Reprinted from The Washington Times, March 20, 1998
From House floor, DeLay puts focus on scandal
By Nancy E. Roman and Mary Ann Akers
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
For the first time, a top Republican lawmaker took to the House floor Thursday to demand President Clinton more fully address the growing White House sex scandal.
The remarks by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas signaled a sharp departure from the reluctance of Republican leaders to comment on the scandal.
"The longer the White House waits, the greater the harm to themselves and their bond with the American people," Mr. DeLay said. "The sooner we hear the truth, the sooner they will regain public trust and respect ... not mere approval or popularity, but trust and respect."
Mr. Clinton has given a detailed denial of an accusation by former White House volunteer Kathleen E. Willey's that the president groped her just outside the Oval Office in 1993, but he has declined to speak publicly about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Many senior Republicans have been hesitant to criticize the president from the floor of the House and Senate, although Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has urged the president to tell what he knows in less formal meetings with the press.
GOP strategists fear overt criticism would transform the White House scandal into a partisan fight. They also have tracked the strong poll numbers for Mr. Clinton that have defied multiple charges of sexual
-- Continued from Front Page -- misconduct.
House GOP leaders continue to handle the explosive issue of impeachment with extreme delicacy. Speaker Newt Gingrich and Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican, met for a second consecutive day Thursday to discuss a contingency plan for the day when, and if, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr forwards impeachable evidence against the president to Congress.
Mr. Hyde said the main option being considered is to create a bipartisan select panel of members to review Mr. Starr's findings before sending the material to the Judiciary Committee for formal hearings. He said the group of members would be "responsible people, bipartisan, who look at what the judge presents, if he presents anything."
But Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri complained that he and other Democrats have not been consulted on the options being considered, while White House spokesman Michael McCurry chided Republicans for even having preliminary procedural discussions.
"'Premature' would be a gentle way of expressing some mystification at why they would leap to that process," Mr. McCurry said.
One problem for Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Hyde: The independent counsel law does not address how Mr. Starr must refer impeachable evidence to Congress.
Mr. Starr must get court approval of his final report before releasing it to Congress and the public. But what is not clear is whether he must get a court to approve any separate, impeachable evidence that he may find on Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Starr has the option of sending evidence of potentially impeachable offenses to the House before his final report is ready.
That scenario raises new headaches of how the House could handle sensitive grand jury material passed along by Mr. Starr. Mr. Hyde said a special panel would essentially serve as a "vetting" process to shield private information about "innocent people" named in the Starr report.
But amid all the maneuvering, some members -- having gotten sharp questioning from voters back home -- are beginning to speak out.
Rep. Mark W. Neumann, a Wisconsin Republican who is seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Russell D. Feingold this fall, broke from his long-standing focus on the national debt to discuss the sex scandal.
"Either the people making the accusations are lying, or the president of the United States is lying, but somebody is clearly lying," he said.
Mr. Neumann said when he went home to Wisconsin last weekend, constituents hit him with a barrage of complaints about the president. One told him that his 6-year-old had come home talking about "a series of things I'm not sure when I was 6 I even knew about."
While reluctant to talk about the sex charges, Republicans in Congress have been quick to come to the defense of Mr. Starr against concerted White House attacks.
Thursday, 41 Republican lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno, urging her to denounce publicly recent attacks on Mr. Starr and allow the independent counsel to "carry out his ... duties without harassment by government officials" and others.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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