The opening hearing in the impeachment inquiry into President Clinton's conduct begins today when the independent counsel Mr Ken Starr testifies on why he believes the President should be impeached.
Mr Clinton will be thousands of miles away in Tokyo on the first leg of a trip to Asia which was curtailed by the Iraq crisis. But he left behind a squabble between Democrats and Republicans over how the hearing will be handled. The President's spokesman, Mr Joe Lockhart, hit out at Republicans, alleging hypocrisy and unfairness over attempts by the Judiciary Committee to expand the hearing beyond the Monica Lewinsky affair.
He said reports that the committee was doing this and indications that Mr Starr himself would range outside the allegations in his report seemed to show that the Republicans and the independent counsel were "walking in lockstep".
"There is something fundamentally unfair and disturbing about the Republicans and the independent counsel saying that they can cover any subject they want, they can expand this into any fishing expedition they want, but the President's counsel has to keep on the issues that they think are germane," Mr Lockhart said.
This was a reference to the insistence by the committee chairman, Mr Henry Hyde, that the White House lawyers' questioning of Mr Starr be limited to the charges against Mr Clinton and not challenge the methods of the investigation. Mr Hyde has also angered Democrats by turning down the White House request for 90 minutes time instead of the allotted 30 minutes. Mr Starr will have two hours for his presentation.
The House minority leader, Mr Dick Gephardt, warned that the frustration at the Republican manoeuvring could lead to a Democrat boycott of today's hearing. But some Democratic members of the committee said this was unlikely.
President Clinton refused to answer questions about the impeachment hearing when he spoke to reporters as he was about to depart for Asia. He said that "nothing is more important to restore growth in Asia than efforts to restart Japan's economy".
Mr Clinton will hold talks tomorrow with the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Keizo Obuchi, about his government's recently announced plan to stimulate economic growth.
After Tokyo, Mr Clinton will fly to Seoul to meet President Kim Dae-Jung to show support for his government's "difficult but necessary task" of financial and corporate reforms. President Clinton will also visit US troops and raise concerns about North Korea's "provocative missile programme and developments which could call into question its commitment to freeze and dismantle its nuclear weapons efforts".
Mr Clinton will also visit the US territory of Guam before returning to the US early next week.