Impeachment Process

WASHINGTON -- Congressional conservatives -- angered by suggestions that President Clinton could escape his troubles with a censure -- dug in their heels yesterday and demanded that the impeachment process move forward.Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, said conservatives had approached him to express their chagrin that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch had suggested that Congress consider a punishment short of impeachment. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had made similar overtures over the weekend.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's impeachment trial has become the tribunal that nobody wants -- not Democrats, not Republicans, not pollsters, not politicians. And certainly not the American voters.Yet Senate Republican leaders have found themselves stymied in their efforts to end it.They have been squeezed by the political imperative to cut their losses, by the insistent demands of House Republican prosecutors to plow ahead, and by their own swelling desire to deny Clinton a victory celebration once he is acquitted.

WASHINGTON -- When House impeachment hearings opened, everyone was certain of one thing: Congress would never impeach President Clinton.Today, that prediction is very much in doubt. The House of Representatives seems ready to approve at least one article of impeachment next week, sending the matter to the Senate for trial.This represents a breathtaking reversal of fortune for Clinton, who looked to be home-free last month as hearings began.After all, the Republicans had failed to make gains in the midterm elections, and it was House Speaker Newt Gingrich, not the president, who was forced out.If Clinton is impeached, it wouldn't be the first time conventional wisdom was proved wrong this year.

WASHINGTON -- As Kenneth W. Starr has demonstrated over and over in the past several months, his role as independent counsel and chief presidential inquisitor did not end -- as many thought it should -- when he submitted to Congress his report of possibly impeachable offenses by William Jefferson Clinton.Starr has repeatedly inserted himself into the impeachment process, provoking a crescendo of criticism and bewilderment that reached a new peak on Capitol Hill yesterday.After learning that Starr went to federal court on Friday to force Monica Lewinsky to talk with the 13 Republican House managers who are prosecuting Clinton in the Senate, Democrats and White House lawyers assailed the independent counsel yesterday, calling him the "14th manager of the House team" and questioning his motives.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans began searching yesterday for a way out of the impeachment process against President Clinton, even as the most conservative GOP members of the Judiciary Committee sounded as uncompromising as ever.Republican losses in last week's election and the resulting ouster of House Speaker Newt Gingrich have drastically altered the political landscape, leaving the Judiciary Committee stuck with a mission that some Republican members no longer want to undertake."There are clearly guys on this committee and in this [Republican]

Arthur Bestor, 86, a constitutional historian and a frequent commentator on the separation of powers, died Tuesday of lung cancer at his home in Seattle. He was a professor emeritus of history at the University of Washington, where he taught from 1962 until his retirement in 1976. His historical studies of the constitutional provisions for making war and peace, of the roles of the presidency in defining foreign relations and the impeachment process were widely read in the 1970s and 1980s.

As far as the broadcast networks are concerned, the impeachment trial beginning today is hardly must-see TV.Although ABC, CBS and NBC are all planning to cover today's opening salvos, in which the House GOP prosecutors will begin laying out their case against President Clinton, none are committing themselves to broadcasting the entire day's events.And no one is willing to speculate what happens beyond tomorrow."We're a news organization, so we sort of take things as they come," CBS News spokeswoman Kim Akhtar says.

WASHINGTON -- As Kenneth W. Starr has demonstrated over and over in the past several months, his role as independent counsel and chief presidential inquisitor did not end -- as many thought it should -- when he submitted to Congress his report of possibly impeachable offenses by William Jefferson Clinton.Starr has repeatedly inserted himself into the impeachment process, provoking a crescendo of criticism and bewilderment that reached a new peak on Capitol Hill yesterday.After learning that Starr went to federal court on Friday to force Monica Lewinsky to talk with the 13 Republican House managers who are prosecuting Clinton in the Senate, Democrats and White House lawyers assailed the independent counsel yesterday, calling him the "14th manager of the House team" and questioning his motives.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's legal defense team is turning its attention to the Senate, where any negotiations over his fate are likely to take place: The courts almost certainly would refuse to get involved.That view seems to be widely held by scholars, lawyers and judges.Even so, hints have surfaced that Clinton's lawyers and other advisers might be considering a court challenge, as one way to head off a Senate trial on the two articles of impeachment approved last week by the House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton must now know how it felt to be captain of the Titanic, standing lonely and desolate on the bridge of his mighty ship on a black April night as it began its relentless descent to the floor of the frigid Atlantic.The captain had two options: He could go down with the great vessel or plunge into the freezing ocean. Either way, doom was his destiny.Mr. Clinton has three options: He can suffer through an impeachment process with the expectation that the Republican-controlled Senate would convict him and cast him out of the White House.

