TRIAL IN THE SENATE: Clinton trial starts in Senate chamber

Managers from the House of Representatives presented their opening statements. "I think he should be invited, or at least I don't have a problem with him being invited," GOP Whip Don Nickles told reporters at the conclusion of the historic six-hour trial session. Majority Leader Trent Lott also had expressed at least passing interest in the idea, Republican sources said. Lott's office declined comment. Inside the Senate chamber, where monumental issues of war and peace have been thrashed out for over a century, the first presidential impeachment trial in 131 years trial unfolded in an atmosphere of uncommon gravity. "Failure to bring President Clinton to account? will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations," asserted Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, standing in the well of the chamber to address the senators and a nationwide television audience counted in the millions. The nation's 42nd president was in the White House, preparing for next Tuesday's State of the Union address, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist rapped the gavel and announced that the Senate would "convene as a court of impeachment." Sergeant-at-Arms James Ziglar admonished all to remain silent "on pain of imprisonment." Silent they were, the senators at their seats; those spectators lucky -- or influential -- enough to have space in the galleries above; the president's lawyers and House prosecutors seated around separate custom-made curved tables at the base of the rostrum and Rehnquist presiding in his judicial robe. With the exception of two brief breaks, the trial remained in session until after dark as a string of House Republicans laid out their evidence. They buttressed their presentation with numerous images of Clinton on videotape, many of them of his testimony before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury. "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is," Clinton was seen to say in one snippet, a now-famous utterance that his critics have seized on as evidence of legal hairsplitting -- or worse. The prosecutors repeatedly used the word "conspiracy" to describe Clinton's efforts to thwart court proceedings against him, making the argument that senators should hear from witnesses -- Monica Lewinsky, presidential friend Vernon Jordan and Oval Office secretary Betty Currie among them. White House spokesperson James Kennedy attacked the Republican case even as it continued. It is "both unsubstantial and circumstantial," he said. "We look forward to presenting our defense based on the facts, the law and the Constitution."