Release of Clinton videotape delayed

WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee bogged down in a fierce partisan battle yesterday over how much secret and sexually explicit evidence from the Monica Lewinsky investigation to make public, forcing the panel to put off plans to release the videotape of President Clinton's grand jury testimony for at least another day.

During a closed, day-long meeting, the committee's Republican majority won 11 party-line votes rejecting attempts by Democrats to delay or limit disclosure of grand jury material in deference to Clinton and other key players, according to sources familiar with the session. After seven hours of back-and-forth, the panel finally gave up for the day and agreed to reconvene this morning.

Much of the lengthy dispute centered on how much to edit Lewinsky's testimony to remove graphic descriptions of her Oval Office suite sexual encounters with Clinton, according to sources, with Democrats lobbying unsuccessfully for greater restrictions. So consumed was the committee with that issue that it never even got around to debating conditions for releasing the Clinton videotape.

The breakdown at the full committee's first meeting on impeachment issues since receiving independent counsel Kenneth Starr's report indicated the difficulty the House will have sustaining the bipartisan spirit both parties pledged last week. If this opening session is any harbinger, the next several months may feature partisan trench warfare that could deeply divide Congress as it struggles to determine Clinton's future with midterm elections approaching.

The schism could be exacerbated by the makeup of the starkly ideological 37-member committee charged with reviewing Starr's report, sifting through the voluminous supporting evidence and voting on whether the House should open a formal impeachment inquiry on the charges that Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice. More so than other House panels, Judiciary is stocked with liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans and few moderates to bridge the gap.

"There's no bipartisanship," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) a senior Judiciary Democrat, complained during a break in yesterday's meeting. "They're just deciding what they want to do and doing it. ... We're not into fact-finding, setting down procedures, deciding what is an impeachable offense. What they're mostly trying to do is weaken the president's standing."

The mood was further soured by the furor over the revelation of a 30-year-old extramarital affair by the committee's chairperson, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill). The House Republican leadership yesterday asked for an FBI investigation into whether the White House spread the story, which the White House vigorously denied.

Hyde himself, though, tried to maintain a positive tone in describing the tense committee meeting after it ended. While "passionate at times," he said, "it was a productive debate. It's not a frivolous debate. We are accomplishing a lot."

09-18-98