Impeachment Inquiry

HARTFORD, Conn. - As the realization sinks in that Republican Gov. John G. Rowland is not going to resign, more state residents support a legislative inquiry that could lead to his impeachment. The latest poll by the University of Connecticut, completed yesterday, shows that 64 percent want the impeachment inquiry to begin, an 8 percentage point increase compared with those polled a week earlier. The number of people who want the governor to resign remained at 63 percent. The number of people who said they would vote to impeach Rowland - that is, to see him tried in the state Senate - also remained steady, at 54 percent.

HARTFORD, Conn. - Gov. John G. Rowland announced his resignation yesterday in a defiantly upbeat speech, proclaiming his love of family and public service yet ignoring the threats of impeachment and indictment. Rowland, 47, a third-term Republican, said he will step down at noon July 1, handing over a government in turmoil to Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, 58. Rell, a Republican, will serve the remaining 2 1/2 years of Rowland's four-year term. Rowland offered no explanation for his resignation in a five-minute, 45-second speech broadcast live from a garden outside the Executive Residence in Hartford.

WASHINGTON -- The pace of the impeachment inquiry against President Clinton will be determined by how readily potential witnesses cooperate, Republican leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said yesterday.If Clinton and other figures in the Monica Lewinsky scandal simply attest to the truth of the details set out in the report of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, the committee can carry out its work much more quickly, said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde of Illinois."We're fighting the clock," said Hyde, who has pledged to try to wrap up the impeachment hearings by the end of the year.

HARTFORD, Conn. - As the realization sinks in that Republican Gov. John G. Rowland is not going to resign, more state residents support a legislative inquiry that could lead to his impeachment. The latest poll by the University of Connecticut, completed yesterday, shows that 64 percent want the impeachment inquiry to begin, an 8 percentage point increase compared with those polled a week earlier. The number of people who want the governor to resign remained at 63 percent. The number of people who said they would vote to impeach Rowland - that is, to see him tried in the state Senate - also remained steady, at 54 percent.

WASHINGTON -- In an unusual move, Ralph G. Neas, a Democrat seeking to represent Montgomery County in Congress, is running ads that criticize the Republican incumbent, Rep. Constance A. Morella, for her vote in favor of an impeachment inquiry.Most Democrats are skittish about addressing the allegations against President Clinton, which stem from his efforts to conceal his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Yet Neas has paid about $15,000 to run more than 100 commercials over the next week on a Washington radio station.

WASHINGTON -- In a surprise ending to the century's last election, Democrats picked up as many as five seats in the House of Representatives yesterday. It was only the second time since the Civil War that the party holding the White House gained House seats in a midterm election.Stunned Republicans maintained control of Congress, but their lackluster showing is likely to slow the push for the impeachment of President Clinton. Instead, congressional leaders are likely to feel increased pressure to accelerate the impeachment inquiry and craft a deal for some punishment short of forcing Clinton from office.

WASHINGTON -- White House attorneys met yesterday for the first time with House impeachment lawyers, demanding what congressional Democrats have been requesting for months: limits on the scope and length of the impeachment inquiry, along with a clear definition of an impeachable offense.Republicans snapped back at what they called a White House crusade to obscure the allegations facing President Clinton: perjury, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The process they are following, the House Republicans argued, is fair and identical to the procedures followed by Democrats during the Watergate investigation.

WASHINGTON -- Buoyed by their constituents' sympathetic response to President Clinton's televised grand jury testimony, Democrats began shopping around a new proposal yesterday to punish the president without impeaching him.But Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that would initiate impeachment hearings, dismissed such talk as premature, saying he would like to see a formal impeachment inquiry convened shortly after...

WASHINGTON -- With impeachment hearings set to begin tomorrow, House Republicans moved yesterday to expand their inquiry to allegations that President Clinton and his allies steered "hush money" to Webster L. Hubbell to buy his silence about the Whitewater land deal.Judiciary Committee Republicans received fresh ammunition on the matter from independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who sent the committee four boxes of evidence related to Hubbell, an old friend of the Clintons and former No. 3 official in the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON -- Voting strictly along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee recommended last night the third presidential impeachment inquiry in U.S. history, after Republican investigators laid out 15 offenses that could ultimately end Bill Clinton's presidency.The committee's momentous vote came after a grueling day of contentious debate over the gravity of Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky and allegations that he lied under oath and tried to obstruct justice.All 21 committee Republicans voted to convene a formal impeachment inquiry, and all 16 Democrats opposed it.With the full House expected to ratify the committee's recommendation by Friday, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, still held out the possibility of bipartisan agreements once impeachment hearings begin -- possibly by mid-November.

