BY R.W. APPLE JR.
The New York Times
WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee completed action Saturday on its bill of charges against President Clinton, approving a fourth article of impeachment to stand alongside the three it voted on Friday.
The final roll call came a few hours after President Clinton donned his peacemaker's cloak and flew to the Middle East, where he arrived just before midnight in an effort to shore up the Wye Plantation accords.
He left behind a capital in wintry disarray, gripped by a pervasive sense of sadness, with grievous divisions between the two parties unmended and legislative business effectively stalled.
Republicans and Democrats alike viewed the road ahead with doubt and apprehension. Along with the rest of official Washington, the president's aides grappled with the ever-more imminent prospect that he will face trial next year in the Senate.
"Impeachment by the full House is starting to look inevitable," a senior White House official said.
Congressional leaders prepared for a vote on the four articles by the 435 House members this week, probably Thursday. Chances appeared dim for a floor vote on the alternative preferred by Democrats, a resolution of censure for his misconduct with Monica Lewinsky. Censure was defeated in the committee Saturday 22-14 after a lengthy debate. The speaker-designate, Robert Livingston, said he would fight any further effort to bring censure to the floor.
The committee approved the fourth article, in considerably watered-down form, by a party-line vote of 21-16.
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the Democratic leader in the House, said failure to permit a floor vote on censure "will most certainly result in a bitterly divided House." Ultimately, he suggested, the American people would pass judgment on the fairness of the impeachment process.
Gregory Craig, the president's special counsel, said in a statement that "the certain result" of the committee's actions "will be to divide the country, gridlock the government and defy the will of the people."
Speaking at the White House, he added: "Nothing about this process has been fair. Nothing about this process has been bipartisan. Nothing about this process has won the confidence of the American people."
In a session marred by harsh charges of bad faith and improper pressure, Republicans with the backing of most of the committee's Democrats substantially narrowed the reach of the fourth article. It had originally dealt with allegedly widespread abuses of power, but most allegations were removed, leaving only one major charge: that Mr. Clinton had falsely or incompletely answered many of the 81 questions the committee submitted to him.
The fourth article as originally constituted had been considered the weakest of the lot, with the poorest chance of winning approval in the full House.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee, became so exercised at one point that he exclaimed, "This does sometimes, to some people, begin to take on the appearance of a coup. It's staggering."
That produced an uproar among the Republicans. Rep. Ed Bryant of Tennessee shot back, "This is the orderly process of the constitution, not troops in the streets."
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, one of the fiercest Democratic foes of impeachment, accused the Republicans of showing insufficient respect to Mr. Clinton, who, she heatedly reminded them, "is still the president."
The president is due back in Washington before Thursday's House vote.
Only Andrew Johnson among Mr. Clinton's predecessors has ever faced such a perilous roll call, and Mr. Clinton may try once again to make a statement that would sway moderate Republicans to avoid impeachment. But his closest advisers said they did not know what more he could say, beyond another expression of his regret and contrition. The president tried that Friday, to no avail. Republicans looking for an admission from Mr. Clinton that he had lied were disappointed; most agreed with Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati, that "the president did not say nearly enough."
Impeached by the House, President Johnson escaped conviction by the Senate by a single vote, but he was enfeebled by the process. If impeached, Mr. Clinton is expected to survive in the Senate by a wider margin, given the close partisan division and the requirement for a two-thirds vote to convict. The widespread fear in Washington is that he, too, would be crippled, with almost two years left to serve on his second term.
True to his promise to try to wrap things up by Christmas, the Judiciary Committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, gaveled the panel to order shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday.
For more than three hours, the two sides had at each other, despite Mr. Hyde's efforts to move things along.
Both Mr. Hyde and Rep. Robert Livingston of Louisiana, the incoming speaker, were said by staff members to be opposed to allowing a censure resolution to reach the House floor. Their strategic calculation was this: If members reluctant to vote for impeachment but determined not to let the president escape without punishment were given the chance to vote for censure, they would not cast their votes for the more severe measure.
But Mr. Hyde relented to the degree of permitting committee debate on censure.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., introduced the censure resolution, stating that the president had "dishonored the office." He said that while "the president's conduct was reprehensible, it did not threaten the nation" and did not warrant impeachment.
Republicans termed the resolution a slap on the wrist and said it was precisely what Mr. Clinton wanted.
During Saturday's debate, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts restated the Democrats' case that Republicans were starting a process "designed to kick the president out" in the full knowledge that the Senate would never do so. That course of action, he said, demeaned the constitutional process as well as the House.
Mr. Hyde disputed that, quoting the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, D-Texas, who in the committee's proceedings against Richard Nixon almost 25 years ago said "the House accuses, the Senate judges." The House's job, Mr. Hyde insisted, was simply to decide "whether there was enough evidence to warrant a Senate trial," not fully to weigh the evidence itself.
Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida, also a Republican, said that if the Senate failed to convict, the House's vote to impeach would stand as a far more effective rebuke to Mr. Clinton than a mere censure.
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