Heat On Clinton Latest In String Of Charges Claiming Sexual Improprieties May Be Hard For President To Sweep Under The White House Rug.

If President Clinton has proved anything in his political career, it is that he can survive wounds that would be fatal to other politicians. But the newest allegations of sexual misconduct and possible obstruction of justice represent the most perilous charges yet lodged against him, analysts across the political spectrum said Wednesday.

There were too many unanswered questions for anyone to draw definitive conclusions about the latest controversy to rock the White House. The president denied any improper behavior in several carefully worded statements Wednesday. But if proved true, the allegations that caused independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr to expand his long-running investigation could bring about the biggest crisis of Clinton’s presidency and threaten his hold on power.

The stakes are almost as large for Starr, whom Clinton allies long have branded as a partisan who is determined to find something to bring down the president. If Starr’s latest inquiry proves empty or even inconclusive, the credibility of his entire investigation could be called into question.

An understanding of what faces both sides brought rare silence to much of the political community in Washington. But among those few who ventured into public view, there was agreement that, if true, the charges could bring about impeachment charges against the president.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., issued a carefully worded statement saying the “very serious allegations … need a thorough investigation.” But in a television interview with CNN, he said “impeachment might very well be an option” if the charges are proved.

Former White House official George Stephanopoulos agreed. “If they’re true, they’re not only politically damaging but could lead to impeachment proceedings,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Most others - White House aides, Republican congressional leaders, lobbyists and political operatives from both parties - refused to talk for the record. “If we try to politicize it, it will look political,” said a former Republican congressional aide.

Democrats, not knowing whether the allegations were true, were in no mood either to defend the president or attack the independent counsel. “Our hope is it goes away,” a Democratic aide on Capitol Hill said nervously. Pointing to the upcoming midterm elections, he added, “There’s no usefulness for us in having this front and center.”

Mostly, people waited and watched. But privately, partisans on both sides agreed that the charges - that Clinton conducted a sexual affair with a 24-year-old former White House aide and then encouraged her to deny the relationship to lawyers in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit - were potentially far more serious than anything the president has faced.

Clinton has repeatedly demonstrated his political resilience, starting early in 1992 when he was confronted by charges that he carried on a long-running affair with Gennifer Flowers and that he had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. At a time when many Washington politicians, even Democrats, said his candidacy was dead, the former Arkansas governor fought back to win his party’s nomination and eventually the White House.

He then promised “the most ethical administration in history,” only to see a succession of Cabinet officers indicted or investigated. An ongoing investigation into alleged campaign finance abuses has implicated other senior officials and raised questions about the integrity of the White House. Starr’s investigation has ranged through old land deals in Arkansas, the suicide of former assistant White House counsel Vince Foster and controversies over missing law firm billing records and mishandled FBI files, but so far has made no charge against the president or first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The multiple controversies seemingly have had little impact on the president’s popularity. Saturday, Clinton gave a deposition in the Paula Jones case, making him the first president to testify as a defendant in a legal case.

Despite intense media coverage of the event, polls taken at the time show his job approval rating remained at its peak.

“It’s not that people don’t pay attention to these things,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, one of the few consultants willing to speak for the record Wednesday. “People pay attention and are willing to hold their judgment in abeyance until the facts are in. While the public does not give the president a 100 percent vote of confidence in terms of his personal character, people have been skeptical about specific allegations about him and willing to sort of separate public behavior from private behavior.”

But Democratic allies of the president worried privately that aspects of the new allegations heightened the danger for Clinton. First is that the allegations involve conduct as president, rather than before Clinton was elected. Second is the fact that the sexual misconduct involves a young woman, Monica Lewinsky, on the White House staff. And finally, charges that Clinton or his friend, lawyer Vernon Jordan, may have urged Lewinsky to deny the relationship, if true, represent illegal acts.

But Starr and his investigators could also face difficult days.

Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution analyst who has often been critical of the president, said Starr had no apparent business stepping into the middle of the new allegations and that there was an ongoing legal case that should deal with it. “It’s starting to strike me that there really are people who are trying to bring down the president,” Hess said.