BY DAVID ESPO
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are weighing a plan to give the Judiciary Committee virtually the same open-ended authority for investigating President Clinton that the panel had during its impeachment inquiry for President Nixon a quarter-century ago, GOP sources said Tuesday.
The disclosure came as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott cautioned that recent sharp Democratic criticism of GOP handling of the impeachment review "undercuts everything" -- including the possibility of an eventual plea-bargain that would punish the president but fall short of impeachment.
Among House Republicans, sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said no final decisions have been made about the precise mandate the panel will receive if, as expected, the House votes to establish an impeachment inquiry next week.
But several officials said the approach used in 1974 is being viewed as a model.
The previous panel received authority to "investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach" the president.
Presenting such a proposal for consideration would enable Republicans to expand their inquiry well beyond Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's evidence concerning Mr. Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. It would open the door, for example, into other areas such as alleged fund-raising violations during the president's 1996 re-election campaign.
Republicans planned their next move as officials prepared for the release of a mountain of new evidence from Mr. Starr later this week. Sources familiar with the documents, speaking on condition of anonymity, described some of the material as including transcripts of taped conversations between Ms. Lewinsky and her former friend Linda Tripp, as well as key grand jury testimony from Mr. Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie; his friend Vernon Jordan; and White House Secret Service agents.
