Culminating a four-year criminal investigation, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivered 36 heavily guarded boxes of evidence containing his case for impeachment of President Clinton to the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
With a public flourish and timing that caught Congress by surprise and angered some lawmakers, Starr shipped his lengthy report by two vans to the Capitol, where it was unloaded by Capitol police officers as hundreds watched.
Finding what Starr described as “substantial and credible information” that may constitute grounds for impeaching the president, the controversial independent counsel triggered a process that could lead the House of Representatives to decide whether the president is removed from office or reprimanded.
The report was whisked off to the Ford House Office Building, where it will be kept under lock and key until the House decides, perhaps by Friday, how much of it will be released and the rules for conducting an inquiry against the president. Not even House Speaker Newt Gingrich can see the report until then.
“We have fulfilled our duty. . . . The responsibility for the information we have transmitted today and any further action now lies with the Congress,” Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly said outside the Capitol after delivering a letter to Gingrich and Democratic leader Richard Gephardt.
The president’s attorney, David Kendall, complained that prosecutors did not give Clinton a chance to review or to respond to Starr’s allegations before the report was sent to Congress.
“We do know this: There is no basis for impeachment,” Kendall said, adding that the reports represented “only the prosecutors’ allegations, allegations that we have been denied a chance to review.”
Opinion is sharply divided in the House on how much of the material–some of it containing salacious details of Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky–should be made public. In his letter to Congress, Starr said, “Many of the supporting materials contain information of a personal nature that I respectfully urge the House to treat as confidential.”
A highly placed source said that although the report contains no executive summary, it lays out some 100 pages of what Starr considers impeachable offenses by the president. The source said the allegations cover four key areas: perjury, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and tampering with witnesses.
The report is not limited to evidence gathered by Starr against Clinton in his relationship with Lewinsky, the source said, declining to elaborate on what other matters were raised.
The report contains a 20-page introduction, along with some 300 pages of narrative and the 100 pages of alleged offenses, the source said. The boxes contained supporting evidence and grand jury testimony. Starr said there were duplicate sets of his referral in the material sent to Congress, so that one complete report filled 18 boxes.
The delivery of the report came as a penitent Clinton apologized to Democratic leaders in Washington and political supporters in Florida.
“I ask you for your understanding, for your forgiveness on this journey we’re on,” Clinton said in Orlando. “I hope this will be a time of reconciliation and healing, and I hope that millions of families all over America are in a way growing stronger because of this.”
More Top Picks Best Electric Wall Heaters
Starr originally was appointed to investigate Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater land-development case, but also looked into the president’s role in firings at the White House travel office and how White House political operatives obtained confidential FBI files of officials in previous Republican administrations.
House Republican and Democratic leaders promised a bipartisan effort to look into the independent counsel’s allegations, although Starr’s public shipment of the report to the House prompted criticism from Democrats, who said it created a circus atmosphere.
Delivery of the report did not wind up Starr’s work as independent counsel; further grand jury testimony in the Lewinsky case was scheduled for Thursday. But for the most part, it capped the most expensive investigation by an independent counsel in history, one that stirred sharp political emotions and caused Democrats to accuse Starr of partisan motives.
Badly damaged by Starr’s investigation, Clinton summoned top House Democrats to the White House on Wednesday morning and apologized for his relationship with Lewinsky, saying he had hurt his family and his country and wanted to re-establish trust with the American people.
“We all forgave the president at the meeting,” said Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.). “The president will certainly be able to continue in office. The American people are weighing his personal behavior . . . and the job he has done as president.”
But other Democrats said they continue to reserve judgment on how they might vote if called upon to approve an impeachment resolution against Clinton. Many said they favored a censure or reprimand.
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which will take custody of Starr’s report and determine whether to launch an inquiry and hearings, said he was prepared to stay in session for as long as possible to complete the work.
Hyde told reporters he had “no burning desire” to summon Starr to testify before the committee, adding that the panel may not have to call all the witnesses who testified before the grand jury if there is no dispute about their testimony. Whether Clinton or Lewinsky are called to testify depends on the evidence in the report, other members of the Judiciary panel said.
“It’s the day we have been waiting for,” said Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), a Judiciary Committee member. “I don’t think any us think it’s a good thing to go through an impeachment process.”
The Hyde committee that will be called to render the first judgment on Clinton–just as the Judiciary panel did shortly before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974–consists of representatives spanning a wide political spectrum in both parties. It ranges from the fiery conservatism of Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) to the ferocious liberalism of Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
McCollum said he expected the “process will be very bipartisan, and this is important, because the public needs to see that we can stand together. . . . There are definitely partisans on our committee. But everyone realizes the weightiness of the situation.”
Barr, who filed a resolution last year to begin an impeachment inquiry against Clinton, called for a quick resolution by Congress. “We shouldn’t leave the president twisting in the wind,” he said.
“The American people deserve a competent, independent and bipartisan review of the independent counsel’s report,” Hyde said in a statement. “They must have confidence in this process. Politics must be checked at the door, party affiliation must become secondary, and America’s future must become our only concern. I will not condone nor participate in a political witch hunt.”
He said if the evidence does not warrant a full impeachment investigation, “I will not recommend one to the House.” But if it does, Hyde said, “I will fulfill my oath of office and recommend a fuller inquiry.”
Hyde added that the committee “will not take at face value the assertions of any particular party” in conducting its review.
He said he had no criticism of the highly public way in which Starr delivered his report, but some Democrats did. Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) said it was “consistent with high theater and politics” of Starr’s tenure as independent counsel and added the report could have been delivered “through a back door” without fanfare.
Whether to release all the report, complete with grand jury testimony and salacious details of the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship, is becoming controversial.
Rep. James McDermott (D-Wash.) said, “Just put the report out there” before it is leaked selectively. As to whether grand jury testimony should be made public, McDermott said he had no objection. “We’re way beyond a grand jury,” he said.
At a bipartisan meeting of House leaders before Starr issued the report, Gingrich said “our strong belief is that the public has the right to know.” But the speaker added that only the Judiciary Committee should have access to some of the “raw materials, which need to be reviewed because we don’t want to hurt any innocent people.”
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee who attended the meeting, agreed with Gingrich’s reluctance to make public everything Starr sent to Capitol Hill.
Conyers said he was “heartened by the fact that we’re going to make certain that there are not offhand or prejudgmental remarks about the chief executive or anybody else that’s involved in this.”
Earlier in the morning, Clinton had summoned leading congressional Democrats to offer what was described as a highly emotional, contrition-laden meeting in which the president poured out his emotions to those in his party who largely hold the keys to his political future.
Appearing grim-faced and somber, a cluster of those leaders later talked to reporters, led by Bonior, the second-ranking Democrat in the House.
Bonior said the president was “very, very sorry for . . . the hurt that he has caused his family, his countrymen and his colleagues.”
Bonior said resignation and impeachment were not discussed in the session. He said he and others implored the president to speak with the same force and emotion to the American people that he had used in speaking to them.
“The president needs to make clear to the American people his contrition, his sorrow for his action,” Bonior said, “and he needs to do that not just once but understand this is a process that is ongoing. This issue will be raised time and again during the weeks, perhaps the months, ahead, and he needs to address it on a continual basis. . . . But he also needs to get to the issues he was elected to address in this country.
More Top Picks Best Expandable Hose
“I think Democrats will hold together,” he said.