JIM LEHRER: The president’s personal attorney, David Schippers, is the majority counsel. They will each question Kenneth Starr when we come back at 8:25. We want to have some comments here now of again from Stuart Taylor and Elizabeth Drew, who along with NewsHour Chief Washington Correspondent Margaret Warner has been watching Kenneth Starr’s testimony.

I’ve been making some rough calculations here. Maybe the three of you have a different calculation than I do, but it seemed to me – we’ve just finished the 37 members of the committee – 21 Republicans, 16 Democrats – if my calculations are correct, all 21 of the Republicans asked friendly questions of Mr. Starr, all 16 of the Democrats asked hostile questions. Is that a surprise, and is that indicative of anything significant?

ELIZABETH DREW: It’s indicative of what’s happened to our politics, Jim. In the Nixon impeachment there were on that Judiciary Committee five members – two Democrats, three Republicans, who formed a swing group, who were genuinely undecided. The Democrats were conservative Southern Democrats. In the end in voting on the articles of impeachment six Republicans broke with the president and supported some of the articles. But our politics since then have become so polarized and as we were talking this morning, this committee has now become the receptacle of the extreme wings of both parties. They’re there by design to fight out the social issues and protect their parties on the social issues. So the whole idea that there would be –

JIM LEHRER: Because the Judiciary Committee traditionally handles those kinds of things.

ELIZABETH DREW: It does flag burning – abortion –

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

JIM LEHRER: And good morning from Washington. I’m Jim Lehrer. Welcome to PBS’s special NewsHour coverage of the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President Clinton. The witness today and possibly tomorrow will be independent counsel Kenneth Starr. It was his four hundred page plus report of allegations against the President that led to these formal impeachment proceedings. We’ll be broadcasting his testimony in full. The NewsHour’s chief Washington correspondent, Margaret Warner, is here with me this morning. So are two commentators: Stuart Taylor, columnist for the National Journal and Newsweek magazines, and author/journalist Elizabeth Drew.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret, this committee — 21 Republicans, 16 Democrats — it’s got a reputation for being very politically polarized.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes. That’s an understatement, Jim. The issues this committee deals with, which are really hot button social issues, everything from affirmative action to abortion to criminal justice, has attracted the polarized extremes really of both parties. There are a few centrists, but – and Henry Hyde, the chairman, has a reputation for being very measured and very courteous, but he always has his hands full, and he may well have his hands full today.

ELIZABETH DREW: Could I make a point about that?

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

JIM LEHRER: And good evening once again. I’m Jim Lehrer. We’re back with our special PBS NewsHour coverage of Kenneth Starr’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Stuart Taylor of the National Journal and Newsweek Magazines and author/journalist Elizabeth Drew are back to offer their commentary. The NewsHour’s chief Washington Correspondent, Margaret Warner, is also here to assist me in keeping the story line going, among other things.

JIM LEHRER: And speaking of that, Margaret, when we come back, David Kendall, the moment that a lot of people have been waiting for, will finally have arrived. David Kendall is the President’s personal lawyer and he was a classmate of the President, was he not, in law school?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes. He has a very similar rÈsumÈ. He was a Rhodes Scholar. Then he went to Yale Law School. He’s 54 years old, just a little older than the President. And he has been handling both the Whitewater case and now the Lewinsky case for five years. And as someone pointed out today, he hadn’t been seen much in public –

JIM LEHRER: There he is now looking through his –

MARGARET WARNER: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: — notes.

MARGARET WARNER: He – inside the White House there was the same wrap on him that there has been on Ken Starr, that he was too focused on the legal jeopardy the President might be in and had a deaf ear to the politics. But when all these letters came out between him and Kenneth Starr, you saw that a lot of bad blood has developed between the two of them and so it’ll be very interesting to see when he finally gets to confront Ken Starr.

JIM LEHRER: And for a long time, Stuart, David Kendall had a very low profile. It’s only been in the last few – I guess last couple of months — has it not? — that he’s finally come out in public and first he wouldn’t say anything, he never had anything to say.

