MONICA CALLED `HELPFUL'; HOUSE PROSECUTORS INTERVIEW EX-INTERN.

Byline: William Neikirk and Mike Dorning Chicago Tribune 

House prosecutors said after questioning Monica Lewinsky on Sunday that she would be a ``very helpful witness'' in President Clinton's impeachment trial, but Lewinsky's attorney pointedly said there was no reason for the Senate to call her.

``Monica Lewinsky was candid, forthright and extremely truthful,'' said one of her lawyers, Plato Cacheris. ``She added nothing to the record that is already sitting before the Senate right now.''

According to one source familiar with the interview, prosecutors asked Lewinsky about her grand jury statement that she was never asked to lie nor promised a job for her silence over her affair with the president. Lewinsky made it clear, according to the source, that ``there is no ambiguity to that statement.''

During the trial, House prosecutors have told the senators that this statement was ambiguous and that other evidence on her job search and affidavit in the Paula Jones case showed that at a minimum there was an understanding that if she helped the president, he would help her.

In the Mayflower Hotel's plush Presidential Suite, with a replica of the presidential seal in the foyer, prosecutors conducted a nearly two-hour interview with the former White House intern that they hoped might yield new information that could be used in the trial. The decision to interview Lewinsky - ordered by a federal judge - had stirred a sharp protest from Democratic senators.

The trial heads into a new phase Monday with a growing number of senators trying to find a graceful, and speedy, political exit without calling witnesses, although some may be deposed. With partisanship rising, just how the Senate would reach the end was uncertain. Some said Sunday that it could be completed as early as this week.

House prosecutors also interviewed former White House political consultant Dick Morris. They were interested in a conversation he had with Clinton after the scandal broke in which the president commissioned a poll about how he should respond to the public.

`A helpful witness'

While Cacheris said Lewinsky's testimony before the Senate is unnecessary, three of the House managers made brief statements declaring that their controversial interview showed that her presence in the trial is needed. They did not elaborate.

Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., called the interview ``productive and very constructive.'' Calling Lewinsky ``very personable and very impressive,'' he said, ``We found that she might be a very helpful witness to the Senate if she is called.''

``If she has the opportunity to testify, it certainly would be of benefit to the case,'' said Rep. Ed Bryant, R-Tenn.

Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., called it a ``good introductory meeting. I certainly was impressed with Ms. Lewinsky's intelligence, her poise. I believe she would be a witness to help them determine the truth.''

Cacheris, meanwhile, said he ``urged the House managers to report to their superiors that it is unnecessary to call her as a witness because all her testimony is fully and completely disclosed. We hope on behalf of Monica and her family that this long nightmare that has endured in their lives will come to a quick conclusion.''

McCollum later told the Orlando Sentinel that he did not know why Cacheris made his statement about her testimony being unnecessary. ``That's his statement and we have our view,'' McCollum said.

Immunity extension

Lewinsky's lawyers met with House prosecutors and officials from Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office prior to the session and won an extension of the immunity agreement to cover the interview, a GOP Judiciary Committee aide said.

The decision whether to call Lewinsky and other witnesses could come quickly as the House prosecutors face a deadline today to submit a proposed witness list. The next step would be a vote on whether to depose any of those on the witness list.

Only after a deposition is taken would the Senate decide on whether to bring Lewinsky and other witnesses on the floor for questioning. Few senators want that to happen, although circumstances could change.

``I have great sympathy for Monica Lewinsky,'' Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said on Fox News. ``I'd like not to have to call her'' to testify in the Senate. She added, though, that she wanted to give House prosecutors room to make their case.

In another sign that senators are concerned about bringing Lewinsky to the tradition-bound body to talk about her sexual relationship with the president, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said on NBC that she didn't want to see the Senate turned into ``The Jerry Springer Show.''

House prosecutors defended themselves from their controversial move to interview Lewinsky prior to a Senate decision on whether to summon any witnesses. They said they needed the private session to get an idea of what she would say and to deal with conflicts in her testimony and President Clinton's.

``Monica Lewinsky is the most important witness in this whole drama,'' said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and head of the House team of prosecutors.

Angry Democrats

Democrats were angry that the House prosecutors called upon Starr's office to help in winning a judge's order to force Lewinsky to submit to the interview.

The summoning of Lewinsky to Washington served as a polarizing force in the impeachment trial. Democrats called it a grandstand play to breathe life back into what Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called a ``botched impeachment trial.''

Hutchinson said White House secretary Betty Currie, Chief of Staff John Podesta, communications chief Sidney Blumenthal and Clinton friend Vernon Jordan also could be on their witness list that House prosecutors will submit to the Senate today.

Meanwhile, more than one-fifth of the Senate - 21 senators - faced Sunday talk-show cameras in an extraordinary outpouring of opinion by jurors who hold Clinton's fate in their hands.

Both Democrats and Republicans said they were struggling to find a way to wrap up the trial speedily without either side losing political face.

They acknowledged that achieving this goal will be difficult in the face of growing partisanship and what some senators see as a constitutional duty to let the trial take its full course.

Some said the trial could be brought to a close later this week, and others expressed the hope that it could be finished in two weeks. But these hopes for an early end to the trial hinged on allowing no witnesses, or deposing only a handful of them.

It is too early to talk about censure, they said, although they talked about it extensively.

Both sides predicted that a dismissal motion to be offered by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., will fail, but some also noted that the roll call on this motion will send a powerful political message to the Senate and to the country.

If the vote is, as expected, largely along party lines in a chamber with 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats, it would underscore firmly that House prosecutors' hopes of obtaining a two-thirds vote for conviction appear virtually impossible.

Such a vote would be a sign for the Senate to bring the trial to a close as quickly as possible, said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. Several senators said on the talk shows that it is possible they could move to a quick up or down vote on the articles of impeachment if witnesses are not called.