding young woman."

Hitchens also claims Blumenthal made comments about Kathleen Willey, the woman who alleged that the president made an unwanted sexual advance when she was working with him in the White House.

Blumenthal said that Willey's public approval ratings were high at the time of the March lunch, but added that her "poll numbers" would fall, according to Hitchens.

Read Hitchens' affadavit.

Hyde's letter came as senators in both parties called for a Justice Department probe into Blumenthal's testimony.

It also came after Democratic leader Tom Daschle blocked a move by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to place the affidavits of Hitchens and his wife, Carol Blue, into the Senate record.

At the Justice Department, spokesman Myron Marlin said, "We've received no formal referral from Congress and at this point only know what we've read in the newspapers. It is not common to open an investigation of alleged perjury before Congress without first receiving a formal referral."

Officials of the department's criminal division were informally looking over the news reports to see if there was even something they would consider investigating, according to one official who requested anonymity.

Blumenthal has denied feeding the news media stories that Monica Lewinsky was known as "the stalker" and that she made a sexual demand on Clinton.

House prosecutors have contended that Clinton passed on false, derogatory information about Lewinsky so that Blumenthal would repeat the comments to a grand jury and elsewhere.

Hitchens said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that "when I saw" Blumenthal "for the first time since the scandal broke, that's what he said to me and to my wife and has said to many other people, that Monica Lewinsky was a stalker."

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said, "I would hope that he isn't lying. I think if he is, it's serious."

Republicans were just as adamant, with Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine saying "certainly the truth should be uncovered with respect to whether or not Sidney Blumenthal told the truth under oath."

Added Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas: "We will insist that we have an expedited consideration by the Justice Department."

Responding to Hitchens, Blumenthal issued a statement Sunday that focused on a part of his testimony in which he said he spoke of Lewinsky to "friends." That category, he said, included Hitchens, a freelance writer for Vanity Fair and The Nation magazines.

Sydney Blumenthal’s attorney, William McDaniel, read Court TV the following statement on behalf of Blumenthal:

"I was never a source for any story about Monica Lewinsky’s personal life. I did not reveal what the president told me to any reporter. As I testified to the Senate, I talked every day about the stories appearing in the newspapers concerning Ms. Lewinsky to family and friends just as everyone else was doing.

"Though I do recall the lunch with my then-friend of 15 years Christopher Hitchins and his wife, the notion that I was trying to plant a story with this rabid anti-Clinton friend of mine is absurd. My wife and I are saddened that Christopher has chosen to end our friendship in this meaningless way."

Court TV's Aldina Vazao Kennedy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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