Hyde: Vote Just Weeks Away
Saying he wants to move with "deliberate speed," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said Thursday that his panel will consider on Oct. 5 or 6 a resolution to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.
If the committee passes the resolution, Hyde says the full House could vote on Oct. 8 or 9 on whether to give the Judiciary Committee the go-ahead to hold impeachment hearings.
Hyde says, "like all Americans," he wants to bring the matter to closure "as soon as possible."
He also says he has no plans to expand the impeachment review beyond the Monica Lewinsky matter. Democrats have said they would vigorously contest any expansion of the case beyond Starr's evidence relating to the former White House intern.
But Hyde says lawmakers will consider any relevant information on Mr. Clinton's fitness for office.
President Clinton and his allies in Congress continue to press for a bargain short of impeachment, which would punish Mr. Clinton but allow him to remain in the White House.
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"The president, who has punished himself a great deal already, certainly understands there is more punishment he's going to receive," said White House spokesman Mike McCurry. "There is pain with any of these courses of action. There is pain that this is part of the historical record."
At a Rose Garden ceremony on poverty Thursday, the president indicated to reporters that he saw the battle brewing on Capitol Hill as a partisan one. Answering a reporter's question on the likelihood of impeachement, Mr. Clinton called on Congress to put "progress over partisanship" and "people over partisanship."
The president said: "The way out here, and the only way out, is for people in Washington to do what the folks in America want them to do, which is take care of their concerns, their futures. That's what they mean to do, and I'm going to do my part."
But Republicans in Congress don't seem incined to make any deal soon. And senior Democrats don't believe there is much chance for an early settlement to this whole affair.
That hasn't stopped the White House and Democrats from stepping up their attacks on independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
McCurry blasted Starr's failure to release exonerating evidence Thursday morning and said it is unfair that Starr "gets to be the sole arbiter" of what is released.
CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller reports that McCurry took issue with a reporter's reference to the "ebb and flow" of documents. It "does not ebb and flow," he said. "It flows and flows and flows and flows. It's a never-ending flowing sewer."
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt alleged Wednesday that Starr's office held back material from its report that might help the president.
"Our staff believes there is additional material in the hands of the independent counsel, and we simply want to see all of the material," Gephardt said.
Starr's office says Congress can see whatever it wants. But this is a political battle between Republicans who want to hold impeachment hearings before the November elections and Democrats who think that they can get Mr. Clinton a better deal because the public is fed up with the scandal.
House Judiciary Committee investigators have been directed to quickly organize nearly 70,000 pages of potential impeachment evidence, a prelude to scheduling a vote to formally investigate the president.
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