The BBC's Stephen Sackur: "The president is not out of trouble yet"

Henry Hyde, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said they were looking at three issues: perjury, obstruction and abuse of power.

"For almost two months I have been pleading with the White House and the congressional Democrats to present some additional evidence that might demonstrate the president's innocence," Mr Hyde said.

"We haven't heard one word about evidence repudiating or rejecting the facts."

He was speaking after the White House released the list of 14 witnesses it is to call before the committee in President Clinton's defence on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Althought Mr Hyde did not rule out censure as an alternative to impeachment, he added that he personally did not believe the former was "an appropriate sanction."

Philippa Thomas: White House lawyers are planning a robust defence

BBC Washington Correspondent Philippa Thomas says at least one article of impeachment is almost certain to be voted through to the House of Representatives by the end of the week.

Meanwhile Attorney-General Janet Reno has decided against an independent counsel to investigate President Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore over political advertisements financed by the Democratic Party during the 1996 election.

Marking an end to the Justice Department's deliberations into whether federal criminal law was broken she said there were no reasonable grounds for any further criminal investigation.

The case for Clinton

The White House legal team is expected to argue that removing President Clinton from office is too severe a penalty for his transgressions in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

It had asked for four days to challenge the standards for impeachment and the criteria for prosecution, but this was turned down by the Republican-controlled committee.

Mr Hyde wants the hearing wrapped up fast

The witnesses will largely be legal experts, but will include three former members of the Judiciary Committee who voted to impeach Richard Nixon.

Following the the White House legal team's defence, the committee will hear closing arguments from the Democratic and Republican counsels of the committee before debating articles of impeachment on Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday before voting.

The panel is expected to vote for at least one article of impeachment which would go to the full House next week.

If the House also votes to impeach the president, the Senate will hold a trial. A two-thirds vote would be needed to remove him from office.

Close vote

Some Republicans have accused the White House of trying to push the vote into next year, when Republicans would have a narrower margin in the House because of last month's election losses.

The House vote is expected to be close, but lawmakers say Mr Clinton is in deeper trouble than thought last month.

After the Republican election losses there was talk the House would settle for a lesser punishment of public censure.

But even Republicans opposing impeachment say Mr Clinton has hurt himself by not responding more forthrightly to 81 questions posed to him by Mr Hyde's committee.

The arithmetic of impeachment

Majority whip Tom Delay, who strongly opposes a censure motion, said he believed opinion was currently split 50-50.

The Republicans have a 228-207 majority in the outgoing House which means 11 Republicans would need to vote with the Democrats and the lone independent to prevent Mr Clinton facing a Senate trial.

As the committee dissects the president's alleged misdemeanours, Mr Clinton himself will be trying to remain above the fray.

He will spend Tuesday at a Social Security forum followed by a dinner to pick up an award for his peace efforts in Northern Ireland.