(2/3/99)
Prosecutors in the President's impeachment trial wrapped up their closed door questioning of witnesses Wednesday and are preparing to push for live testimony when the trial continues.
Charles Sherrill updates developments from our Washington bureau.
White House aide Sydney Blumenthal was on the hot seat Wednesday. Representative Lindsey Graham, a republican from South Carolina said, "I believe the public will be well served and history will be well served if we can have what occurred today in front of the public."
Even though Blumenthal's deposition, nor the two before him broke much new ground.
Representative Chris Cannon, of Utah, said, "While we don't think you have anything earth shaking, I think you have stuff that would be significant to a senator who has to exercise his conscience to do justice impartially."
Senator Bob Bennett says prosecutors are entitled to argue for witness, but the burden of proof is theirs. "So I'm of an open mind and will let them make their argument. But right now, based on what I saw, I didn't see anything that would be compelling for a live witness."
The Senate will first consider whether to allow videotape testimony. If so, show it all,
says the top Democrat, Senator Tom Daschle. "I don't know how you can insure that you are not takig things out of context if we are going to constrain ourselves and just take snipets of this testimony."
But Senator Bennett says, "If indeed they are all released, I hope Senator Daschle will remember that he's the one that called for it. Because in the House, it was House Democratic Leaders that called for the release, and then when the release came, it was House Democratic leaders who turned around and attacked the republicans for being so irresponsible to release it."
If there are no live witnesses and only excerpts of videotape testimony, Bennett says the trial could be over before next Friday.
The impeachment trial continues Thursday and is tentatively set to run for eight more days.
