Impeachment Process

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."

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.

Robert Belknap Green, the managing partner of a Towson law firm, died Oct. 28 at Sinai Hospital after suffering a heart attack while driving to work. The Roland Park resident was 61. "Bob was the best partner and friend anyone could ever have," said his law partner David B. Irwin, who lives in Cockeysville. "He was the glue that kept our firm together, and he was the best counselor anyone could ever hope to have. " Born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park, Mr. Green was the second of four sons of Richard H. Green, a Chesapeake & Potomac telephone marketing manager and Elizabeth B. Green, an office manager for the Boy Scouts.

HARTFORD, Conn. - State House Speaker Moira K. Lyons said last night that House Democrats have decided either to create an investigative committee or to begin impeachment proceedings against Gov. John G. Rowland. House Democrats who met in a closed-door caucus for about seven hours were leaning toward beginning the impeachment process against Rowland, a Republican, Lyons said. Lyons, of Stamford, said caucus members concluded that there was only one other option: forming an investigative committee with subpoena power.

WASHINGTON -- The immunity deal that Monica S. Lewinsky signed July 28 -- a standard arrangement if it had been made in an ordinary criminal case -- suddenly became the center of a roiling new constitutional controversy yesterday.That controversy promptly landed in the lap of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.It was put there by a Democratic senator sympathetic to the president, Tom Harkin of Iowa, asking Rehnquist to act, not as the head of the Supreme Court but as the presiding officer of the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- Try as they might, President Clinton's critics cannot make much of a woman's recently surfaced allegation that 21 years ago he raped her in a hotel room and in the process bruised her lips.There are too many problems with the story, including the fact that unlike other reports of his sexually predatory habits this involves violence, a characteristic Mr. Clinton seems not to have.Our adulterous president wants to make love, not war.The stale charge by Juanita Broaddrick, a woman concealed as "Jane Doe No. 5" in an appendix to independent counsel Kenneth Starr's report to Congress, is potentially sensational.

In a finding that could spur other Democrats to make voter distaste for an impeachment inquiry a campaign issue, a poll made public yesterday found that former Rep. Jay Inslee, a Democrat running for the House in Washington state, has gained ground since he began running a commercial criticizing the impeachment process.The survey, commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, found that Inslee has pulled statistically even with the Republican incumbent, Rick White. While the race has long been competitive, Democratic officials said that represented a significant turnabout for Inslee, who was trailing White by several points two weeks ago.The latest poll was conducted this past weekend, about a week after Inslee began running an advertisement castigating White for voting for a Republican proposal to begin a broad, open-ended inquiry into possible grounds for the impeachment of President Clinton.

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 dozens of House races hanging in the balance, the Republican Party is taking dead aim at President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky as part of a final $10 million TV ad blitz.Tuesday's vote has been called the Impeachment Election, and the results are likely to have a direct influence on Clinton's future. Until now, however, neither political party has been eager to address the volatile issue of Clinton's personal behavior squarely in the campaign.That changed last night, when the Republican National Committee began airing new anti-Clinton commercials around the country.

The most striking aspect of the power struggle in Moscow is the commitment of all sides, so far, to resolution by constitutional means. If only they knew what those are. It is a constitution crafted by the Brezhnev dictatorship, with the Russian federation then subsidiary and now paramount, and with bits amended along the way.A constitutional court for the Russian federation has emerged, poised to play a pivotal role. Its presiding judge has given political opinions on television before hearing the case, so it is not at all what the U.S. Supreme Court is to American citizens.