Considering The Clinton Future
It was the White House image of the day. Mrs. Clinton at her husband's side, and wearing a baseball cap in support of the Chicago Cubs. A first family with no apparent worry in the world--headed off to the Camp David mountain top retreat for the weekend. CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones reports.
The committee room is being readied for the 37 members of the House Judiciary committee who will gather Monday to consider President Clinton's future.
The committee's top investigator, David Schippers, is expected to expand the case against the president to include:
- New counts of witness tampering
- obstruction of justice
- making false statements under oath.
A count of making false statements under oath is another way of getting at perjury.
"Perjury is a technical crime. What they're saying here is alright we don't care if it is really perjury, but what it clearly is is intentionallly misleading the court and that's bad for a president to do even if that's not a crime for ordinary people," says Paul Rothstein of Georgetown University Law School.
Also, Monica Lewinsky is expected to be named as a co-conspirator to obstruct justice. That fact is significant.
"It ratchets up the president's problems because now instead of just him involved in something, there is a conspiracy involving several people and that always makes things look a lot worse," says Rothstein.
Republican Chairman Henry Hyde is proposing an open-ended investigation. But Democrats are proposing a quicker process.
They want a final resolution on the president's fate no later than Thanksgiving.
"We are proposing here a process that is fair, deliberative, focused and expeditions," says Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) of the Democratic Judiciary Committee.
Democrats say they have the same question for Republicans that other Americans are asking. "Will you cease and desist from witch-hunting and a fishing expedition?" asks Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), also of the Democratic Judiciary Committee.
At the White House, the president's spokesman charged on Saturday, that it is increasingly evident that the Republican-controlled impeachment process is less than fair and partisan. It is about trying to embarrass the president.
Written by CBS News Correspondent Phil Jones