Hubbell Affair Is Starr’s Last, Feeble Hope

Evil never dies in Washington. Joe McCarthy returned from the grave this week, this time with a new refrain: “Are you now or have you ever been a friend of Webster Hubbell?”

It’s character assassination on the Potomac. That’s the only fitting word for charges of “hush money” now leveled by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr at Webb Hubbell and friends. The web of supposed intrigue reaches all the way from Washington to the Los Angeles mayor’s office.

Starr’s theory--reported as fact by every major newspaper in the nation, including the Los Angeles Times--is that Clinton aides Mack McLarty, Mickey Kantor and Erskine Bowles helped find work for Hubbell when he resigned as deputy attorney general in March 1994, in return for Hubbell’s agreement to remain silent and not tell what he knows about Whitewater. Nonsense!

Based on the facts and the chronology, Starr’s charge is totally without foundation. First, the chronology.

Yes, McLarty and Bowles both admit to making calls on Hubbell’s behalf; Kantor helped find a job for his son. One call landed Hubbell a consulting contract with the city of Los Angeles. But those solicitations for legal work for Hubbell all occurred in early spring 1994, months before Hubbell pleaded guilty to defrauding his former Little Rock law partners.

In an interview taped for “60 Minutes” which is scheduled to air tonight, Hubbell admits he knew even before going to Washington that he had cheated his law partners--and lied to his friends, including the president and first lady, about it.

But in March 1994, all anyone knew was that Hubbell was in a dispute with his former law partners over billing records and had to quit his job at Justice to sort out his problems. No one knew that Hubbell would later plead guilty or go to prison. It wasn’t until late summer 1994 that reports first named Hubbell as subject of a criminal investigation by Starr.

Now, the facts. McLarty had been Hubbell’s friend from Little Rock for more than 20 years. Kantor had known Hubbell for more than 10 years, since trying insurance cases with him. They and other friends knew that Hubbell, with a big mortgage in Washington, three tuition payments and huge legal bills, was out of a job and broke. They did what their mothers taught them to do: They tried to help a friend, even a friend in trouble.

Make no mistake about it. The Webb Hubbell controversy is not about hush money. It’s about a failed Whitewater investigation.

For more than three years, Starr has sought to connect Whitewater illegalities to Bill and Hillary Clinton. He’s failed miserably. He’s frustrated. He’s in a hurry to get to Malibu. He’s running out of steam. He can’t depend on Jim or Susan McDougal, since nobody believes either one of them. Starr’s last, feeble hope to make the Clinton connection is to prove that Hubbell shut up because he was paid off. There’s no way he can prove it, because it just didn’t happen.

McLarty and Bowles didn’t make calls to interfere with a criminal investigation--an investigation that wouldn’t even begin until several months later. They made calls to help a friend. It wasn’t conspiracy; it was charity.

And that’s the real scandal. That friends helping friends should become such a scandal in Washington. Why? Because it’s so rare.

Now, full confession.

When my wife and I moved to Washington last spring and started looking for a place to live, a friend in the Clinton administration said he knew of a great buy in the northwest area: a house that belonged to Webb and Susie Hubbell. Since he was in federal prison, his family really needed the money and Susie, we were told, might be willing to lower the price significantly.

We didn’t buy the house. Even at a reduced price, it was still too expensive for us. But we did consider it. Yes, at the suggestion of a Clinton employee, we did actually contemplate putting money into the Hubbell family pockets. Quick, call Kenneth Starr! Arrest me! I’m part of a global conspiracy to help a friend!