Cmte. expected to vote for impeachment

The GOP-led Judiciary Committee is expected to vote to impeach President Clinton this week. The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Edging toward a momentous vote, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee lined up one by one last night in favor of impeaching President Clinton. Democrats vowed opposition after committee lawyers clashed in closing arguments over alleged ''high crimes and misdemeanors.'' Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, a senior Republican on the committee, said he would cast his vote ''with no joy, but with no apologies, just as those on this committee voted to impeach Richard Nixon 24 years ago.'' Rep. John Conyers of Michigan -- who sat in judgment during Watergate a quarter-century ago -- warned that lawmakers were ''poised on the edge of a constitutional cliff, staring into the void below into which we have jumped only twice before in our history.'' All of the committee's 37 members -- 21 Republicans and 16 Democrats -- were granted time to lay out their views in a prelude to today's free-flowing debate on four articles of impeachment against the president. The first votes are expected today -- the last on Saturday. Given the political breakdown of the committee, there was no real doubt about what the outcome would be when Rep. Henry Hyde, the panel's chairperson, calls the roll on charges arising from the president's campaign to cover up his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Speaker Newt Gingrich notified all 435 House members to prepare to return to the Capitol next week for the first impeachment roll call aimed at a sitting president since Andrew Johnson sat in the White House in 1868. At the White House, presidential aide Gregory Craig launched a sharp attack on Republicans after listening to closing arguments presented by David Schippers, the GOP's lead lawyer on the case. ''We are disappointed and saddened that the committee majority brought this solemn constitutional process down to a level of innuendo, anger and unfair, unsubstantiated charges,'' he said, then turned sharply and strode back into the White House. Schippers spent nearly three hours summing up the case against the nation's 42nd president, buttressing his case with never-before-seen videotaped segments of Clinton fielding questions under oath in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Schippers, a former prosecutor, said Clinton's perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power left lawmakers with the ''sorrowful duty'' of seeking his removal from office. Earlier, Democratic lawyer Abbe Lowell had summed up for the Democrats, telling legislators: ''Listen to the American people, who are asking you to find a truly bipartisan way to avoid the course you are about to undertake.'' White House spokesperson Joe Lockhart insisted the GOP charges ''fall well short of impeachment,'' but the president's Democratic defenders expressed increasing concern about the vote on the House floor next week. Several official sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Democrats laboring to gain support for censure from pivotal GOP moderate lawmakers were ready to demand a financial payment from Clinton as well as his signature on a written condemnation of his conduct. Each lawyer relied on late-20th century technology to argue a case that arises from the 18th century constitutional remedy of impeachment. Lowell made liberal use of snippets of videotape and audio tape to bring Clinton, Lewinsky, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and other major figures in the drama into the committee room. A few hours later, Schippers did likewise. At one point, he queued up a videotaped segment that showed Clinton saying, ''I don't recall'' whether he and Lewinsky were ever alone together in the White House. In fact, the two had multiple sexual encounters in the area around the Oval Office over a period of several months. Gingrich's ''Dear Colleague'' letter to fellow lawmakers did not use the word ''impeachment.'' Instead, it noted that the Judiciary Committee was on the verge of wrapping up work on ''this matter,'' and lawmakers should prepare for a debate on the House floor beginning next Thursday. In the last presidential impeachment drama, Richard Nixon resigned before the House could vote on articles of impeachment approved by the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote. This time, the committee is riven along partisan lines, and Clinton is fighting, not resigning. It was the first time Gingrich had injected himself into the impeachment proceedings since announcing he would leave office at year's end. In his brief letter, he did not address any of the controversies surrounding the issue, including the Democratic demand for a vote on censure in the full House.