As far as the broadcast networks are concerned, the impeachment trial beginning today is hardly must-see TV.Although ABC, CBS and NBC are all planning to cover today's opening salvos, in which the House GOP prosecutors will begin laying out their case against President Clinton, none are committing themselves to broadcasting the entire day's events.And no one is willing to speculate what happens beyond tomorrow."We're a news organization, so we sort of take things as they come," CBS News spokeswoman Kim Akhtar says.

IT TAKES neither genie nor wise man to be wary of coming attractions this January.In this new year, may sane and sensible minds in the Senate accede to the urging -- no, the demands -- of the American people who desperately desire a quick end to the national nightmare called impeachment. Otherwise, it is going to be a long, cold winter and national discontent may reach the boiling point.The first major event of January, the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton impacts the month's second important congressional attraction -- President Clinton's State of the Union Address.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's legal defense team is turning its attention to the Senate, where any negotiations over his fate are likely to take place: The courts almost certainly would refuse to get involved.That view seems to be widely held by scholars, lawyers and judges.Even so, hints have surfaced that Clinton's lawyers and other advisers might be considering a court challenge, as one way to head off a Senate trial on the two articles of impeachment approved last week by the House of Representatives.

NEW YORK -- What's it all about, this brawl in Washington? Some think it is about punishing an adulterous and mendacious president. Others think it is about protecting the democratic process against a vengeful attempt to undo a presidential election. Perhaps a historical perspective may have its uses -- not that historians are wiser than anybody else (they aren't), but they are more professionally inclined to look at the long-term impact on our constitutional order.The Framers reserved impeachment for officials charged with "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Members of Congress show arrogance over strike on IraqAs a British subject who became an American citizen some years ago and has lived in this country for the past 30 years, I find the attitudes of congressional representatives who are criticizing the strike on Iraq incredibly arrogant.Do they feel that the UNSCOM, Britain, Canada, Germany and others had no input into this decision? Do they feel that nothing should happen in the rest of he world until they have completed the impeachment process?

WASHINGTON -- Somebody put out an all-points-bulletin for Newt Gingrich, the missing House speaker and one-time noisiest symbol of his party's anti-Clinton vitriol.When last seen, Mr. Gingrich was posing for farewell photos for a long queue of Capitol fans. Then he vanished into Georgia. He's invisible and shyly silent, uncharacteristic traits.Mr. Gingrich's AWOL during the Republicans' headlong stampede toward an impeachment vote, a vacuum as bizarre as John Elway forgetting to show up for a Super Bowl.

WASHINGTON -- It's even worse than it looks. There really is no one in charge on Capitol Hill.Not Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House speaker. He's saying his job is finished. Not Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, the next speaker. His new job hasn't begun yet. Not Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He's actually trying to sort out the babble of the most polarized, most politicized committee in the House.As a result, the Congress is careening toward a vote on impeachment -- the most dramatic act the legislative branch can take, short of declaring war -- without any idea of how it wants the yearlong inquiry on President Clinton's moral fitness to be resolved.

NEW YORK -- What's it all about, this brawl in Washington? Some think it is about punishing an adulterous and mendacious president. Others think it is about protecting the democratic process against a vengeful attempt to undo a presidential election. Perhaps a historical perspective may have its uses -- not that historians are wiser than anybody else (they aren't), but they are more professionally inclined to look at the long-term impact on our constitutional order.The Framers reserved impeachment for officials charged with "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who earned national attention for his role in forcing President Richard M. Nixon from office, doesn't think much of the way his successors on the House Judiciary Committee are handling the impeachment drive against President Clinton."

WASHINGTON -- It's even worse than it looks. There really is no one in charge on Capitol Hill.Not Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House speaker. He's saying his job is finished. Not Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, the next speaker. His new job hasn't begun yet. Not Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He's actually trying to sort out the babble of the most polarized, most politicized committee in the House.As a result, the Congress is careening toward a vote on impeachment -- the most dramatic act the legislative branch can take, short of declaring war -- without any idea of how it wants the yearlong inquiry on President Clinton's moral fitness to be resolved.