With Republicans moving this week to begin a formal impeachment inquiry, a former Republican president has urged Congress to "rebuke" President Clinton but allow him to stay in office.
Mr Gerald Ford, who in 1974 pardoned a disgraced Richard Nixon, has broken his silence on Mr Clinton's affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky to urge that "the time has come to pause and consider the long-term consequences of removing this President from office".
Mr Ford says that he has no interest in "rescuing Bill Clinton" but "I do care passionately about rescuing the country I love from further turmoil or uncertainty". Mr Ford's appeal in the New York Times coincides with behind-the-scenes moves between some senior Democratic and Republican senators to avoid a lengthy impeachment process which polls show would not be popular with the majority of Americans.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote later in the week to authorise the Judiciary Committee to begin its investigation.
The Judiciary Committee will today hold its first public hearing since receiving the 485-page Starr report and its thousands of pages of ancillary documents. The committee will vote today or tomorrow to recommend to the full House that a formal impeachment inquiry on the lines of the Watergate precedent in 1974 begin immediately after the elections.
When this inquiry ends, the full House of 435 members will vote on whether to impeach President Clinton. If the majority votes for impeachment, it will then be up to the 100 senators to try the President, but a two-thirds majority would be needed for a guilty verdict and dismissal.
Under Mr Ford's proposal, President Clinton would receive "a harshly-worded rebuke" in person by the full House instead of being impeached. There would be "no spinning, no semantics, no evasiveness or blaming others for his plight," Mr Ford writes.
There was more shock in political circles in the capital yesterday when the Washington Post published a full-page advertisement offering up to $1 million to anyone who had had "an adulterous sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official". The ad was paid for by Mr Larry Flynt and his Hustler magazine, which offered to pay the money "if we choose to publish your verified story and use your material".
In September Mr Flynt, whose company has announced plans to launch several new publications in the coming months, gained publicity from the White House scandal when he wrote to independent counsel, Mr Starr, offering him a job. "After a reading of the Starr report I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work," Mr Flynt wrote. "The quality and quantity of material you have assembled in the Starr report contains more pornographic references than those provided by Hustler Online services this month." Hustler published 44 graphic references to genitalia, while the Starr report contained 50, he said.