President Clinton's prosecutors were preparing impeachment evidence yesterday which they insist will turn public opinion in their favour while the White House compared their legal filing to a "cheap mystery".
Mr Clinton's lawyers are to present a more detailed rebuttal today at 3 p.m. (Irish time) to the perjury and impeachment charges filed on Monday by the 13 Republican impeachment "managers".
Those prosecutors open their arguments in the Senate trial tomorrow contending the Monica Lewinsky matter is "not about sex" but about a cover-up by Clinton that was "subversive to the rule of law".
Their trial brief warns of "overwhelming evidence" against Mr Clinton, and they claim that once it is heard, his public support will erode and they will win the two-thirds majority in the Senate for a conviction.
However, the House Republicans have been coy about revealing their secret weapon and yesterday, White House spokesman, Mr Joe Lockhart, assailed them saying: "You have members telling the media that we have got a whole bunch of new stuff that we are ready to spring on them."
He added that the managers' brief "reads like a cheap mystery," and said: "The hallmark of a weak case is hyperbolic and overblown rhetoric."
The Clinton camp was also heartened yesterday by an ABCWashington Post poll showing 85 per cent of Americans say they overwhelmingly oppose Mr Clinton being ousted.
The survey shows respondents, by a 31 to 19 per cent margin, also promised to punish rather than reward any senators who back a conviction when they vote in the 2000 elections.
Republicans have already tasted the sting of backlash. Republicans made a surprisingly poor showing in the November midterm elections following their decision to open impeachment proceedings.
House speaker, Mr Newt Gingrich, resigned after the vote and his successor, Mr Bob Livingston, followed suit when his own adulterous affair was made public.
On Monday, porn magnate, Mr Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, accused one of the Clinton prosecutors, Mr Bob Barr, of lying under oath in 1986 about helping his former wife get an abortion despite his outspoken opposition to the procedure.
Mr Barr immediately denied the charges, and said he was "saddened that Larry Flynt's money has been used in an attempt to drive a wedge between the mother and father of two wonderful boys who deserve better than to become involved in the politics of personal destruction".
Mr Flynt says he has similar damaging evidence against eight more Republicans "hypocrites" that he plans to release in retaliation for their impeachment drive.