JIM LEHRER: Congress will release another batch of documents from the Kenneth Starr investigation tomorrow. They come as a prelude to a decision on whether to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton. The Starr investigation that led to the documents and to the proceedings has been the subject of much debate. Margaret Warner now samples that disagreement with two columnists who have written extensively about it.

MARGARET WARNER: And those columnists are Anthony Lewis of the New York Times and Stuart Taylor of National Journal and Newsweek. Tony Lewis, you’ve been scathing in your criticism of Ken Starr’s investigation and his tactics, and last week you said it was essentially illegitimate, an illegitimate process. Explain what you mean by illegitimate.

ANTHONY LEWIS: That would be a long explanation, Ms. Warner, because I think in a great number of ways Kenneth Starr and his people have behaved like overzealous prosecutors in ways that no other federal prosecutor would be allowed to do. Take, for example, when Mr. Starr’s men confronted Monica Lewinsky in the Ritz Carlton Hotel on January 16th. She was told we’re going to bring 27 felony counts against you unless you cooperate with us. Now that was absurd and outrageous. Then they said she couldn’t call her lawyer. They kept her for there for 10 hours and not letting her call her lawyer, and they denigrated her lawyer, Frank Carter, and said, well, he’s not a criminal lawyer anyway, and so he couldn’t help you. And when she wanted to call her mother, instead, you know, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Starr’s deputy, said, oh, you don’t want to call your mommy. It was an overbearing and entirely unfair procedure. Any of us can understand that it’s wrong not to let somebody call a lawyer. That’s basic.

MARGARET WARNER: Was it so unfair that it de-legitimizes, though, the entire process, the entire investigation, the fruits or results of the investigation?

PHIL PONCE: Differing views on the independent counsel law and how it’s being implemented now. Joseph DiGenova was the U.S. attorney during the Reagan administration and was appointed independent counsel to investigate former Bush officials in the Clinton passport matter. Kenneth Gormley is professor of law at Duquesne University; Anthony Lewis is a columnist with the New York Times. Byron York is a reporter with the American Spectator and contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard. And joining them is NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, senior writer with National Journal and contributing editor to Newsweek. Welcome everyone. Stuart Taylor, some basics under the law, what is an independent counsel supposed to do?

STUART TAYLOR, National Journal: To investigate any allegations of criminal conduct, only criminal conduct on the part of the President or people close to him. The law defines a set of people, cabinet secretaries, top White House aides, and the like, who are subject to investigations by independent counsel, but an independent counsel can only be appointed at the initiative of the attorney general if she believes there’s evidence that warrants the appointment of one. Then she asks a special three-judge federal court to do the appointing, and they choose the person to be appointed.

PHIL PONCE: And what are the special powers that an independent counsel has under the law?

PHIL PONCE: We get answers from NewsHour regular Stuart Taylor, senior writer with the National Journal and contributing editor to Newsweek. Joining him are Dan Webb, a former special prosecutor during the Iran-Contra investigation, and Richard Ben-Veniste, an assistant special prosecutor during Watergate, and the former Democratic counsel during the Senate Whitewater probe. Gentlemen, welcome.

Stuart Taylor, first, some basic concepts. The President’s good friend, Vernon Jordan, said that he has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. What happens in that kind of a context? Is it just like appearing before a criminal grand jury?

Perjury in the context of a grand jury.

STUART TAYLOR, National Journal: It is a criminal grand jury. That’s the only kind of grand jury there is. The grand jury is a group usually of 23 citizens, although they’re not always there, in a room, you know, prosecutors running the show, and the witness walks in and testifies, they exist almost exclusively, if not exclusively for the purpose of conducting criminal investigations and returning indictments. Mr. Jordan will walk into the room. His lawyer will not be allowed to accompany him. He can wait outside. Mr. Jordan will have the option of going outside to consult with his lawyers as often as he wants. The prosecutor asks questions. Mr. Jordan has the option of claiming the Fifth Amendment. I think he made it rather clear today that he would not do that and that he would make a statement consistent with what he said–what we just saw. And then the prosecutors will ask him lots of detailed questions, presumably based on all the little things they think happened between this young woman, Monica Lewinsky, and the President and Vernon Jordan.

PHIL PONCE: And basic terminology, perjury in the context of this investigation.