House submits list of desired witnesses

WASHINGTON - In a surprise move, House prosecutors asked the Senate yesterday to ''request the appearance'' of President Clinton at a deposition for his impeachment trial. They also sought subpoenas to question Monica Lewinsky, presidential friend Vernon Jordan and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.

The president's chief lawyer immediately dismissed the request as unnecessary, calling it the product of the House prosecutors' ''desire, their hope, their prayer that something will come to rescue their case.'' Attorney David Kendall also warned that the White House will demand extensive time to prepare if witnesses are authorized.

The prosecutors made a motion seeking witnesses at the start of the trial yesterday, substantially paring down their demand for live testimony before a Senate deeply divided on the issue. The motion requested only that the witnesses be questioned at depositions, though the prosecutors argued in today's debate that they still wanted live testimony.

''The two people who know the most about this are Monica Lewinsky and President William Jefferson Clinton,'' Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., said, opening the prosecutors' arguments.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the lead prosecutor, insisted, ''We have an excellent case without the witnesses but the witnesses help you. We have narrowed it down to three, a pitiful three.'' He also scoffed at the threat that any witnesses would substantially delay the trial. ''The threat of prolonged hearings, I suppose, is supposed to make you tremble. It doesn't me,'' Hyde said.

Clinton was in St. Louis to greet Pope John Paul II, the upbeat welcome sharing a split screen with the trial on national television.

On the president's behalf, Kendall assailed the prosecutors' demand for witnesses, noting they had called none of them during the House impeachment inquiry. He also suggested the House manager had worked closely with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and had the benefit of Starr's extensive evidence.

''The manager's case is in no way, no way harmed by being unable to call witnesses at this point,'' Kendall said. If Starr ''could have turned up anything that was negative or prejudicial it would be in those volumes,'' he said.

The Senate was to vote at 1 p.m. EST yesterday on the witness question and a Democratic request to dismiss the case. The Senate's Democrats are mostly united in their support to dismiss the case and oppose witnesses, but their leader suggested yesterday that the chance that wavering Republicans would join Democrats had evaporated and he expected party-line votes on both issues.

''I think on the vote on dismissal and the vote on witnesses, it sounds like the line is going to be drawn,'' said Minority Leader Tom Daschle. He dismissed the request for Clinton to testify: ''That's a red herring. It is not going anywhere.''

Republicans signaled they expected to have the votes to approve witness depositions that would be wrapped up by early next week. Senate Majority Trent Lott's spokesman, John Czwartacki, praised the prosecutors' witness list as ''narrow, focused and reasonable'' and said passage was ''a very good possibility.''

White House lawyers would be entitled to attend and ask questions, he said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Lewinsky left her Washington hotel yesterday on her way out of town. She had returned over the weekend from California to interview with House prosecutors at the order of a federal judge.

''Her state of mind is she wants to get out of town and I endorse that,'' attorney Plato Cacheris said. ''She and I hope she will not have to testify. If she's needed, they issue a proper document to get her back here, she will return.''

As the trial resumed, one Democrat was absent. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland was in a Baltimore hospital with the flu.

In making their arguments, the GOP House prosecutors flashed their frustration that the Senate had prevented them from having a full slate of witnesses as they could at a normal criminal trial. ''It's been an ordeal by lawyers rather than a trial by witnesses,'' Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas lamented.

The motion submitted by House prosecutors demanded subpoenas for Ms. Lewinsky and the two presidential advisers, but not Clinton. Instead, the motion said the prosecutors ''request the appearance of William Jefferson Clinton ... at a deposition for the purpose of providing testimony related to the impeachment trial.''

Jordan, a longtime Clinton confidant and golfing partner, helped find Ms. Lewinsky a job around the time she had emerged as a subpoenaed figure in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against Clinton. Jordan denies the job search and the lawsuit were connected.

Blumenthal was one of the aides to whom Clinton first denied having a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky after the controversy erupted. He was later called as a grand jury witness and repeated Clinton's denial there, including that the president believed the former intern had stalked him. House prosecutors hope to show Clinton lied to his aides so they would pass on the false information to the grand jury.