Senate Launching Impeachment Trial
Ground Rules Still in Dispute



By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (Jan. 7) - In a solemn moment for President Clinton and the nation, the Senate is launching the first presidential impeachment trial since the case of Andrew Johnson in 1868. The ceremonial opening comes amid intense, last-minute bargaining over ground rules. With House prosecutors pressing Senate leaders to allow testimony from witnesses such as Monica Lewinsky, there were increasing indications that a full-blown trial of some weeks' duration was in the offing. Senators today were taking an oath to ''do impartial justice,'' and Chief Justice William Rehnquist was assuming his role as presiding officer for Clinton's trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The 13-member House prosecution team was to read the two articles of impeachment on the Senate floor. But beyond those public sessions, the House ''managers'' were negotiating for the right to summon a number of witnesses, most notably Ms. Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with Clinton triggered the impeachment investigation, and presidential friend Vernon Jordan. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., told reporters Wednesday that if agreement could be reached to call witnesses, he would want the White House and the House to justify the need for each person summoned. The Senate also would have to approve each witness by majority vote. Lott expressed optimism that agreement was near on a procedure for a ''full trial .... and votes on articles of impeachment at the end of the process.'' One GOP source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would likely be February at the earliest before votes were taken on the president's fate. A bipartisan group of senators met Wednesday night with the lead House prosecutor, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and three other lawmakers on his team. Then the lawmakers unexpectedly summoned four members of the White House legal team to the Capitol to discuss proposals for conducting the trial. Lott, who consulted separately Wednesday with Hyde and Democratic leader Tom Daschle, said he expected opening statements in the case sometime next week. The crucial question was whether to allow witnesses, as demanded by the House but opposed by Senate Democrats. Among Senate Republicans, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, one proposal was to give each side in the trial, the House and the White House, three to five days to present evidence, most likely beginning next week. At the end of that time, a vote would be permitted to adjourn the trial, or either side could seek permission to summon witnesses. The Senate would have to approve each witness to be called by majority vote. Without witnesses, the timetable would place final votes on the articles in the first week of February. Summoning witnesses to testify would push the date back. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, one of the House prosecutors, said ''five to 10 witnesses puts on a case. I suspect we will want more.'' He and others on the prosecution team said the House might try to summon women who have provided statements in the Paula Jones case ''to the degree they go to obstruction of justice and perjury.'' Ms. Lewinsky must be called ''because she is right in the middle of this,'' Cannon said. But he added that he'd ''never seen Linda Tripp as essential,'' referring to Ms. Lewinsky's onetime friend who taped their private telephone conversations. Jordan, a prominent Washington attorney and longtime Clinton friend, ''is a player'' and should be summoned, Cannon said. But while other prosecutors wanted to call presidential secretary Betty Currie, Cannon said he would be reluctant to do so. He said the president placed her in a vulnerable position by involving her in the Lewinsky affair, adding ''It was a rotten, nasty thing to do to a career civil servant.'' Other House prosecutors had their own suggestions. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., indicated that he might want to hear from onetime presidential adviser Dick Morris about Clinton's state of mind when he asked Morris to conduct a poll on Americans' opinion of his conduct with Ms. Lewinsky. ''I would love to have the opportunity to present 12 to 14 witnesses,'' he added. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., said Ms. Lewinsky should be questioned ''in limited fashion,'' but ''we don't have to go into all the (sexual) details. Much of the questioning could be on obstruction of justice issues, such as the attempt to find her a job.'' He said if Mrs. Currie ''has a bearing on the case, it's important to have the jury hear her testimony.'' Hutchinson added that Jordan was essential because, ''In the framework of the obstruction of justice case, I would say he's an important witnesses.''