Hutchinson: 10 yrs later, no impeachment regrets

Dec 20 12:53

By ANDREW DeMILLO

Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) _ Ten years after he argued before the U.S. Senate that Bill Clinton should be turned out of office for lies he told in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, Asa Hutchinson says he doesn't have any regrets for being one of House managers in the 1999 impeachment trial.

The former Republican congressman from Clinton's home state said he was at first reluctant to be one of the prosecutors in the Senate trial of the 42nd president. Next month marks a decade since the Senate trial of Clinton began and Friday was the 10-year anniversary of the House approving two articles of impeachment against the president.

``I knew it wasn't good politics for Arkansas, being the president's home state,'' Hutchinson said in an interview last week. ``My firm reaction was thanks but no thanks.''

But Hutchinson said he decided to accept the post because of his responsibility as a congressman and as a former U.S. attorney.

``I came to the conviction that I had a higher responsibility and that I could actually help our country go through a difficult time, and so I accepted that responsiblity reluctantly,'' he said.

It was Clinton's sexual improprieties in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky, then a White House intern, and his testimony about the affair that he gave under oath in Jones' lawsuit, that led to his impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Hutchinson, who later served as a federal Homeland Security official in the Bush administration, now practices law in Arkansas. He says he has no regrets over his involvement in the impeachment trial, which ended when the Senate voted to acquit the president on both counts. During his unsuccessful run for governor in 2006, Hutchinson rarely mentioned his involvement in the former president's impeachment proceedings and said he wanted to focus on the future rather than the past.

Hutchinson also said he avoided the subject partly because he recognized that it's still a sensitive topic. Looking back, he said he wishes the House impeachment proceedings had taken on a more bipartisan approach.

``Both sides should have worked harder for a bipartisan process in which to handle the proceedings in the House,'' he said. ``Without the bipartisan process, it had a partisan edge to it that really undermined the proceedings. I wish we had tried harder.''

Feelings are still strong for Clinton in Arkansas, a Hope native who moved to New York after leaving office in 2001. Clinton's presidential library is here and he remains a popular native son. An exhibit at the Clinton presidential library on impeachment accuses Republicans of engaging in a partisan attack on his presidency.

``The impeachment battle was not about the Constitution or rule of law but was instead a quest for power that the president's opponents could not win at the ballot box,'' an exhibit at the library says.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., voted to acquit Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Hutchinson's brother Tim, then a Republican senator from Arkansas, voted to convict Clinton.

Lincoln called the impeachment proceedings ``a partisan battle, in many ways, that created greater division at a time when we desperately needed unification.''

Lincoln, who was elected to the Senate in 1998, said she remembered being swept into the impeachment trial almost immediately after being sworn into office.

``Impeachment was just all about division and finger-pointing and, I don't know, but in my life I've just always found those to be less productive,'' Lincoln said. ``Hopefully we won't go there again.''

AP-CS-12-20-08 1300EST

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