All right, Senator Specter, you have been critical of this idea in recent days. Lay out your objections. Well, Margaret, at the outset, I took the position sometime ago that the national interest would be best served by putting off holding President Clinton accountable until after his term ended and through the judicial criminal process, whatever a jury or a judge would say at that point. But once we face articles having been forwarded by the House to the Senate, then I think we have a constitutional obligation to have a trial. It is important to have the witnesses so you really understand the case.
Trials have witnesses.
There are disputes here as to what happened on the issue of perjury and on the issue of obstruction of justice. And when you talk about doing a sounding, I think, as Senator Bennett just mentioned, I think that's a matter of concern. We have to find the facts and to make that determination you need to see and hear live witnesses, but not too many, and on the narrowly focused range of issues. Well, we may well be headed for the trial of the century but it doesn't have to last a century or even seem like it's going to last a century. When you have a trial and you bring witnesses to provide evidence, it's to settle what issues are in dispute.