In Washington Clinton might face impeachment inquiry over Rich pardon Former President Bill Clinton could face a fresh impeachment inquiry because of his pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, a senior Republican said yesterday. Sen. Arlen Specter, a member of the Judiciary Committee, did not specify what charges Clinton might face. But he said that based on his legal research, he believed that a former president "technically could still be impeached." Clinton's spokeswoman, Julia Payne, said: "Give me a break.

WASHINGTON -- One message from the House for President Clinton on Saturday was that he was blessed with the stalwart loyalty of his fellow Democrats.Only five Democrats broke ranks and voted for any of the articles of impeachment. Afterward, in a striking display, two bus loads of Democratic lawmakers rallied behind the president on the South Lawn of the White House.But many Democrats did not rally around their president out of heartfelt fealty. Instead, in opposing impeachment and standing, literally, with Clinton, many were registering their disapproval of how Republicans have handled the inquiry -- as well as their belief that impeachment is not warranted.

WASHINGTON -- Considering its historic dimensions, the House Judiciary Committee's vote to impeach President Clinton was carried out in a remarkably perfunctory fashion.There was no high drama. On the critical first article of impeachment, there were no 11th-hour defections by either party. The vote was the usual 21-16. The whole thing had the quality of a ritual.The same could be said of the president's last-gasp attempt to appear more contrite. He described himself as "profoundly sorry" for his "wrongful conduct."

WASHINGTON -- The testimony in the Clinton impeachment inquiry of constitutional scholars, historians, federal prosecutors and Nixon impeachment committee members has served to elevate the deliberations with their authoritative legal points on key issues involved.At the same time, that testimony has lent an air of unreality for the simple reason that the impeachment process, which goes forward in Congress and not in the courts, is a political exercise whose outcome will be determined by politicians, not scholars and historians.

WASHINGTON -- Just days before a self-imposed deadline to end their impeachment inquiry, Judiciary Committee Republicans today will launch a major expansion of their probe -- with five subpoenas that will move the inquiry into allegations that President Clinton violated campaign finance laws in his 1996 re-election bid.Republicans plan to depose FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and Charles LaBella, who formerly led the Justice Department's campaign finance task...

WASHINGTON -- With impeachment hearings set to begin tomorrow, House Republicans moved yesterday to expand their inquiry to allegations that President Clinton and his allies steered "hush money" to Webster L. Hubbell to buy his silence about the Whitewater land deal.Judiciary Committee Republicans received fresh ammunition on the matter from independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who sent the committee four boxes of evidence related to Hubbell, an old friend of the Clintons and former No. 3 official in the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON -- With the House expected to approve a formal impeachment inquiry today, President Clinton toned down White House lobbying campaign aimed at wavering Democrats and proclaimed yesterday that lawmakers should cast "a vote of principle and conscience.""It's up to others to decide what happens to me, and ultimately it's going to be up to the American people to make a clear statement there," the president told reporters in the Oval Office.Under pressure a month before congressional elections, a number of Democrats will vote with Republicans today to approve an open-ended, Watergate-style inquiry, the third presidential impeachment proceeding in history and the second this century.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats showed surprising strength in yesterday's national elections, unseating at least two Republican senators and two governors, while seeking to defy history by picking up seats in the House.Stunned Republicans maintained control of the Senate, and, apparently, the House, but the results were likely to do little, if anything, to advance the Republican push for Clinton's impeachment. Instead, a lackluster Republican showing could increase pressure on Republican congressional leaders to accelerate the impeachment inquiry and craft a deal on a punishment short of forcing Clinton from office.

WASHINGTON -- He didn't give a victory speech. In fact, he stayed mostly in the shadows yesterday. But President Clinton, while not on any ballot, emerged as a clear winner last night as Democrats managed to stave off major gains by Republicans around the country.With the election viewed as a referendum on Clinton's fate -- specifically, the impending impeachment proceedings -- the respectable showing by Democrats was expected to strengthen the president's position and weaken the hand of those pushing for the impeachment and removal of Clinton.