Impeachment inquiry broadened

The House impeachment inquiry is moving beyond President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky after an initial hearing produced a heated clash between independent counsel Kenneth Starr and presidential lawyer David Kendall.

Starr made a grueling 12-hour appearance before the committee Thursday, fencing with hostile Democrats and basking in Republican praise before engaging in a much-anticipated showdown with Kendall. Starr was so much in the spotlight that the facts of his impeachment referral on the Lewinsky matter barely got a mention.Before exhausted lawmakers went home, they met in closed session to extend the inquiry into the Kathleen Willey case and other matters. Majority Republicans approved subpoenas for Clinton's lawyer in the Paula Jones case, Robert Bennett; Daniel Gecker, attorney for Willey, a former White House aide who says Clinton groped her near the Oval Office; and an acquaintance of Willey, major Democratic donor Nathan Landow.

Committee officials announced that Clinton's closest aide, Bruce Lindsey, also would be subpoenaed. No vote was required because Democrats did not object. All four will appear for sworn interviews in closed session, but it is not clear that they would testify at hearings.

Clinton, traveling in Asia, said he did not see any of the hearing but did get a "cursory" briefing. He did take issue with the committee's vote to subpoena Bennett.

"As far as I know, there has never been a case where a person's lawyer was asked to come and testify," Clinton told reporters at Tokyo's Haneda airport before boarding Air Force One for a flight to Seoul, South Korea.

Greg Craig, a special counsel to Clinton, summed up the hearing: "There was nothing very much new of substance . . . other than the fact the president and first lady were exonerated in two very important investigations."

Interviewed on NBC's "Today," Craig said Clinton's conduct was wrong but not impeachable. The president is still working on a list of 81 questions submitted by the committee, Craig added. "They'll be in due course and timely fashion submitted to the committee."

In an hour of high drama, Starr and Kendall, two titans of the Washington legal establishment, battled each other as if they were performing for a courtroom jury.

"Let me begin with the simple but powerful truth that nothing in this overkill of investigation amounts to a justification for the impeachment of the president of the United States," Kendall said before extending greetings to Starr.

It was one of the last peaceful exchanges between the two.

"I thought that what we were here today to discuss is a referral, which we believe contains substantial and credible information of potential impeachable offenses by the president of the United States," the prosecutor told Kendall after the lawyer kept attacking Starr's conduct.

Kendall asked at another point: "And has anybody been fired from your office, Mr. Starr, for leaking?"

"No, because I don't believe anyone has leaked grand jury information, Mr. Kendall," the prosecutor snapped back.

Republicans characterized the subpoenas as the next logical step to move the inquiry forward. Members now have heard marathon testimony from Starr and read moun-tains of evidence he submitted in September to back his allegations that Clinton committed impeachable offenses, including perjury and obstruction of justice, in the Lewinsky matter.

"I think we're just going forth, trying to make sure that we've got all the evidence," said Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. "I think that we're making some real progress."

To Democrats, the new subpoenas were a Republican admission that the evidence so far has led to no impeachable offenses - not in the Lewinsky case and, as Starr admitted Thursday, not in the White House's misuse of FBI files or firings in the White House travel office.

"That comes to bad news for the most angry Clinton haters," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. "Hope springs eternal in the breasts of the right wing, but I think it's less and less likely they're going to come up with anything."

In the closed session, the committee also voted party line for a Republican resolution that refused to recognize attorney-client confidentiality in the inquiry. Lindsey, a deputy White House counsel, has unsuccessfully raised that issue in federal court to keep from answering some questions in Starr's investigation.

Throughout the day Thursday, Democrats pounded Starr with al-le-ga-tions of misconduct - accusing him of failing to disclose contacts with Paula Jones' lawyers to the Justice Department and by discouraging Lewinsky from calling her lawyer last January, when prosecutors and FBI agents working for Starr first confronted her about the affair with the president.

While Starr denied misconduct with Lewinsky and denied he had any conflicts, he willingly agreed with Republican assertions that Clinton lied time and again to conceal his relationship with the former White House intern.

At the end of his appearance, Republicans gave the former appellate court judge a standing ovation.