New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith -- who announced last month he would campaign for the Republican presidential nomination -- demanded Monday that President Clinton testify during the Senate impeachment hearings.
"There's one person out there who knows the truth. And I would just say, 'Mr. President, why don't you come to the Senate ... and tell us the truth?'" Smith said as a guest on the Washington, D.C.-based television program Take Action America on the America's Voice television network. "I would ask the President to come voluntarily, but if I had my way, I'd subpoena him to come."
The senator was the first Republican to officially file for the party's 2000 presidential nomination last month.
Three witnesses -- Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sydney Blumenthal -- have testified on Capital Hill this week, but Smith's Deputy Press Secretary Karen Hickey told The Dartmouth yesterday the senator believes "Clinton is the only witness who knows the truth."
Last Wednesday, Republicans pushed a measure through the Senate to summon the three witnesses for depositions in the impeachment trial. The measure passed 56 to 44 with the support of only one Democrat -- Russell Feingold of Wisconsin.
Republicans argued the three witnesses were necessary to clear up discrepancies in the testimonies and to convert senators to convict Clinton on an obstruction of justice charge.
Smith believes the President's testimony will be able to clear up any existing confusion in the Senate, Hickey said.
One of the few not-so-outspoken senators during the impeachment hearings, Smith's announcement comes as the Senate nears the close of debate and with sentiments lying almost exclusively along party lines.
"What bothers me is, as one of a hundred senators ... that have to make a decision of guilty or not guilty based on facts, the person who has all of the facts doesn't come ... I'm not getting into guilt or innocence here," Smith said on Monday. "I have a job to do as a juror."
Smith believes the Constitution only gives senators three options to bring the trial to its conclusion, Hickey said. They must either vote to convict and remove Clinton from office, dismiss the President, or acquit him and "leave him alone," Hickey said.
Smith does not believe censure and finding of fact are among the possibilities available under the Constitution, Hickey said. He believes censure as an extra-constitutional measure is a bad precedent for the Senate to set.
"These are phony issues," Smith said Monday. "You tell me where censure is in the United States Constitution. It's outrageous."
Asked how Smith believes Clinton's testimony in the Senate depositions will affect the president's ratings, Hickey said, "as a juror in the trial, [Smith] believes its not about polls -- its about the evidence."
