Decision to release Clinton tape to inflict more damage

More embarrassing details of President Clinton's sexual encounters with Ms Monica Lewinsky are to be released to the world on…

More embarrassing details of President Clinton's sexual encounters with Ms Monica Lewinsky are to be released to the world on Monday, as well as a videotape of his grand jury testimony showing him evasive and angry under questioning.

The decision by the House Judiciary Committee to release 2,600 pages of transcripts along with the four-hour video is expected to inflict further damage on the US President as he struggles to avoid impeachment or resignation.

The new material will give further explicit accounts of the sexual encounters off the Oval Office from the transcript of Ms Lewinsky's testimony. The accounts given in the Starr report already have caused widespread disgust and criticism of Mr Starr for including them in his report.

Whether President Clinton can survive a further round of steamy sex disclosures remains to be seen as calls for his resignation increase. Democratic members of Congress also fear the effects of further graphic material on their re-election chances.

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The timing of the release of the new material is especially unfortunate for Mr Clinton as it will coincide with his major address to the United Nations in New York. Cable news networks have announced plans to broadcast his grand jury testimony in full as soon as it is released on Monday at 2 p.m. Irish time.

The White House was dismayed at the decision. "This appears to be a rush to pre-judgment and an effort to get out the most salacious material at the speed of light, not at the proper pace of justice," a White House spokesman, Mr James Kennedy, said.

Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee tried to delay release of the material but were outvoted by Republicans after heated debates behind closed doors.

About 140 cuts have been made in the written material, mainly giving details about Secret Service agents and the names and other details of persons whose identities need not be disclosed. But supporters of Mr Clinton fear that the explicit sexual details which are now going to become available will be very damaging for him.

"We are talking about stuff that makes me blush, makes me sick to my stomach," a Republican representative, Mr Chris Cannon of Utah, told reporters.

The senior Democratic member of the committee, Mr John Conyers, said that the material "is sexually explicit, it is offensive, it is obscene, it does not build up any kind of case one way or the other and I think it is a politicisation" of the process.

But Republicans on the committee argued that as President Clinton has insisted that he did not commit perjury when he swore he did not have sexual relations with Ms Lewinsky, the American people have the right to see the raw evidence for themselves.

Polls show that the American people feel they have had enough of the salacious material released in the Starr report. Asked in a CNN poll if the video of the President's grand jury testimony should be released, 67 per cent said No and 28 per cent said Yes.

Further attacks on the President came from the Rev Pat Robertson, head of the conservative Christian Coalition, which is having its annual conference in Washington this weekend.

Mr Robertson was applauded by the estimated 3,000 members when he demanded that Congress impeach President Clinton as resignation was too good for a "debauched, debased and defamed" leader.

"For nearly nine months, we have seen one man wreak political havoc on our most noble office. For nine months, we have been mocked, demeaned, belittled and lied to," Mr Robertson said to prolonged applause.

The Oval Office has become "the playpen for the sexual freedom of the poster child of the 1960s," he said.

More than 110 US newspapers have called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The publications included large regional papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the Seattle Times, and the Denver Post.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said Clinton had "dishonored his Presidency beyond repair."