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.

Today the President’s attorneys begin a two-day defense presentation. We expect to hear from Gregory Craig, special assistant to the President and special counsel and to Charles Ruff, the White House counsel. As part of the presentation, they will call four panels of witnesses over the next two days. We will be broadcasting today’s proceedings in full. The NewsHour’s chief Washington correspondent, Margaret Warner, is here with me this morning, and so are two commentators, Stuart Taylor, a columnist for the National Journal and Newsweek magazines and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant.

JIM LEHRER: Tom, how would you characterize what is to happen here today and tomorrow?

TOM OLIPHANT: This is going to be a little weird on one level at least in that we are going to see an actual defense on the law and the Constitution and more on the facts than some people realize for two days against charges that have yet to be made. Behind the scenes this committee’s Republican majority is working on the charges which have not yet been presented in detail. But you will hear an actual defense with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

JIM LEHRER: And there you see on the screen Congressman Henry Hyde, the chairman of the committee, who said yesterday at a news conference that he felt that the Republicans had made a compelling case for impeachment. Stuart, what would you add to what Tom said about what this is about these next two days?