Impeachment trial heads toward uncertainty

By Terence Hunt

WASHINGTON (AP): After six days of rehearsed speeches, the U.S. Senate trial of President Bill Clinton now plunges into uncharted territory.

No one knows what will emerge from 16 hours of unscripted questions from senators, beginning Friday. After that, there will be unforeseen twists and turns in partisan debate over witnesses, Senate secrecy and motions to dismiss, acquit or convict.

Will Clinton be called or invited to testify? How long will the trial last?

The uncertainty is risky for both sides.

"If you start getting witnesses, who knows where it is going to lead?" said presidential historian and biographer Robert Dallek of Boston University. "Who knows what missteps might be made by either the prosecution or the defense? There are dangers on both sides in dragging it out."

For Republicans, there is the threat that scandal-weary Americans will hold them accountable and punish them at the polls for prolonging the ordeal. "You should never go into a war unless you have an exit strategy," Princeton University political scientist Fred Greenstein said. "The problem for the Republicans is to find an exit strategy."

For Clinton, there is the possibility of unexpected testimony and surprise charges requiring more witnesses.

"We've all heard these rumors about things that Clinton did in the past that haven't come out yet," said University of Pennsylvania political scientist Mark Rozell. "If any such thing turned out to be true, the whole equation changes." But he thought that was unlikely, given the exhaustive investigation already undertaken.

"The real uncertainty," Rozell said, "is how long is it going to take us to get exactly where we know this is going: a presidential acquittal."

So far, there is no sign of Democratic defections that could doom Clinton's presidency. While Republicans control the Senate by a 55 to 45 vote margin, they would have to pick up 12 Democrats to reach the 67 votes necessary to oust Clinton.

Some analysts believe a group of Republican moderates, tiring of the case, eventually will break away and reduce the effective Republican majority to under 50, putting an end to the trial.

With the end of legal arguments, the next step is questions from the senators. Sixteen hours have been reserved, divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

There is uncertainty about how the process will unfold. How long will the lawyers have on each side to respond? Will followup questions be allowed? Most likely, Chief Justice William Rehnquist will decide.

But it is hard to imagine that the question and answer session will break ground not already explored in six long days of prosecution and defense arguments. To each question, there probably is an answer that has been heard before.

After that, the Senate will begin considering motions likely to rock the bipartisanship that guided the first stage of the trial. One of the first tests will be a Democratic proposal early next week for a final up-or-down vote on the two articles of impeachment against Clinton.

That is unlikely to succeed at this stage, but the ensuing battle probably will shatter the notion that 100 senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- are without political motives in the impeachment trial.

"I think the bipartisanship begins to evaporate at that point," said Rozell. Until then, there really hasn't been much reason to quarrel. "What have the senators had to do but sit quietly and shut up? Pretty soon, that's not going to be the case anymore."