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Impeachment becoming more likely as moderate Republicans announce support for articles
Updated December 15, 1998
12:00 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) — With their chances to stave off an impeachment vote in the House dimming, President Clinton and his defenders got more bad news Tuesday as a moderate New York Republican who previously opposed removing Clinton from office abruptly reversed course.
``The issue is about principle, not politics,'' Rep. Jack Quinn said in announcing he will now vote for impeachment. ``My decision is based on the clear evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice as presented by the House Judiciary Committee in the last week.''
Joining Quinn was fellow New York Rep. John McHugh, who announced Tuesday he will vote to approve at least two of the four articles of impeachment sent to the House by the Judiciary Committee last week.
The White House has been counting on some 20 moderate Republicans, mostly in the Northeast, to buck their party and provide enough votes to block impeachment. But as Clinton returned home from a Middle East peace mission, the number of potential GOP defectors was quickly dwindling.
More than a half dozen on the target list came out for impeachment on Monday alone, including Republican Reps. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, Jim Walsh of New York, and Fred Upton of Michigan.
But Clinton could take some small comfort in the advice of the man he defeated for re-election in 1996. Former Sen. Bob Dole proposed in an op-ed article in The New York Times Tuesday that Congress end the impeachment battle this year by passing a joint resolution to censure Clinton. ``It is time for a tough but responsible conclusion,'' he wrote.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., urged the president to ``follow his own instincts and his own conscience'' in facing GOP demands he admit to lying under oath. And he said while most believe there isn't enough votes in the Senate to convict Clinton if his case was sent there, ``as far as I know hardly any of my colleagues in the Senate have said how they would vote.''
The White House still, hoped to reverse one or more of the small number of Democrats who are leaning toward impeachment. Rep. Virgil Goode Jr., a Virginia Democrat who was widely assumed to be pro-impeachment declined in an interview Monday to say how he would vote but said he continues to believe ``that false statements under oath after one has been warned that such statements are subject to perjury is an impeachable offense.''
An Associated Press telephone survey of House members demonstrated that it was impossible to make a prediction. The results: 124 lawmakers said they would support impeachment, 151 said they would oppose it, 104 remained undecided, and 58 wouldn't answer or didn't return phone calls.
White House advisers said Monday they were increasingly pessimistic about Clinton's prospects. ``It's like a tidal wave moving against him,'' said Democratic consultant Harold Ickes. Nevertheless, the former White House aide held out hope that the trend could be reversed.
In the Gaza Strip, Clinton was asked Tuesday whether he can separate his impeachment problems from other work like the Mideast peace agreement that took him to Israel and Palestinian territory this week. ``Absolutely,'' the president replied. How? ``Show up for work every day,'' he said. ``It isn't a complicated thing.''
Several advisers inside and outside the White House complained that the president has made matters worse with ill-advised statements, saying he is surprisingly tone deaf to his GOP critics and unusually reluctant to turn advice into action.
Still, top White House officials and leading Democrats put Clinton's chances in the House at 50-50. White House chief of staff John Podesta reminded worried aides at one meeting that their boss has prevailed in tough fights before. And House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's aides told the White House there were still enough undecided moderate Republicans to give the president hope.
Clinton, on a trip to the Middle East, said he was open to ``any reasonable compromise'' with Congress short of impeachment — but Republican leaders have united in opposing a censure resolution in the House.
The president will get extra help from Vice President Al Gore, who on Monday night canceled a trip to New Hampshire — the state with the first presidential primary — so he could stay in Washington this week to defend his boss.
The extraordinary House session starting Thursday morning will be the chamber's first presidential impeachment vote since Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. Approval of just one of the four articles approved by the Judiciary Committee could trigger a Senate trial.
The articles accuse Clinton of perjury in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit, perjury before a federal grand jury, obstructing justice and abuse of power — all related to efforts to conceal the president's extramarital affair with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
Several congressional offices reported a heavy volume of calls from the public over the issue. In the Washington and Louisiana district offices of GOP Rep. W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, spokesman Ken Johnson estimated 1,500 phone calls during the day, and an additional 1,000 e-mails, faxes and letters to his boss, who remains uncommitted on impeachment.
The formerly undeclared LoBiondo, R-N.J., said Monday: ``I cannot in good conscience allow the nation's chief law enforcement officer to violate the law without consequence.'' He said there is ``clear and convincing evidence that the president broke the law.''
Added Upton, ``You have to tell the truth, even when it's not convenient or easy.''
The White House scheduled a meeting Wednesday between Clinton and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. Shays said Monday he still was leaning against impeachment, but said his position was less certain than before.
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the president ``will be available to deal with members (of Congress) if they believe that would be constructive and helpful.''
White House officials keep pointing to the polls in an attempt to dissuade advocates of impeachment from pursuing a course of action opposed by the majority of Americans — opinion polls taken in recent days overwhelmingly indicate Americans do not want the president to be impeached.
A CBS News/New York Times poll taken Dec. 13 indicated that 64 percent of respondents did not want their representative to vote for impeachment and only 30 percent wanted a yes vote; six percent were undecided. 61 percent of voters who declared themselves Independents did not want their Congressperson to vote for impeachment. 57 percent of Republicans wanted a yes vote and 34 percent said they wanted their representative to vote no, according to the poll.
The CBS/Times poll reports that 37 percent of total respondents said they favored a compromise with the president while another 37 percent wanted the matter dropped. When Republican respondents were offered those two alternatives to impeachment, 47 percent said they favored impeachment while 34 percent preferred a compromise and 18 percent wanted the matter dropped, for a total of 52 percent for alternatives.
Americans across the political spectrum favored censure, according to the poll: 57 percent of total respondents; 56 percent of Republicans; 56 percent of Democrats; and 57 percent of Independents.
An ABC News/Washington Post survey also done Dec. 12 and 13 showed similar results. 61 percent of respondents were against impeachment while 38 supported it. 59 percent favored censure and 37 percent opposed it. Yet 80 percent said they believed the president lied under oath.
The CBS News/New York Times sampled 653 adults and the ABC News/Washington Post sampled 1004.
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