The 'Truth' Or A 'Garbage Dump'?

While Capitol Hill braces for the "truth" to be revealed Monday morning when President Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony is released, some politicians contend that the American people need to see it, however bad it may be.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, talking about the videotapes on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday, said he doesn't know if there are enough votes in the House now to impeach Mr. Clinton.

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DeLay contends that House officials must review the prosecutorial report from independent counsel Kenneth Starr in which he alleges that the president committed abuses that warrant an impeachment inquiry.

"What we're concerned with is making sure that the judiciary committee carries out its job and looks at the evidence and makes recommendations to the House," DeLay says.

While political observers have called the investigation a Republican attack on Mr. Clinton, DeLay says the case is about the law. Noting that Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary to the president called Mr. Clinton "reckless," DeLay called to mind a worst-case scenario.

"The president of the United States has his finger on the
button and sends our sons and daughters to war to die and he's
sitting in the White House being serviced by an intern while he's
talking to the chairman of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Committee about sending our sons and daughters to Bosnia," DeLay says. "This is serious stuff that we're talking about, and the American people have the right to know the truth."

Meanwhile, White House adviser Rahm Emmanuel accuses Congress of choosing a "irresponsible and political" path in investigating the president.

Emmanuel gave a definite "no" when asked if Mr. Clinton would resign. However, when asked if the president would admit to perjury, Emanuel sidestepped the issue.

"What the president has done is admit to the American people
what he did was wrong. He's told that to the grand jury. He told them he misled them and on the notion of that, if there was ever a process set up for the House Judiciary Committee to have a deal with this, the president's lawyers would deal with that and answer those questions," Emanuel said.

Meanwhile, one top White House official says the decision to release President Clinton's videotaped testimony was indeed a partisan decision that could backfire on Republicans.

Deputy White House Chief of Staff John Podesta says Monday's release of papers and the video will amount to a "garbage dump" rather than a document dump.

He told NBC on Sunday that the video will show Mr. Clinton making "painful admission" of an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Podesta says much of the material that has been released and is to be released is salacious, adding that it's irrelevant to the allegations leveled against the president.