WASHINGTON -- With Congress moving toward an impeachment inquiry of William Jefferson Clinton, the threshold question for lawmakers today is the same one House members faced nearly a quarter-century ago in considering the fate of President Richard M. Nixon: What should Congress deem an impeachable offense?
Already, there is sharp disagreement about whether President Clinton's behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal rises to the level loosely defined by the framers of the Constitution as "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Clinton has been accused by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr of lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky, of encouraging others to lie about it, of trying to hide gifts he gave her and of improperly using government lawyers to raise privilege claims.
Starr maintains the offenses amount to perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential power.
The White House, in stressing the private nature of Clinton's transgressions, has argued that impeachment was designed to protect the country against a president's "injury to the state," reserved for the "gravest wrongs -- offenses against the Constitution itself."
Some lawmakers, however, strongly disagree.
"The heart of the matter goes to allegations of perjury before the grand jury," said freshman Republican Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. "It's the hallmark of our justice system. If the integrity of the grand jury is diminished, then our whole justice system will be weakened."
An impeachable offense, said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, "can be abuse of the public trust."
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who would preside at a Senate trial of Clinton if Congress takes the process that far, seems to be in the middle on the definition.
In his book about the history of impeachment, Rehnquist says the charges should amount to "flagrant abuse of office," but goes on to list as examples: "perjury, bribery, and the like."
The nation has little experience with presidential impeachment, now being considered for only the third time.
Only one president, Andrew Johnson, was impeached. But the Senate, in 1868, fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and he remained in office. President Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974, shortly after the House Judiciary Committee voted to send three articles of impeachment to the full House.
Political process
