Washington - John Bolton meet Monica
Lewinsky.
Twenty-one years ago former White House intern Lewinsky was
at the center of a tug-of-war over whether she would testify in
the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, a
Democrat.
Now it is Bolton, fired last September from his job as White
House national security adviser, who is the potential prize
witness in Republican President Donald Trump's impeachment
trial. Democrats believe he possesses damaging information and
want him to testify, while many Republicans, who control the
Senate, do not want to hear from him.
In many ways, the two impeachment cases could not be more
different.
In 1999 the allegations centered on whether Clinton lied
under oath about a sexual act with Lewinsky, while now Trump has
been charged with abusing his power by pressing a vulnerable
ally Ukraine to investigate a potential November election
opponent, Joe Biden.
But fear is a common factor. Some Trump allies worry that
new witness testimony televised live from the Senate floor could
undermine his defense that he did nothing wrong.
Former lawmakers and aides who played key roles in Clinton's
impeachment trial recalled in interviews with Reuters many of
the same tensions and fears that are playing out today.
"The thing we went to work every morning worrying about
until we went home at night was whether we can hold the
Democrats" in the Senate in their support of Clinton, recalled
Doug Sosnik, who was a senior adviser to the president for most
of his eight years in office.
The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, says that
he wants to follow the same initial procedures that were used in
the Clinton trial, which were adopted unanimously by both
parties.
What is left unsaid is that the most contentious issue now -
the calling of witnesses - was also the most contentious issue
then and was not resolved until well into the trial.
Then National security adviser John Bolton speaks to media at the White House in Washington. Bolton says he's 'prepared to testify' in Senate impeachment trial if subpoenaed File picture: Carolyn Kaster/AP
CLINTON MODEL
As the second impeachment trial in US history was about to
begin in January 1999, senators were at an impasse over the
question of witnesses.
"There were people who strongly believed Bill Clinton should
be removed from office. They wanted Monica Lewinsky to come to
the Senate chamber to be questioned as a witness," then-Senator
Byron Dorgan, a Democrat who retired in 2010, said.
The White House and Senate Democrats feared that
then-Senator Joseph Lieberman, a moderate Democrat who had
expressed particular disgust at Clinton's behavior, could bolt
and bring some additional Democrats with him to vote to convict
Clinton.
Senators locked themselves inside the Old Senate Chamber
where the Senate conducted business from 1810 to 1859, while
liberal Senator Ted Kennedy and conservative Senator Phil Gramm
helped to forge a compromise.
Under the deal, the trial would begin with House of
Representatives Republicans presenting their case against
Clinton, followed by a rebuttal by Clinton's lawyers. Senators
could then question the two sides.
Only then would senators hash out whether witnesses would
testify. Later, in partisan votes in the Republican-controlled
Senate, it was decided that neither Lewinsky nor anyone else
would testify in the chamber. Instead, private videotaped
depositions of Lewinsky and two Clinton aides would be recorded.
"In my Senate tenure, I have not seen a more contentious
issue than the calling of witnesses either live or videotaped,"
longtime Senator Arlen Specter later said in a Senate speech.
"I understand why the president's counsel had fought so
strenuously to keep her away from the well of the Senate," said
Specter, who died in 2012. "Had she told her whole story in the
well of the Senate, a rapt national TV audience would have been
watching and the dynamics of the proceeding might have been
dramatically changed."
Specter's comments underscore why some Republicans today may
be anxious to ensure that Bolton does not testify on the Senate
floor. Democrats say Bolton could provide a first-hand account
of important discussions regarding Ukraine in the White House.
In a telephone interview with Reuters from his home state of
Texas, Gramm said he did not believe there was even a need for
witnesses in Trump's trial.
"Nobody disputes the fact that the president (Trump) made
the (telephone) call" to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
to investigate Biden, Gramm said.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hasn't relayed the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial three weeks since President Donald Trump was impeached on charges of abuse and obstruction. Picture: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
While most Republicans publicly dispute that Trump was
seeking a personal favour from Zelenskiy, Gramm insisted, "Nobody
disputes the fact that when a president asks you to do
something, there's some pressure involved."
Gramm did not say whether he thought Trump should have been
impeached for that, adding it is not his battle.
Democrats argue that unlike in the Clinton case a number of
the witnesses they want to hear from have not already testified
to the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry or in other
legal proceedings.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who in 1999 voted to acquit
Clinton, said, "Most of these Republican senators are dismissing
the whole (impeachment) effort. They may have second thoughts if
new witnesses come forward."
A senior Republican, Senator John Cornyn, however, warned in
December of the "unintended consequences" of having witnesses.
"Witnesses say the darndest things," he said.
In 1973, a former White House aide named Alexander
Butterfield told a Senate committee about the existence of an
Oval Office taping system. It was a seminal moment in the
investigation of President Richard Nixon's involvement in a
break-in of a Democratic National Committee office, which
ultimately drove him from office before he could be impeached.