Clinton Assails Starr Over Whitewater Probe

President Clinton, making his harshest assessment to date of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, assailed the Whitewater prosecutor’s efforts Monday, calling them a “highly politicized operation” that had “no precedent that I know of, ever.”

The investigation into the Clintons’ land deals and related activities had “gotten a lot of attention, maybe more than they deserve,” Clinton said. But, he added, “even so, it’s hard to make things up” and predicted that Starr would unearth no wrongdoing by his longtime aide Bruce Lindsey, who is expected to testify today in the Little Rock, Ark., trial of Arkansas bankers Robert M. Hill and Herby Branscum Jr.

A witness in that trial has testified that Lindsey urged him to illegally conceal $52,500 worth of withdrawals by the 1990 Clinton gubernatorial campaign. Lindsey has denied that, and Clinton noted that Starr had decided last year to allow the statute of limitations to expire without bringing any charges against Lindsey.

“I don’t think anyone doubts that, for example, if there were any serious evidence . . . they would have moved against him,” Clinton said.

And he defended First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying that the only “definitive report” on Whitewater, by the Resolution Trust Corp. in 1995, failed to show any wrongdoing by the Clintons, even under the standard for civil litigation. Mrs. Clinton’s billing records at the Rose Law Firm, “which have received so much publicity, actually confirm her account,” Clinton insisted.

His comments came in an interview with Tom Brokaw for the first day’s operation of the MSNBC network, a venture of Microsoft Corp. and the NBC-TV network.

Asked about new NBC poll figures that show him with a wide lead over GOP challenger Bob Dole, but which also show that a majority of respondents believe he is “not telling the truth” about Whitewater, Clinton said the figures “bother me some.” But, he added: “I don’t see that they [poll respondents] could reach any other conclusion other than that, considering that since if you looked at the information they’ve been given, I’m sure it’s 4-, 5-, 6-to-1 negative.”

The poll, conducted July 12-14 and released Monday, showed Clinton leading Dole, 54% to 30%, up from a 54%-37% lead in an NBC-Wall St. Journal poll three weeks ago. But it also showed that by 54% to 24%, poll respondents thought he was not being truthful about Whitewater. By a 62%-18% margin, respondents said they thought Mrs. Clinton was not telling the truth.

Separately, a new CBS/New York Times poll, also released Monday, showed Clinton leading Dole, 57% to 37%.

Dole, who was interviewed Monday on Cable News Network’s “Larry King Live” program, dismissed the poll results, saying that many of his campaign’s recent problems stemmed from a lack of money. He also announced that he had selected Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) as the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention in San Diego next month, a decision that Molinari said took her by complete surprise.

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His selection of Molinari, a moderate, once-divorced Roman Catholic who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn in Congress, is an important signal because she is a supporter of abortion rights. The choice is “a big statement about cities, a big statement about women,” Dole said.

On other matters, Dole, who caused a flap last week by declining a speaking invitation from the NAACP and then accusing its leader of “trying to set me up,” said he “probably would” address the group if he were invited again.

He also said that he hoped to unveil his long-awaited economic agenda by the end of the month and that a tax-cut proposal would be one of “about 10 facets.”

As for Clinton, in addition to talking about Whitewater, he also suggested that the country would not be losing much by eliminating the federal entitlement to cash welfare payments--a guarantee that Republicans have been seeking to eliminate and liberal Democrats have been trying to preserve. Because of widely diverging payments among states “there’s not really a federal guarantee that amounts to much now,” he said.

Clinton, who has been declaring himself eager to complete a welfare overhaul, said he might be able to reach a deal with congressional Republicans if he can persuade them to moderate their proposals to cut back on food stamps and to revise cuts in benefits to legal immigrants that he said he considers “excessive.”

Asked about proposals to privatize part or all of the Social Security system, Clinton voiced some doubts.

“If you privatize the whole thing, you would really put people who are not serious investors and didn’t have a lot of money of their own at serious risk,” he said. But he said he would favor testing “in a laboratory kind of sense” proposals to partly or wholly privatize the system in the future.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.