56-44 Vote Shows GOP Lacks Margin to Convict

WASHINGTON —  Senate Republicans rejected a bid to dismiss President Clinton’s impeachment trial Wednesday, pushed through their own plan to question three witnesses in the case and then immediately began talks with Democrats on how to end the trial by mid-February.

Although the dismissal motion lost, 56 to 44, the vote was a noteworthy victory for Democrats--and Clinton--because it showed what until now has only been surmised: The two-thirds majority needed to convict the president of “high crimes and misdemeanors” simply is not there, barring some major unforeseen development.

“The president will not be removed from office,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) declared moments after the votes. “For the good of the country, and in keeping with the Constitution, it is now time to end this trial. It is now time to move on.”

But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ignored such talk and focused instead on the logistics of deposing the witnesses, all proposed by House Republican prosecutors. “I feel good about where we are and we’ll go forward,” Lott said.

The questioning of the witnesses--Monica S. Lewinsky, whose affair with Clinton sparked the impeachment case, presidential confidant Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal--could occur as soon as this weekend.

As of Wednesday night, however, Lott and Daschle were unable to agree on a blueprint governing the logistics of the depositions, as well as the remainder of the trial.

Before leaving the Capitol, Lott said that both sides hoped to unveil an agreement today that will win the blessings of Republicans and Democrats.

The vote approving witnesses mirrored the vote rejecting dismissal, 56 to 44. The witness issue had loomed as the most contentious procedural hurdle since the Senate trial began earlier this month.

Except for Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin--the Democrat who twice sided with the GOP majority--back-to-back votes Wednesday broke along party lines, thus infecting the process anew with a stark dose of partisanship.

“Calling witnesses will not serve any good purpose but will, instead, only intensify the spread of the cancer of the bitter political partisanship on the Senate floor and throughout the nation,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), author of the defeated motion to dismiss.

With the approval of the witness list, the immediate challenge facing Lott and Daschle as they renewed their negotiations was to agree on the array of details surrounding the depositions--such as who may attend, how much time will be allowed to depose each witness and whether the sessions will be videotaped.

Some Democrats expressed the hope that the three witnesses will add nothing new to the record--and thus that the White House would forgo asking to call its own witnesses.

In such a case, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, the trial could then go right to final arguments and votes on the two articles of impeachment.

Republicans had offered a plan that they said could end the proceeding within 10 days--if the president’s lawyers do not want to call witnesses.

The GOP plan also contained a proposal to allow the Senate to adopt a “finding of fact,” putting the chamber on record as stating that the allegations against Clinton are true--even though members do not convict him, which would automatically lead to his removal from office. But Democrats are vehemently opposed to that suggestion.

Republicans Balk at Trial Deadline

Another snag surfaced when some Republican senators expressed opposition to a plan to set a time certain for the trial to end--because they fear that might foreclose the opportunity to call live witnesses, as sought by the House prosecutors, sources said Wednesday night.

Before leaving the Capitol for the night, Lott and Daschle said that the two sides were narrowing their differences and that the final plan could end the trial by Feb. 12.

The two key roll-call votes early Wednesday afternoon came after more than 55 hours of arguments by House GOP prosecutors and White House lawyers and on the 13th day of the nation’s second-ever presidential impeachment trial.

Although senators had approached the trial vowing to avoid the rancor and divisiveness that imbued the House impeachment process, the votes revealed that the 100-member “upper body” is not immune to the tenacious grasp of party politics.

Aside from Feingold, the other 44 Senate Democrats--including California’s Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein--voted to dismiss the case. Even if all 55 Republicans voted to oust Clinton, they would need the support of 12 Democrats to reach the required two-thirds majority.

By prior agreement, there was no floor debate preceding Wednesday’s votes. Each had been debated by the Senate in closed sessions earlier this week.

The two roll-call votes began as soon as the Senate was gaveled to order a few minutes after 10 a.m. PST by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the trial’s presiding officer.

As in earlier procedural votes, senators rose from their desks, one by one, as their names were called, answering “aye” or “no.”

“We now know at most that only 56 senators will vote for conviction and removal, which means there are not enough votes in the Senate for that to happen, which means that the conclusion of this impeachment trial is now foregone,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). “And therefore, we have to ask ourselves why we would want to continue this longer than absolutely necessary, since we know how it’s going to end.”

If the three witnesses could be deposed this weekend, Lott said, the trial could resume as early as Tuesday.

But whether or not the depositions can take place that soon remains uncertain. Two of the three are not in town. Lewinsky returned to Los Angeles after meeting over the weekend with three House prosecutors. Jordan is attending a business conference in Switzerland.

