BY DAVID ESPO
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Clinton on Thursday in a momentous vote cast in the shadow of midterm elections. Thirty-one Democrats joined majority Republicans in increasing the peril for a beleaguered chief executive.
Mr. Clinton, only the third president to face serious impeachment prospects, said at the White House: "It is in the hands of Congress and the people of this country -- ultimately in the hands of God."
The 258-176 vote opened the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings later this year, with possible witnesses ranging from independent counsel Kenneth Starr to Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp and other central characters in the sex-and-cover-up drama that has commanded the nation's attention for nine months.
The House action came 24 years after President Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment over Watergate. The only president impeached by the House was Andrew Johnson in 1868. He remained in office after the Senate fell one vote shy of forcing his removal.
"I do not think that we want to settle for less than the whole truth," said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the man at the controls of the inquiry, as he made the case for an investigation unlimited in time or scope.
To the nation watching on television -- as well as to openly skeptical Democrats sitting across the aisle in the House chamber -- he pledged fairness in the months ahead.
House Democrats, fearing that Republicans will fold Whitewater and other controversies into their investigation, argued in vain for an inquiry limited to Mr. Starr's evidence, to be wrapped up by Dec. 31. The proposal was rejected, 236-198.
"We're all profoundly hurt by what the president has done," said Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri. "But this investigation must be ended fairly and quickly. It has hurt our nation, and it's hurt our children. We must not compound the hurt."
The visitors gallery was packed as the historic debate unfolded. Underscoring the gravity of the moment, Speaker Newt Gingrich presided throughout. And when one Democrat, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, scanned the House chamber and saw many empty seats, he grabbed the microphone to urge that absent lawmakers drop whatever they were doing and "get their tails here."
Facing reporters before a budget meeting, Mr. Clinton said that with the vote completed, "I hope that we can now move forward with this process in a way that is fair, that is constitutional and that is timely. The American people have been through a lot on this, and I think that everyone deserves that."
"I trust the American people. They almost always get it right now for 220 years. And I'm working in a way that I hope will restore their trust in me by working for things that our country needs."
When Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., complained that the committee had released thousands of pages of Mr. Starr's material that "none of us had read," Mr. Hyde pounced.
He said GOP members of the Judiciary Committee had spent 114 hours reviewing the evidence in the heavily secured room where the documents had been brought. Democrats, he said, had spent less than 22 hours -- and only six of the panel's 16 members had ever entered the room.
Rep. Paul McHale, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has called for Mr. Clinton to resign, declared that in testimony in the Paula Jones lawsuit, the president "attempted to cover up a sordid and irresponsible relationship by repeated deceit under oath."
The outcome was a foregone conclusion, with only the level of Democratic support in doubt. The White House had mounted a vigorous effort to hold down the number of defections as it pursued a strategy of attacking the GOP for conducting a partisan campaign against Mr. Clinton.
White House aides circulated polls among the rank and file in recent days that indicated the nation was tired of the Clinton-Lewinsky melodrama and wanted it to end swiftly. The correct political vote, they argued, was to make it a partisan issue heading into the election, thereby casting Republicans as defying public sentiment.
But the turmoil within the Democratic caucus was evident as Mr. Gephardt struggled to craft an alternative that the party's lawmakers could rally behind. In the final hours before the vote, moderate lawmakers concerned about their political futures appealed unsuccessfully to the White House to drop its opposition to the GOP proposal. Their fear, they said, was that by voting with the Republicans, they would offend the core Democratic voters whose support is essential to any victory. By voting against the GOP resolution, though, they risked alienating the independent voters whose support is also essential to re-election in swing districts.
One Democrat who sided with Republicans, first-term Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, said she had received a call from the White House shortly afterward. "They said, "Anything you need in the next three weeks, let me know,' " she said in a reference to the time left before Election Day.
In political terms, Republicans said their polling showed that the voters most likely to go to the polls were eager for an impeachment inquiry.
Beyond that, they stressed repeatedly that they would conduct their investigation under the rules that majority Democrats used during Watergate.
