Clinton lawyers to start defense

"We think there are significant holes in the House case, as well many overreaching characterizations."

-- Jim Kennedy, White House counsel spokesman

Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON -- After a surprisingly strong performance by House prosecutors, President Clinton's legal team will lead off his defense in the Senate today with a full day of arguments presented by low- key White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff. Ruff is expected to make a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of the case against Clinton, focusing both narrowly on the facts of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and broadly on the Constitution's standard for impeachment. "We think there are significant holes in the House case, as well many overreaching characterizations," said Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for the counsel's office. "We will challenge the allegations by going through the entire record." The White House defense is expected to run for three days, although the lawyers and Clinton spokesmen were mum on most details. After the presentation of Clinton's case, senators at week's end are likely to get a chance to ask questions of the prosecution and defense teams. Early next week, the senators are scheduled to vote on whether to hear additional testimony from witnesses. Most Democrats oppose the calling of witnesses, but Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Monday conceded that it "may be inevitable." The House prosecution team last week stressed that witnesses would underscore their case, and most Republican senators seemed convinced by that argument. "I think judging from what Republicans have said with almost unanimity, it appears there will be witnesses," Daschle said. If so, however, the trial will "last much, much longer" than forecast, perhaps into the spring, he said. The Senate hasn't established the procedures for how it would handle witnesses. Ruff, in his opening presentation, will be seeking to head off the need for witnesses, but his task has grown harder. Until last week, Clinton's attorneys hoped the House case would look thin and trivial, hardly worthy of the Senate's attention. If so, the defense team could take the high road and argue the articles of impeachment warranted a quick vote of dismissal. Many senators -- including some Democrats -- said the House prosecutors made effective opening arguments. They presented a strong circumstantial case that Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice in seeking to hide his affair with Lewinsky, and that he should be expelled from office as a result. Ruff will try to unravel the fabric weaved by the prosecutors. For example, Rep. Asa Hutchison, R-Ark., used dates, times and other evidence to show the arrival of Lewinsky's subpoena to testify in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against Clinton set off a near-frantic search to find her a job in New York. Moreover, a visit by Lewinsky to the White House after receiving the subpoena was followed a few hours later by the president's secretary Betty Currie retrieving the gifts Clinton had given her. Hutchinson argued this was part of an obstruction of justice scenario orchestrated by Clinton. But Ruff, in a brief already submitted to the Senate, noted that no witness said Clinton told Currie to hide the gifts, and no one said the president told Lewinsky to lie when testifying in the Jones case. Ruff, in his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee late last year, acknowledged that a "reasonable" person might conclude Clinton lied in his deposition in the Jones case when asked a series of questions about his relationship with Lewinsky. But Ruff stressed that Clinton told the truth in August before Starr's grand jury, the testimony that is the basis on the perjury charge against him. At that time, Clinton admitted he had sexual contact with Lewinsky on "certain occasions" at the White House. Does it make sense to charge the president with perjury, Ruff asked in his brief, because the president said "certain occasions" and not the precise 11 instances cited by the House?

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