|
Democrats threaten not to attend Thursday's impeachment hearing
Updated November 13, 1998
5:00 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV) — The House Judiciary Committee chairman wants lawmakers to consider calling additional witnesses — unrelated to the Independent Counsel's original referral — in the presidential impeachment investigation, according to committee sources. Meanwhile House Democrats are threatening to boycott Thursday's hearing.
Independent Counsel Ken Starr is expected to testify Thursday against the president.
Judiciary committee sources, who would not be quoted by name, said chairman Henry Hyde plans to discuss a list of additional witnesses with Republicans Tuesday. A spokesman for the Judiciary Committee said no new decisions have been made. There may have been discussions about additional witnesses among staff, said the spokesman, but "we haven't announced any new schedule."
Republican investigators have expressed a growing interest in former Democratic fund-raiser John Huang according to commmittee sources. Starr gained the cooperation of Huang in an investigation of possible "hush money" payments to presidential friend Webster Hubbell.
The investigators are interested in whether President Clinton knew of payments to Hubbell by Clinton friends and supporters — and whether the money was designed to keep Hubbell from talking to prosecutors about the president.
House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt and White House press secretary Joe Lockhart complained that Democrats have been kept in the dark about the upcoming hearing.
Gephardt said committee Democrats "may decide not to go," saying they were concerned that Starr would be "launching into materials that have never been sent to the committee..."
Gephardt said Democrats were especially troubled by reports that Starr might testify about Huang and other issues, including White House use of FBI files and the firing of employees in the White House travel office.
Said White House spokeman Joe Lockhart, "If the committee thinks that providing a rerun of the failed Dan Burton investigation is the way they should move forward to do this fairly and expeditiously, that's what they'll decide to do. We will deal with that situation when and if it ever comes to pass."
Burton, a Republican congressman from Indiana, conducted hearings into Democratic campaign fund raising.
If the committee takes testimony from Huang, who has immunity from prosecution in Starr's investigation, it could expand the inquiry beyond the perjury and obstruction of justice allegations in the Monica Lewinsky matter.
One of the payments to Hubbell was $100,000 from Huang's former employer, the Riady family of Indonesia. The Riadys are longtime supporters of the president, while Hubbell is a onetime high-level Justice Department official and a former law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Starr indicted Hubbell last week on Whitewater real estate matters, the third time the prosecutor has charged him with wrongdoing.
The president has been asked about the Riady payment in the past and said, "I didn't know about it" until news articles appeared.
Hyde has been adamant that he wants to end the inquiry before the new Congress takes office in January, and Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., set to be the next House speaker, reportedly has agreed with the timetable.
Committee sources have said the goal could still be met if additional witnesses were called — partly because some individuals would appear for sworn interviews rather than at committee hearings. Lawmakers from both parties have been pressing Hyde to call other witnesses beyond Starr.
It was not clear that any additional witness list would result in testimony by Lewinsky or other key figures such as presidential secretary Betty Currie or Clinton friend Vernon Jordan.
Republicans have accusations of their own to make; they charge that Democrats are trying to inappropriately expand the impeachment inquiry to include an investigation of the office of the Independent Counsel.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, has requested that four of Starr's top deputies also be called to appear Thursday. Hyde said in a letter to Conyers Monday that he thought Conyers was attempting to "expand the inquiry to investigate the investigator" and the impeachment inquiry of the president was not the appropriate forum to investigate the independent counsel.
Hyde also sent letters to Attorney General Janet Reno and Starr, expressing concern about a request made by Conyers for receipt of certain materials from the office of the Independent Counsel. Conyers had sent Starr a letter Oct. 27 requesting "any motion, supporting materials, evidentiary materials or notes of any presentation made or submitted on or around January 17, 1998" in support of Starr's request for expanded authority to investigate the Monica Lewinsky matter. So far, Starr has not sent Conyers the materials.
Hyde wrote that release of the materials requested by Conyers "could affect the ongoing criminal investigation that the independent counsel is conducting."
Democrats have accused Starr of expanding his investigation to Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky before he was granted that authority, discouraging Lewinsky from contacting her lawyer during initial contacts with prosecutors and violating grand jury secrecy rules by leaking information to the news media.
Starr, who has sent the House 11 possible grounds for impeaching Clinton, will have two hours Thursday to lay out his case for removing the president from office. Then he will take some hostile questions from Democrats on the committee and possibly from the president's lawyers too.
Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's office said a decision about whether or not to participate in the hearings has not yet been made.
After the 21 Republican and 16 Democratic committee members question Starr, White House lawyers will have 30 minutes to cross-examine Starr, if they choose to do so.
After any cross-examination, chief Republican investigator David Schippers and his Democratic counterpart, Abbe Lowell, each would have 30 minutes to question Starr.
| 
Full Coverage