President Clinton has formally denied charges of perjury and obstruction of justice and has said that they should be dismissed.
The denial came in the 13-page response filed by his lawyers to the summons from the Senate for the first impeachment trial of a president in 131 years. The trial proper will begin next Thursday.
The President acknowledged improper conduct with Ms Monica Lewinsky but said that the allegations did not warrant his removal from office.
In the response prepared by his legal team, Mr Clinton said: "The charges in the articles do not rise to the level of `high crimes and misdemeanours' as contemplated by the founding fathers, and they do not satisfy the rigorous constitutional standard applied through our nation's history."
The response said that, "accordingly, the articles of impeachment should be dismissed." But the White House has refrained from filing a motion for dismissal at this stage, although it was entitled to do so.
This is because the 100 senators agreed last week on a procedure for the trial which postpones a vote on dismissal until the Republican prosecutors and the White House have made their presentations over six days and the senators are given two more days to ask questions.
The White House or a Democratic senator is then expected to submit a motion for dismissal which would require a simple majority of 51 votes to succeed.
If it does not pass, the Senate will vote on whether to hear witnesses. The White House has said that it has been opposed to witnesses in order to make the trial as "expeditious" as possible, but the Republicans prosecutors have said that they want to call up to 10, including Ms Lewinsky.
President Clinton yesterday received President Carlos Menem of Argentina, who is on a state visit to Washington. But in a break from normal practice, there was no joint press conference which would have given the White House press corps an opportunity to question Mr Clinton about the trial.
Asked why there was no press conference, the White House spokesman, Mr Joe Lockhart, said "It would not have been a productive use of the President's time."
Vice-President Al Gore predicted yesterday that the Senate will not vote to remove President Clinton from office. "What the President did was wrong," Mr Gore told Associated Press.
"He has acknowledged that, he has asked for forgiveness. But what he did falls short" of misbehaviour warranting removal from office, Mr Gore said. "And I'm confident the Senate will feel likewise."
President Clinton is working on his State of the Union address which he is scheduled to deliver to a joint session of Congress on January 19th. While a number of members of Congress from the Republican and Democratic parties have advised Mr Clinton to postpone his address until after his trial, White House aides said it would go ahead as planned to show that the President is determined to carry out his duties in spite of the distraction of the trial.