WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, December 1) -- On a party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday expanded its impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton to include alleged campaign finance abuses, approving subpoenas for Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh and federal prosecutor Charles LaBella.

Also in this story:

• Committee Democrats criticize investigation's expansion
• White House says inquiry lacks coherent strategy
• Witnesses testify on perjury, obstruction of justice
• Legal experts weigh in on impeachment

The committee, which voted 20-15 to issue the subpoenas, has until now been investigating the president's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and whether or not the president lied under oath about that relationship.

Justice Department chief spokesman Myron Marlin responded to the committee's decision Tuesday saying, "I understand we will be receiving a subpoena. We will work with the committee in every way possible consistent with the law."

Marlin refused to comment on the department's involvement in closed court proceedings aimed at attempting to resolve the issue.

Rep. Henry Hyde

Democrats bitterly complained the committee was expanding its inquiry beyond the referral by Independent Counsel Ken Starr, but committee Chairman Henry Hyde said the committee's inquiry had no boundaries.

"We are not confined to the Starr referral," Hyde, an Illinois Republican, said. "That was the debate we had on the floor with the resolution that empowered us to review the material from the independent counsel. Mr. (Rick) Boucher (D-Virginia) and the Democrats wanted a very narrow scope. And we wanted a wider scope. And we prevailed. And so we are not bound by the parameters of the Starr referral."

Hyde said he still hopes to wrap up the inquiry by the end of December, but feels "duty bound" to investigate "anything else that comes to our attention," including internal Justice Department memos that may point to wrongdoing by Clinton.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt called on the Republican House leadership to rein in the expanding inquiry.

Gephardt declared "chaos is reigning" in the impeachment inquiry and said outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich or incoming Speaker Bob Livingston "needs to be given the responsibility to take control."

Committee Democrats criticize investigation's expansion

Before the vote, the committee heard from witnesses convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Democrats took the occasion to criticize the committee for its intention to expand the investigation without, they claimed, the legal basis to do so.

During his opening statement, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan said the committee was "floundering into another unrelated area..."

Conyers, the committee's ranking Democrat, said "campaign finance has no relationship to the Starr referral and amazingly, this committee has now subpoenaed the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States to provide documents that they don't have the authority to provide without a court order, whose criteria this committee is yet to even satisfy."

Rep. John Conyers

Democratic Rep. Charles Schumer of New York made a plea to Livingston, the incoming speaker. "These new hearings, these new subpoenas wave a red flag that common sense and common wisdom are not welcome here," Schumer said. "Mr. Livingston, this may be the first and most important task you will ever face as speaker. Lead us out of this abyss."

But a spokesman for Republicans on the committee said the panel has a responsibility to pursue the campaign finance allegations.

"The committee has received information which suggests that the campaign finance abuse memos may contain allegations of criminal wrongdoing by the president," spokesman Paul McNulty said Monday. "The committee is duty-bound to investigate that information."

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are following a paper trail of memos to Reno dealing with the Clinton/Gore 1996 campaign fund-raising. Reno is still weighing a decision to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the president's fund-raising. She has until December 7 to make that decision.

Republicans want to subpoena Freeh because of a memo he wrote to Reno recommending the appointment of a special prosecutor. House Republicans want to hear LaBella, the career prosecutor who headed the Justice Department's campaign fund-raising investigation, as well. His memo to Reno also recommended an independent counsel.

White House says inquiry lacks coherent strategy

White House officials say the expansion of the impeachment inquiry into 1996 campaign finance issues is evidence the Republicans lack a coherent strategy and have found nothing in Starr's report to Congress that warrants impeachment.

"The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and the Republicans in the House have finally come clean about what they're up to," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said. "They have, despite all the protestations that this a narrow, narrowly focused process looking at what was in the referral, what it really is is a partisan process designed to damage the president and investigate the president on any subject that they see fit to go after."

Several administration officials say the White House would prefer not to revisit the debate within the Justice Department and FBI about whether there should have been an independent counsel named to investigate Clinton's 1996 fund-raising.

But these officials note that several congressional committees have already investigated the issue and aired the public disagreements of Freeh and LaBella with Reno.

"This either confirms the very worst fears about Republicans, that they will do anything to try to get the president, or it is proof they are completely devoid of strategy and leadership," one senior official told CNN.

