Clinton’s Lawyers Outline Heart of Defense Strategy

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton’s lawyers and House prosecutors filed briefs with the Senate Monday, with the White House insisting that impeachment charges “do not rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and House prosecutors arguing that “this case is not about sex or private conduct.”

The Clinton lawyers’ 13-page document, which outlines the heart of the president’s defense, denies that he made “perjurious, false and misleading statements to the grand jury about ‘the nature and details of his relationship’ with Monica Lewinsky.” It also affirms his denial of having encouraged her to make false statements in a legal deposition, the heart of the second article of impeachment against Clinton charging that he obstructed justice.

In a competing submission, members of the House who will prosecute the case before the Senate said that the case “is about multiple obstructions of justice, perjury, false and misleading statements and witness tampering--all committed or orchestrated by the President of the United States,” said the House members, known as managers.

For those reasons, they said in their 50-page document, Clinton should be convicted and removed from office. The Senate trial is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. PST Thursday.

The House also sent to the Senate three-ring binders, two inches thick and filled with supporting documents to help senators follow the oral arguments. The material includes telephone records showing conversations between the key players in the drama and visitor records documenting Lewinsky’s White House visits.

But in the documents submitted to the Senate, neither side broke new ground.

The White House refrained from overly contentious, detailed arguments that would rely heavily on finely parsed legal considerations. But the filing--which Clinton reviewed and approved shortly before it was submitted--provided hints of arguments to come.

His lawyers complained that the allegation of perjury was “unconstitutionally vague” because “it fails to identify any specific statement by the president that is alleged to be perjurious, false and misleading.”

“The House has left the Senate and the president to guess at what it had in mind,” they said.

They also decried what they called “a myth” that Clinton did not admit in his testimony before a grand jury on Aug. 17 that he had had an improper, intimate relationship with Lewinsky and cited his testimony acknowledging the relationship.

And, they argued, “the president was truthful when he testified before the grand jury that he did not engage in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky as he understood that term to be defined” (emphasis in document) by the lawyers for Paula Corbin Jones, whose sexual harassment lawsuit brought him into a deposition that led to the perjury and obstruction charges.

As for the obstruction of justice allegation, the lawyers argued that it “sweeps too broadly and provides too little definite and specific identification. Were it an indictment, it would be dismissed. As an article of impeachment, it is constitutionally defective and should fail.”

White House Says Standard Not Met

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart added that, “if someone was proved to have committed perjury and obstruction of justice in a way that was a grave offense to the state, I think lawyers would argue that it was impeachable.” But he said “there’s nothing in this case” that reaches such a standard.

But the House prosecutors argued:

“This is a defining moment for the presidency as an institution because, if the president is not convicted as a consequence of the conduct that has been portrayed, then no House of Representatives will ever be able to impeach again and no Senate will ever convict. The bar will be so high that only a convicted felon or traitor will need to be concerned.”

The House managers reiterated the case approved by the House late last year. They focused on what they argued were false statements by Clinton about his relationship with Lewinsky, the handling of the gifts that the president gave her and other related matters.

In addition, the House managers accused Clinton of concocting a cover story with Lewinsky and engaging in other schemes to obstruct justice.

“The Senate’s own precedents establish beyond doubt that perjury warrants conviction and removal,” they wrote. “During the 1980s, the Senate convicted and removed three federal judges for committing perjury. Obstruction of justice undermines the judicial system in the same fashion that perjury does and it also warrants conviction and removal.”

The House managers argued that it is not essential the president’s offenses did not arise “directly out of his official duties,” an argument the White House made during the impeachment debate in the House.

“Two out of three judges removed in the 1980s were removed for perjury that had nothing to do with their official duties,” the House prosecutors wrote.

The president’s lawyers did not make a formal motion for dismissal of the two articles of impeachment, deferring to Senate Democrats’ advice that they not try to preempt the Senate’s prerogatives. But they did not rule out raising a dismissal motion later.

Working behind closed doors, the 13 House prosecutors divvied up assignments for arguing the case before the Senate.

“Everything’s going swimmingly,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) said as he emerged from the committee offices at day’s end.

Amid the pretrial positioning, the president kept to a largely private schedule, meeting with aides on budget matters and the State of the Union address he plans to deliver a week from today.

He also met with President Carlos Menem of Argentina. But Clinton did not participate in a joint news conference as is customary with a visiting head of government. Asked why he did not, Lockhart said: “It wouldn’t be a productive use of his time.”

Flynt Accuses Barr of Hypocrisy

In a related development, Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt Monday night accused Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) of hypocrisy for refusing to answer questions in a divorce proceeding about his relationship with the woman who is now his third wife, citing as proof an affidavit from Barr’s ex-wife and decade-old depositions taken during Barr’s divorce proceedings.

At a news conference in his Beverly Hills office, Flynt released the affidavit from Gail Barr, who divorced the congressman in 1986.

Flynt contrasted Barr’s invocation of a judicial privilege under Georgia law with the congressman’s harsh criticism of Clinton for evasive testimony under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. Barr is one of the 13 House managers who will present the case for Clinton’s impeachment at the Senate trial.

In a statement Monday night, Barr said that “I’ve never perjured myself. . . . I am deeply saddened that Larry Flynt’s money has been used in an attempt to drive a wedge between the mother and father of two wonderful boys who deserve better than to become involved in the politics of personal destruction.” He said he would not add to these efforts “by discussing our personal lives in any way, shape or form with the news media.”

Flynt placed an ad in the Washington Post in October, offering up to $1 million for “evidence of illicit sexual relations” with top federal lawmakers. The cash-for-confessions scheme reportedly helped prompt House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston to admit to adultery and announce his resignation from Congress in December.

Times staff writers Elizabeth Shogren in Washington and Peter Hong in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

The full text of the White House’s response to impeachment charges is on The Times’ Web site: http://161.35.110.226/impeach