I‘M DELIGHTED WE HAVE THE prospect of calling witnesses. I’m disappointed we have to go through so many hurdles to get there.” That’s how Asa Hutchinson, one of the House managers prosecuting the case against the president, views the deal approved by the Senate on January 8. Hutchinson and his fellow managers are concerned because the Senate resolution requires all potential witnesses to be deposed, and then approved by a majority of the Senate, before they can testify. While this may prove inconsequential, the fear is that following the depositions the White house will argue that potential witnesses have nothing new to add to the record and thus shouldn’t be called to testify. It’s the view of the managers that if they aren’t allowed to call some of the witnesses central to the case against the president, the likelihood of their convicting will shrink from slim to none.
That said, the managers are much happier with the Senate deal than with what they faced on December 29. That’s when Trent Lott, the Senate GOP leader, told a reporter he had plan for a truncated trial with no witnesses. This went against everything the managers had been working for, and they weren’t shy about sharing their disapproval with Lott. Hyde talked to the majority leader that evening, and the next day released a letter he had sent Lott spelling out the shortcomings in the proposal for an abbreviated trial. On December 31, Hutchinson made the case against Lott’s proposal in a piece published in the New York Times. And last week, the managers agitated, in public and private, for the Senate to grant them the right to conduct a trial with ample time to make their case and call witnesses. Their vigilance sends a clear signal to the White House that even though there’s little expectation of 67 votes to convict the president, there will be no hesitation about making the case for conviction.
In preparation, the managers have grouped them-selves in four “teams.” One, led by Bill McCollum of Florida, is researching which witnesses should testify. Another, led by Ed Bryant of Tennessee, will handle the questioning and cross-examining of witnesses. A third team, led by Charles Canady of Florida, is preparing the legal case for conviction, while a team led by James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin is charged with formulating the response to expected White House attempts to bar evidence from the trial.
The first challenge will confront Canady’s team, which includes Lindsey Graham and Steve Buyer. White house lawyers Charles Ruff and Gregory Craig are expected to file a pretrial motion that the case be dismissed on the grounds that the president’s actions do not constitute high crimes and misdemeanors and were not part of his official conduct. A source close to the case says the managers will respond by pointing to the Senate precedents for removing federal officials from office for lying under oath (as in the cases of judges Walter Nixon, Harry Claiborne, and Alcee Hastings); and they’ll argue that if Clinton can’t be convicted for actions not part of his official conduct, then it follows that he could rape a woman and remain in office.
Once the pretrial motions are disposed of, Sensenbrenner will deliver the opening statement. With this, the managers hope to achieve three things. First, they want a clear and complete review of the case against the president. Second, they want to showcase a congressman who comes across as a regular guy — as Chicagoan David Schippers, the majority counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, did in the House. Sensenbrenner, known among his colleagues for his prickliness and for being a Kimberly-Clark heir, nonetheless screams middle class, with his strong Wisconsin accent and his penchant for playing the lottery (a year ago, he won $ 250,000 on two one-dollar tickets). Third, the managers hope Sensenbrenner’s presentation will calm the waters before the summoning of witnesses inflames White House lawyers and Senate Democrats.
The three witnesses Bryant is most likely to call are Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie, and Vernon Jordan. They possess the most direct knowledge of the president’s alleged perjury and obstruction of justice. Yet risks accompany all three. Jordan is a close friend of Clinton’s and has given no indication he would implicate the president in any more wrongdoing. Currie has continued to work at the White House and was seen hugging the president in the Oval Office a few hours after the House impeachment vote. As for Lewinsky, she’s unpredictable. A House manager acknowledged to me, “These are not witnesses we can call with absolute confidence.”
Even more unpredictable are a slew of other witnesses the managers might call to testify, such as White House aides Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal and former Clinton adviser Dick Morris. Lindsey is believed to have had in efforts to silence people who possessed damaging information about the president. Blumenthal and Morris would probably be asked their conversations with Clinton shortly after the lewinsky story broke a year ago. But none of them is likely to produce a smoking gun.
Most explosive of all would be the summoning of individuals who claim to have been coerced into filing false affidavits by Clinton operatives. One rumor last week had it that among those to be called in support of the obstruction of justice charge is “Jane Doe #5,” who has recanted her year-old affidavit denying a force sexual encounter with Clinton 20 years ago — an affidavit she is believed to have signed under pressure from Clinton operatives. Other witnesses who could be called to testify about obstruction are Dolly Kyle Browning, who says she had a long-term sexual relationship with Clinton, and Kathleen Willey, who maintains the president groped her in the Oval office. But in hint of the obstacles ahead, Democratic senator Joseph Biden said that calling these witnesses would be “inappropriate, unfair, and unseemly.”
Once all of the witnesses have been heard and cross-examined, the manges will present their closing argument in two stages. Manager James Rogan, a 41-year-old former municipal judge and district attorney, will sum up the facts of the case against the president. Then Hyde will explain what it means. One of the managers’ objectives is to prevent the trial from becoming bogged down in details. Manager Bob Barr told the New York times recently that “a senator’s attention span in probably less than an average juror’s, so we’ll need to simplify, simplify, simplify.”
That comment, coupled with Hyde’s presistence in beating back the plan for a short-circuited trial, prompted endless carping last week from senators, most of them Democrats, that the House managers weren’t respecting the Senate’s prerogatives. What mattered more, though, was that the mangers succeeded in quashing Lott’s effort and secured a trial in which at least some key testimony is likely to be heard. They’ll need more such successes if they are to achieve their final objective — removing the president from office.
Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