This official also questioned whether the expansion would shatter the Republican hopes of ending the inquiry by the end of the year, and predicted a public backlash against the GOP if the timetable slips but no major new information is unearthed.

Witnesses testify on perjury, obstruction of justice

Tuesday's hearing on "the consequences of perjury and related crimes" was originally planned to emphasize the president's refusal to admit he lied under oath about his affair with Lewinsky. Calling witnesses who lied about sex in civil lawsuits and were punished for it, Republicans hoped to counter claims that Clinton is being held to a higher standard than other citizens.

"If citizens are allowed to lie with impunity, or encourage others to tell false stories or hide evidence, judges and juries cannot reach just results. At that point the courtroom becomes an arena for artful liars, and the jury a mere focus group choosing between alternative fictions," Hyde said at the opening of the proceedings.

"By their very nature, these kinds of crimes attack the integrity of the judicial system," Hyde said. "Indeed, that's why they're crimes. To argue that in certain instances these crimes mean little is to say our judicial system means little. I reject that notion."

Pam Parsons, left, and Barbara Battalino

Appearing before the committee, Pam Parsons, a former University of South Carolina women's basketball coach convicted of perjury, said, "When you are in a leadership position, no matter what it is you must tell the truth about, you've got to search your soul and recognize what it means if you don't..."

Parsons pleaded guilty in 1984 to giving false testimony during a civil case. In her testimony she lied about having ever been at a gay bar. She served four months and five years probation.

Also testifying was Barbara Battalino, a former Veterans Affairs hospital psychiatrist. Battalino was charged with obstruction of justice in April 1998 for lying in a civil case about a sexual relationship between her and a patient. She is currently serving a sentence of six months home detention.

"Making false and or misleading statements, especially under oath, and regardless of the subject matter, is wrong for me and anyone who accepts the United States Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the rule of law upon which this great land of ours is founded and persists," Battalino told the committee.

Legal experts weigh in on impeachment

In an afternoon session the committee heard from judges, law professors and military officers, who offered their views on perjury, the committee's impeachment hearings, the likely outcomes and the committee itself.

Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School suggested that if the president was an ordinary citizen, he would not be prosecuted for his alleged false statements.

Alan Dershowitz

Dershowitz criticized the committee, saying, "I think there's no exit strategy that will permit this committee and this Congress to regain any place in history which is going to look positively. It made a dreadful mistake by ever opening up an impeachment inquiry on the basis of sex, lies and coverups of sexual events."

"Now we're seeing incredible hypocrisy introduced into the debate. Oh, we care so much about perjury, what a terrible thing perjury is. The only reason the majority of this committee cares about perjury is because they believe that President Clinton, their political opponent, is guilty of it," Dershowitz said.

His comments drew an angry response from Hyde, who said lawmakers have agonized about the impeachment inquiry and Dershowitz had no right to impugn their motives.

George Washington University Law School Professor Stephen Saltzburg said, "I think that throughout history, every time the name Bill Clinton is mentioned, the name Monica Lewinsky will be mentioned also, and that, for any president, has to be the ultimate tragedy."

Retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge Leon Higginbotham criticized comparisons between the current impeachment hearings and those during President Richard Nixon's administration.

"There has never been, never been an impeachment proceeding on this miniscule level... Everyone talks about the Nixon experience, but that is as different, it's the difference between zero and infinity. In the Nixon case, you were using the Internal Revenue Service, he was using the Internal Revenue Service, not patting some woman on the side," Higginbotham said.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Charles Wiggins, who served as a congressman during the Watergate hearings, was asked if he felt the current committee had a responsibility to hear more from witnesses as was done during the Watergate hearings. "I'm not sure," Wiggins replied. "I think your responsibility is the get at the truth."

Tuesday, December 1, 1998

• House panel expands impeachment probe
• FEC audit says Clinton, Dole campaigns owe taxpayers millions
• Georgia firm fined $1 million for illegal campaign contributions
• Espy trial goes to jury
• Sources: Craig Smith in line to head Gore 2000 campaign
• FCC fairness rule challenged
• Lott, unopposed, re-elected Senate majority leader
• Ashcroft, pondering White House run, stresses pragmatism
• News Analysis: How do you count Americans?
• Arkansas state senator charged in fatal accident
• Tom Hanks says he still supports president
• Indiana congressman robbed
• White House Christmas tree arrives
• Justices' voices to be transmitted

Transcript:
• House Judiciary Committee

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