Prosecutor to Probe Search of Clinton’s Passport File : Campaign: Counsel to determine if White House officials launched or covered up partisan effort.

In an extraordinary eleventh-hour action, a federal court has named an independent counsel to investigate allegations that senior White House officials were involved in efforts to obtain Bill Clinton’s passport files during the presidential campaign.

The move, initiated by Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, means that Justice Department investigators found sufficient evidence of criminal action to justify the special court’s appointment of an outside prosecutor.

The prosecutor’s mission is to determine whether senior White House officials launched or tried to cover up State Department efforts to use government files for partisan political purposes by searching them for potentially damaging information about Clinton and his mother, Virginia Kelley.

Acting on the basis of a preliminary inquiry conducted by Justice Department lawyers, Barr asked a special three-judge court to name the counsel last Monday--one day before the expiration of a law authorizing appointment of such independent counsels, Administration sources said.

The judges picked former U.S. Atty. Joseph diGenova, now managing partner of the Washington office of Manatt, Phelps, Phillips & Kantor of Los Angeles, a congressional source said. DiGenova is a Republican who served as an aide to former Sen. Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (R-Md.) before President Ronald Reagan named him U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Barr and DiGenova are outspoken critics of the independent counsel statute.

Two partners in DiGenova’s firm are prominent Democrats. Mickey Kantor is a close adviser to President-elect Clinton, and Charles T. Manatt is former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Although the specific targets of DiGenova’s inquiry could not be learned, a government source said Barr decided he had to ask for appointment of an outside prosecutor because the preliminary inquiry pointed to at least one high-ranking individual. The independent counsel law requires the attorney general to seek appointment of a prosecutor when crimes are alleged involving high-level government officials listed in the act.

Earlier investigations by the State Department and General Accounting Office have focused on roles played by White House political director Janet G. Mullins, White House communications director Margaret D. Tutwiler and White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III. All three are covered by the independent counsel act.

The reason for the search of the State Department files was to explore rumors that Clinton attempted to renounce his U.S. citizenship during the Vietnam War while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in England. No such evidence was ever found.

The appointment of DiGenova guarantees that the Clinton passport issue will last well after the Bush Administration leaves office.

“This is not the way Jim Baker wanted to leave public office,” a White House official said recently.

A White House spokesman, contacted Thursday night, said: “We don’t know anything about it.”

Asked whether that meant the Justice Department had not informed the White House of its action, the spokesman--who refused to be quoted by name--said: “We aren’t saying anything more.” A Justice Department spokesman also declined to comment.

A White House official said the continuing investigations had produced an atmosphere of nervousness and gloom in the offices of Baker’s White House aides well before Monday’s action.

The investigation casts a shadow over Baker, who has been President Bush’s closest associate for more than a decade.

Baker prides himself on his reputation as a scrupulously clean operator in the rough-and-tumble of national politics. A congressional panel investigated his actions during a campaign once before--on the alleged theft in 1980 of briefing papers from the campaign of then-President Jimmy Carter--but came to no clear conclusion.

Tutwiler has been Baker’s closest aide and political lieutenant since 1976 and served as his spokeswoman when he was secretary of the Treasury under Reagan and secretary of state under President Bush.

Mullins is a former congressional aide who worked in a high position in the 1988 Bush campaign and was named assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs by Baker in 1989. Tutwiler and Mullins moved to the White House in August, when Baker became chief of staff in a vain attempt to organize a successful reelection campaign for Bush.

Questions about the actions of Baker, Tutwiler and Mullins first arose in an inquiry on the passport affair conducted by State Department Inspector General Sherman M. Funk in October and November. Funk, who questioned all three, determined that Tutwiler and Mullins knew about the search of Clinton’s files while it was under way and that Baker learned about the search within hours.

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller contributed to this story.