January 22 and 23 were devoted to questions from members of the Senate to the House managers and Clinton’s defense counsel. Under the rules, all questions (there were more than 150 questions) were written down and given to Chief Justice Rehnquist to read to the party being questioned.
On January 25, Senator Robert Byrd moved for dismissals of both articles of impeachment for lack of merit.
On January 26, Rep. Bryant moved to call witnesses to the trial, a question that the Senate had to that point avoided.
The Senate voted to deliberate on dismissal and on calling witnesses in private session.
On January 27, after completion of the private session, the Senate voted on both motions in public session;
- The motion to dismiss failed 56–44,
- The motion to depose witnesses passed by the same margin.
On January 28, the Senate voted down motions to move directly to a vote on the articles of impeachment and to suppress videotaped depositions of the witnesses from public release. Senator Russ Feingold Russ voted with the Republicans as he had on the previous matters.
On February 1–3, House managers took videotaped closed-door depositions from Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.
On February 4, the Senate voted 70–30 that excerpting these videotapes would suffice as testimony, rather than calling live witnesses to appear at trial.
The videos were played in the Senate on February 6, featuring 30 excerpts which included Lewinsky discussing her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, the hiding of small gifts Clinton had given her, and Clinton’s involvement in procurement Lewinsky a job.