End with a censure

Poor Henry Hyde can’t catch a break. No sooner does he expand the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry to cover campaign financing than the Federal Elections Commission finds the Dole campaign at least as guilty as President Clinton’s in the 1996 race. The poor timing makes the committee appear even more desperate to hang something on the president, and once again leads to the conclusion of censure over impeachment.

Lawyers for both campaigns are protesting the FEC’s conclusions, but the actions speak for themselves. Both campaigns illegally benefitted from issue advertising paid for by the political parties. It should be noted that neither tried to hide the use of soft money for the ads in question. They saw in the election law a loophole large enough to allow the independent expenditures. The FEC disagreed and issued the fines — $7 million for Mr. Clinton and $17.7 million for Mr. Dole, whose fine also accounts several other violations.

But even if the FEC conclusions are entirely accurate, they aren’t reasons to impeach. More troubling than the two campaigns’ abuse of laws in need of serious overhaul, in fact, is the question of where — that is, from which lobbyists — are the former candidates going to get the money to pay the fines.

The Judiciary Committee’s only other avenue in exploring the financing of the president’s campaign leads to China and the activities of John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, etc. Both Senate and House committees spent more than a year exploring these connections to the Clinton campaign without coming to a substantial conclusion; Rep. Hyde proposes to base impeachment proceedings on hearings that will cover the same ground in a couple of days. That looks more like mischief than a serious inquiry.

The committee chairman is resorting to this because he knows that Kenneth Starr’s work, as it stands, will not support the conclusion of impeachment. The president had sex, however defined, with Monica Lewinsky and lied about it under oath. He misled the nation about his appalling personal life. He deserves condemnation — censure — which, historians notwithstanding, could be an appropriate and meaningful punishment for a man who has been concerned with his legacy since before he took office. But without something more substantial than what has been presented so far, impeachment is less and less an option for a majority in the House, much less two-thirds of the Senate.

All that stands between the House hearings and a conclusion to this investigation is for Republicans to decide whether they will join Democrats in supporting censure or, ultimately, let the president off without punishment. After Mr. Starr essentially repeated on the first day of the hearing what he had already provided as written evidence, House Republicans could have concluded what voters expressed on Election Day: The president’s a scoundrel. Say so and move on.