Impeachment: Clinton formally rejects charges

WASHINGTON, Jan 12: A hobbled US President Bill Clinton has formally denied impeachment counts made against him and said the Senate trial...

WASHINGTON, Jan 12: A hobbled US President Bill Clinton has formally denied impeachment counts made against him and said the Senate trial arising from his affair with Monica Lewinsky should be dismissed. Meanwhile, lawmakers continued to hammer out the game plan for the first presidential impeachment trial since 1868 beginning Thursday.

While Clinton said the charges should be dismissed because they did not meet the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors required for removal of office, the lawmakers set to prosecute him in the Senate charged him in a brief with at least eight counts of perjury and 11 of obstruction of justice.

Clinton and House of Representatives prosecutors summarized their cases in separate legal filings before opening arguments begin in the Senate.

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While House prosecutors sent the Senate a 105-page trial brief outlining an overwhelming’ case, Clinton’s lawyers issued the official response to the charges in a 13-page document that argued the allegation, even ifproved true, failed to rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.’

However, the White House did not file a formal motion to dismiss the case, but its spokesman Joe Lockhart said the President’s lawyers would not move formally to have the case dismissed until after the opening arguments were heard.

The two articles of impeachment — perjury and obstruction of justice — were largely approved on party-line votes by the House of Representatives in December last.