CLINTON TEAM SET TO OFFER ITS SIDE; HOUSE TO HEAR CASE AGAINST IMPEACHING.

Byline: Steven Thomma and Raja Mishra Knight Ridder Newspapers

Launching a last-minute effort to ward off impeachment, President Clinton's attorneys today will send the first of 14 witnesses to argue with Congress that the president should not be impeached even if he did lie to cover up an extramarital relationship.

They will make their trek to Capitol Hill amid signs that Clinton's fortunes are once again fading there. Once resigned to being impeached by the House, then confident he would avoid it following Democratic gains in November's congressional elections, Clinton and his team now fear the House will impeach him and the Senate will put him on trial.

In two days of testimony and legal arguments to the House Judiciary Committee and effectively to the entire House, the Clinton team will strive to walk a fine legal and political line.

The lawyers and witnesses will try to signal anew that Clinton is truly sorry about the scandal - an effort to shore up support among once-sympathetic moderates now angry by what they see as Clinton's recent arrogance. And they will do it without admitting any legal wrongdoing that could expose the president to criminal prosecution.

But the lawyers might not be enough. There were new calls for the president to reach out personally for forgiveness as the only way to win over the 30 or so undecided House moderates.

While Clinton will not dispute any of the key facts in the report from Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr detailing a sexual relationship between Monica Lewinsky and him and his efforts to keep it secret, he will not admit any of the facts, either.

That approach continued to frustrate members of the Judiciary Committee, who are expected to vote by Saturday to send one to four articles of impeachment to the full House.

``I haven't heard anybody say Monica Lewinsky is a liar,'' said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., adding that the committee has made a compelling case for impeachment.

Speech to nation?

Some committee Democrats urged the president to address the nation one more time before the vote next week.

``The president has to come forward and say that his behavior was unacceptable, indefensible,'' said committee member Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass. ``He could say that he lied to the American people . . . but I think he needs to come forward.''

The White House appeared more conciliatory toward House members, but stopped short of promising that Clinton would say anything more himself.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said he and the White House regretted offending any members of Congress in the way Clinton answered 81 questions submitted to him by the Judiciary Committee. Many members thought the answers were legalistic and evasive. In one, for example, he refused to concede with certainty that he is the chief law enforcement officer for the country.

Lockhart also said the Clinton team will stress his contrition and refuse to blame the scandal on Starr or anyone else.

``I can assure you that the contrition is real,'' Lockhart said. ``There's been some speculation that that is no longer the case, but I can tell you with great certainty that it is, that he is well aware, keenly aware, of what he has done wrong and has apologized to those who were affected.''

Clinton's team also dropped plans to devote an entire group of witnesses to attacking Starr, and said the two lawyers speaking for Clinton would be Special Counsel Gregory Craig and White House Counsel Charles Ruff. Clinton's often combative personal attorney, David Kendall, will attend, but will not speak.

One Clinton adviser said the situation in the House is surprisingly fluid, with no one able to say for certain how members will vote on impeachment. At the same time, it is difficult to develop a strategy that would allow lawmakers to vote to censure Clinton instead of impeaching him.

Hyde did not rule out allowing a vote on censure by the committee this week but said he is leaning toward not doing so.

Republican aides already have drafted three articles of impeachment modeled after those drafted during the Judiciary Committee's investigation of Richard Nixon in 1974. They will charge the president with perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Each article will list the specific instances of the president's alleged wrongdoing.

``We are going to present, over the next two days, a very serious case for why the allegations, as raised, do not meet a constitutional standard for impeachment,'' Lockhart said.

Clinton's witnesses will include several professors and attorneys, who will argue that his offenses, if true, are not serious enough to warrant impeachment. One panel of five attorneys will argue that the president's actions would not warrant criminal prosecution. Another panel of former House members who worked on the impeachment investigation of Richard Nixon will say Clinton's actions are not in the same impeachable class as Nixon's.

TV COVERAGE

Television network coverage plans for this week's Judiciary Committee hearings on possible impeachment of President Clinton. Hearings are scheduled to begin Tuesday at 6 a.m. All times are PST.

ABC: Periodic live updates, live coverage of any vote on articles of impeachment.

CBS: Live coverage of any vote on articles of impeachment.

NBC: Periodic live updates, live coverage of any vote on articles of impeachment.

CNN: 5 a.m., preview of testimony on scheduled hearing days. Continuous live coverage of hearings and any vote on articles of impeachment.

Fox News Channel: Continuous live coverage of hearings and any vote on articles of impeachment.

MSNBC: Continuous live coverage of hearings and any vote on articles of impeachment.

PBS: Continuous live coverage of today's and Wednesday's hearings. Any coverage plans beyond that uncertain.

C-SPAN: Continuous live coverage of hearings and any vote on articles of impeachment. Proceedings rerun at 4 p.m., or immediately after hearings end if they stretch into the evening.

Court TV: Continuous live coverage of hearings and any vote on articles of impeachment. Network may break away for other legal news events.

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