House panel considers releasing more Starr documents

House panel agrees to release parts of Tripp tapes

Partisan wrangling continues; more documents due out next week

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, September 25) -- The House Judiciary Committee cleared the way Friday for release of portions of the infamous Linda Tripp audiotapes, as the panel continued to move toward a possible impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.

The committee met behind closed doors most of the day, debating how to make public as much as 60,000 pages of material, plus the Tripp tapes. Independent Counsel Ken Starr sent the supporting material to Congress earlier this month as part of his report on possible impeachable activities by Clinton.

The committee agreed that sections of the recordings that may not be relevant to the Monica Lewinsky investigation or which may contain sensitive information will be edited out of both the audiotapes and the transcripts.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde will have final approval over the redacted transcripts, which are expected to be submitted by next Thursday.


Rep. John Conyers

After the transcripts have been approved, the tapes themselves will be made available within 10 days.

With all pretense of bipartisanship gone, the committee's executive session was expected to be a repeat of last week's meeting where Republicans used their majority status to authorize the release of the first nearly 3,200 pages of supplemental materials and the videotape of Clinton's grand jury testimony.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told reporters after the meeting that partisan fighting had, indeed, continued Friday.

"There were 25 unanimous votes today, but on the biggies we didn't make it," Conyers said. "There is still considerable disagreement on what ought to be redacted."

Conyers said Democrats voted to stop the release of the additional Starr materials he called "lurid," but Republicans disagreed.

"Partisanship continued on the very central question of what the role of the committee ought to be," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts).

Frank said that during Friday's session the Democrats asked for the committee to request more material from Starr, but the Republicans refused to make a joint request to the independent counsel.

Clinton's legal team has charged that the independent counsel's investigation has been biased and that Starr may not have included evidence in his report to Congress that could favor the president.


Rep. Barney Frank

The partisan bickering even spilled out of the committee room. As Frank spoke to reporters, Reps. Steve Buyer (R-Indiana) and Charles Canady (R-Florida) came out of the meeting and interrupted the Democrats' news conference. Both said there was more unanimity in the session than the Democrats had suggested.

Along with Tripp's audiotapes, the materials still locked away in the Ford building include transcripts of the grand jury testimony of presidential friend Vernon Jordan, Clinton private secretary Betty Currie and Tripp.

As recently as Thursday, Hyde (R-Illinois) said it was unlikely that the Tripp tapes themselves would be made public. He suggested only edited transcripts of the conversations would be released by the committee.

"There is information that should be released," Hyde said. "We can redact transcripts of the taped material and release those. That, so far, seems to be the best way. But there is an awful lot there that shouldn't go out."

It was Tripp's decision to provide Starr the tapes of Monica Lewinsky's phone conversations about her sexual relationship with Clinton that triggered the independent counsel's investigation of the Lewinsky affair. News leaks of a small portion of those conversations also fueled the media frenzy when the story broke last January.

Supporters of the president charge the tapes contain evidence that could benefit Clinton.

On Thursday, Hyde announced his committee will consider a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry against Clinton in an open session on October 5 or October 6. Should the resolution pass, the full House would vote on it October 8 or October 9.

If the House votes for a formal impeachment inquiry, the Judiciary Committee will then go back to work, deciding whether to send formal articles of impeachment to the House floor.

House panel agrees to release parts of Tripp tapes

Partisan wrangling continues; more documents due out next week

CNN's John King, Bob Franken and Ann Curley contributed to this report.

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Friday, September 25, 1998