MONDAY: THE TAPE : PANEL'S GOP MAJORITY VOTES TO RELEASE.

Byline: Alison Mitchell The New York Times

Giving a sharp partisan cast to deliberations over impeachment, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Friday to release the videotape of President Clinton's grand jury testimony along with 2,800 more documents on the inquiry into his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The materials are set to be made public Monday, promising a nation that would like the scandal to simply go away televised replays of an angry and legalistic Clinton jousting with lawyers over the definition of sexual relations.

The party divide over the public release of material erupted into the open within minutes after the committee ended its final two hours of closed-door deliberations Friday morning. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., the committee chairman, began to describe the committee's two days of meetings as ``civil'' sessions in which the ``spirit of bipartisanship is alive and flourishing.'' But he was quickly interrupted by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

``I just want to say that this is a new concept, unfortunately of unilateral bipartisanship,'' Frank said. ``Bipartisanship can't be unilateral.'' He said virtually every vote taken across two days of deliberations had been along party lines.

Hyde retorted, ``I may have a different definition of bipartisanship - it doesn't include surrender to every single Democrat's wants.''

Besides the four-hour videotape of Clinton, the documents to be released add further detail to the report of Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who charged the president with 11 acts that may constitute impeachable offenses. The documents include FBI interviews with Lewinsky, her testimony before the grand jury and her proffer - the information she was prepared to reveal in exchange for immunity - to Starr.

The committee did agree to make nearly 120 deletions from the materials on the grounds of sexual explicitness, national security or privacy.

The meetings of the House Judiciary Committee mark the first time since the Watergate scandal in 1974 that the House has considered whether to open an impeachment inquiry into a president. And the deliberations are taking place in an atmosphere made more tense by recent media reports on sexual indiscretions on the part of three Republican members of the House.

Republican officials said Hyde telephoned Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., earlier in the week and offered to step down from the investigation after the online magazine Slate reported that he had had an extramarital affair 30 years ago. Gingrich, however, gave Hyde his full support.

``The speaker did not consider the resignation because there is no person who has earned more respect and affection from the House than Hyde,'' said Christina Martin, a spokeswoman for Gingrich.

Trying to ease some of the fears sweeping the Congress, Sens. Mitch McConnell and Bob Kerrey, the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic Senate campaign committees, respectively, followed the lead of their House counterparts and pledged on the Senate floor Friday not to finance candidates who make personal attacks against their opponents.

``Digging through their record is one thing,'' said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. ``Digging through their garbage is quite another.''

The partisan acrimony over the ongoing release of Starr's materials has grown since last week when Gingrich and Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., the House minority leader, pledged to work cooperatively. The House then voted 363-63 to make public Starr's report and backup materials after scrutiny by the Judiciary Committee.

Republicans on the panel said Friday that they were carrying out the will of the full House for maximum public disclosure and the documents would make clear whether Starr's report had put the president's testimony in proper context. They also said the panel's Democrats were ideologues who are not representative of their party.

``Eighty percent, maybe 70 percent of our colleagues on the other side had a hard time accepting the mandate of the House,'' said Rep. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican on the panel. ``Whether that's a partisan fight, I don't know. I feel we lived up to the mandate of the House.''

Hyde said, ``There was a general view among the Democrats not to reveal anything and there was a general view among Republicans to reveal as much as possible.''

The panel's Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to keep up a steady stream of information embarrassing the president, instead of releasing it all at once on the Sept. 28 deadline set by the House for the committee to review all the material.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., said, ``We're going to dribble out information for only one reason: death by a thousand cuts.''

The remarks were echoed by the White House. ``This appears to be a rush to prejudgment and an effort to get out the most salacious material at the speed of light, not at the proper pace of justice,'' said James Kennedy, a White House spokesman.

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PHOTO Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, left, and GOP Rep. Henry Hyde clashed Friday after a meeting of the judicial panel.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

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