Speedy Depositions Called Into Question

A speedy trial resolution, Lieberman said, would require not only “a lot of very quick movement in terms of depositions” but “the president’s counsel to forgo some of the discovery in the legal sense that they said they felt they had to do to protect the interest of their client.”

At least one Republican senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, agreed that the White House “has a right” to depose other witnesses.

But just what the White House plans to do is murky.

Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart raised the prospect that the depositions could be delayed when he argued for full access to the documents of the House prosecutors. “We believe that it’s a fundamental issue of fairness that the accused gets a right to, and access to, the same material that the prosecution gets,” he said.

But in a statement after the Senate votes, Gregory Craig, special counsel to the president, stated: “Any proceedings from this date forward only serve to delay the final resolution.”

Republicans countered that they share the hope for a quick conclusion to the case but that it must be done in a proper manner.

“I think we’ve taken small steps in the right direction, which is better than big steps in the wrong direction,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas). “Those small steps have gotten us where we are. . . . I think that it’s going to be a very short time period [for ending the trial] if everyone cooperates and we will have a fair record and we will get through this.”

House managers also seemed generally satisfied, even though they initially had sought as many as 15 witnesses.

“The good news for the day is that we’ll have a trial to conclusion, said Rep. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). “It would not be under the procedures I would like. But at the end of the day, we’ll have a base for whether or not the articles [of impeachment] were proven.”

Feingold cited similar reasoning in explaining why he broke ranks with his fellow Democrats, saying that dismissing the trial and refusing the witness request would unfairly short-circuit the procedure.

But Feinstein said that she and many other Senate Democrats are concerned that deposing witnesses “will turn into a type of fishing expedition . . . to embroider, to expand . . . and really, in fact, humiliate this president more than he has already been humiliated.”

Before the votes, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called a news conference to “remind” Senate Democrats that in 1995, many of them had demanded live witnesses in the ethics investigation of then-Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), who was facing accusations of sexual misconduct and obstruction of justice. Packwood resigned his seat before the witness issue was decided.

Prosecutors Press Need for Live Witnesses

McConnell said he was not advocating calling live witnesses in the impeachment trial. He simply wanted to stress, he said, that it is “not unreasonable” for House prosecutors to seek to depose three witnesses.

The prosecutors, meanwhile, continued pressing the need for live testimony, especially from Lewinsky.

Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.), who was tabbed to depose Lewinsky, said that he looks forward to questioning her in the Senate as well.

Among the other managers, Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) was named to question Blumenthal and Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) will quiz Jordan.

Under the procedures worked out at the start of the Senate trial, another vote is required to approve live testimony. And some GOP senators stressed that their vote in favor of deposing witnesses should not be construed to mean that they favor testimony in the Senate chamber itself.

“This does not mean witnesses will be called. It means they will take depositions under oath,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.).

“Absent some bombshell, I will oppose calling witnesses” to testify before the Senate, said Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.).

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) derided the persistent House GOP effort to produce Lewinsky for live testimony as an attempt to “salvage” the case against Clinton.

“This would be Monica Lewinsky’s 25th interview” in connection with the investigation begun by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, he said. “And for what earthly purpose? Forty-four Democrats have made it clear this case is over.”

Boxer said that she voted for the dismissal motion because House Republicans have “failed to prove their case, because the charges did not rise to the level required by the Constitution for removal, because this impeachment process has been deeply flawed and because forcing the president from office based on this record would shatter the delicate constitutional balance of power.”

Feinstein and Daschle were among many Democrats on Wednesday who reiterated that they would favor a resolution censuring the president for his actions in the Lewinsky scandal after the trial ends, presumably in acquittal.

But whether a censure resolution will achieve majority support in the Senate is unclear.

Many Republicans have vociferously opposed censuring Clinton, contending that such action would be unconstitutional.

At the same time, some Democrats, such as Tom Harkin of Iowa, have argued that the House impeachment should stand as the president’s ultimate punishment, short of his removal from office.

The Senate is scheduled to reconvene today at 10 a.m. PST--after Republicans and Democrats have met in separate caucuses to debate plans for conducting the rest of the trial.

Times staff writers Art Pine and Janet Hook contributed to this story.

Wednesday’s Senate votes on dismissal and witnesses have reduced the trial to a strictly partisan battle, says Times Washington correspondent Edwin Chen. Hear his audio reporter’s notebook on The Times’ Web site: http://netblogpro.com/impeach

* FEINGOLD BUCKS PARTY: Wisconsin Sen. Russell D. Feingold was the only Democrat to cross party lines. A12