Time, as they say in the Senate, to ““call the question.’’ And it is this: in our age of tabloid politics and hyperventilating 24-hour political talk, when good will is gone and Larry Flynt shares air time with the Founding Fathers, can the Senate bring a dignified end to the trial (and trials) of Bill Clinton? The country, for the most part, would just as soon forget, if not forgive. But history has no choice. It must record that a trial has begun–exactly a year after Monica Lewinsky signed a false affidavit in the Paula Jones case and the president himself lied about the same matter. In a grave ceremonial start, Chief Justice William Rehnquist swore in the entire Senate to sit as the jury, and then sat down to preside in his gold-striped black robes.
Now the trick is to maintain the air of solemnity, and to get it over with. Last week the Senate tried hard to do so. All 100 senators retreated behind the tall mahogany doors of the Old Senate Chamber. No one could remember a meeting like it: no staff, no C-Span, no press. Starting with a prayer (““Let us respect and love one another,’’ said Sen. Daniel Akaka), inspired by patriotic references to the Civil War (““In this very chamber the Missouri Compromise was reached,’’ noted Sen. Robert Byrd), they cut a deal. It allows the two sides to make long opening statements, based on the written record sent over from the House, but puts off the incendiary question of whether to call witnesses–Monica chief among them. ““In this case,’’ said Sen. Olympia Snowe, ““reason prevailed over rancor.''
But for how long? The period of opening statements should be peaceful enough, but the centrifugal forces were swirling even before Clinton got his summons. The flashpoint will be the witnesses–especially Monica–and whether the country should get to see her live, on TV. In the Age of Imus it is a tableau most senators clearly want to avoid, but last weekend Republicans and Democrats were skirmishing over what they had actually agreed to. Democrats thought they’d limited the likelihood of witnesses by requiring a single ““en bloc’’ vote on a list of all of them. Republicans insisted the deal calls for individual votes on each witness, which would make it easier to approve at least a few. It sounds hopelessly arcane–almost everything in the Senate does–but the procedural dispute threatened the deal.
Republicans, meanwhile, declared war on each other. Several of the 13 House prosecutors attacked their Senate colleagues for failing to win a guarantee that they could call witnesses. ““This is shameful,’’ Rep. Christopher Cannon of Utah told NEWSWEEK. ““The Senate has prejudged this case.’’ To reassure the Senate, NEWSWEEK has learned, House strategists had promised not to ask Lewinsky details of sexual encounters with Clinton, instead using her as a witness to try to prove obstruction. The House team also pared its witness list to Lewinsky, presidential secretary Betty Currie and perhaps White House officials such as chief of staff John Podesta–but not, for now, lawyer Vernon Jordan. One member of the House team threatened to quit. ““I won’t participate in any sham trial,’’ he declared at a meeting with senators.
Sham or no, both sides are preparing their case. They focused on the vote, scheduled for late this month, on a motion to dismiss the case. The arithmetic is clear. Conviction requires a two-thirds ““supermajority,’’ which few observers think Clinton’s foes can get. But to dismiss the case requires only a bare majority. If all 45 Democrats vote to do so, the White House would need only six Republicans. Among the possible GOP defectors: the ““New England Gang of Four,’’ which consists of senators Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Chafee of Rhode Island and Jim Jeffords of Vermont.
The endgame will play out in a hushed Senate chamber, with all 100 senators required to sit silently at their desks. The Republican House managers, led by Rep. Henry Hyde, hope to succinctly summarize the case for taking the next step: moving to witnesses. The Clintonites are counting on the House managers to bore the jurors–and the larger jury of TV viewers. Then the White House team will move in, led by Ruff, the wheelchair-bound counsel who impresses observers with his quiet but earnest demeanor. ““Basically, we’ve got two weeks to get six senators,’’ said a senior Democratic staffer.
The defendant–the president–will be busy elsewhere, rolling out policy initiatives, giving his State of the Union address, and traveling the country with Al Gore. Some Democratic wise guys argue that a drawn-out trial favors their party by making the Republicans look mindlessly bloodthirsty. But the administration isn’t interested. ““The White House is ready to get this done now,’’ said the president’s beleaguered press secretary, Joe Lockhart, pounding his desk for emphasis.
Still, just in case, White House officials talk bravely about their chances in a long trial, claiming that witnesses will help, not hurt, the president’s case. There’s logic to their contention: none of the most likely House witnesses is viewed as antagonistic. That may be especially true of Monica Lewinsky, who insisted under oath that the president never told her to lie. But no one knows what she might say on the witness stand in the well of the Senate, and no one at the White House wants to find out.
