Starr Vows to Push Inquiry, Despite Jones Ruling

With the spotlight now all his own, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr vowed Thursday that the sudden death of the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment suit against President Clinton will not deter him from pressing his wide-ranging inquiry, including whether Clinton and Monica S. Lewinsky tried to obstruct justice in the Jones case.

“Our facts are very different,” he said, attempting to distance his investigation from the abrupt end--at least for now--of the Jones lawsuit. “Our scope is very different.”

And although an increasing number of detractors complain that his criminal investigation is stalled and likely to go the way of the Jones case, Starr insisted otherwise.

“We’re moving very quickly,” he pledged in vigorous and lengthy remarks to reporters outside his home. “This grand jury is sitting more frequently, or more regularly, more days than I think any grand jury in the country.”

In other developments:

* On Capitol Hill, where Starr’s investigative report ultimately will land, some congressional Republican leaders muted talk of impeachment proceedings against the president, wary that any such effort now could be seen as cheap and brutal partisan politics.

“My opinion continues to be that there should not be impeachment unless there is an open-and-shut case,” warned Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), acknowledging that the “political atmospherics” once again have shifted in favor of the White House.

* Meanwhile, Jones’ attorneys began picking up the legal pieces of their lawsuit, grappling with whether and how to appeal a federal judge’s ruling in Little Rock, Ark., that threw out their case Wednesday.

“We think there are grounds for an appeal,” said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which is paying the legal fees for Jones’ team of lawyers.

But he cautioned that the appeals process, starting with the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly ending at the Supreme Court, would not be swift.

“I’ve heard estimates of from one to two years,” he said. “The president could be out of office by the time we get our reversal.”

* White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles testified for nearly four hours Thursday before the grand jury, which he said later “asked a lot of questions about what goes on in the White House.”

“I answered all of their questions wholly and completely,” he said. “It was an easy time for me.” Bowles said also that he knows of no wrongdoing by the president.

In granting Clinton’s request for dismissal of the 4-year-old Jones suit, Judge Susan Webber Wright said that she found no proof that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, groped Jones, exposed himself and asked her to “kiss it” when she met him in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991.

Jones said in her lawsuit that she suffered from trauma because of the alleged incident and that her career as an entry-level state employee was all but ruined as Clinton and other state government supervisors sought to punish her for turning down the governor’s sexual advances.

Wright concluded that, while the actions attributed to Clinton, if true, were “boorish and obnoxious,” they did not constitute sexual assault. Furthermore, the judge ruled, Jones had not shown that she had been truly harassed at work.

As the president and the first lady prepared to head home from almost two weeks in Africa, their mood was upbeat.

“Well, let me say,” said a smiling Clinton, “I’ve done my best to do what every president . . . from George Washington forward has said the president should do.

“Which is that for the period of your service, insofar as possible, you should cease to be an individual citizen and spend all your time and energy on the country. And that’s what I’ve tried to do. And I’ve done my best at it.”

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an interview with American Urban Radio, spoke directly about the dismissal of the Jones case.

“I think the judge ruled correctly,” she said, “based on the facts, the evidence and the law.

“And I hope that, you know, people will get on with the business of paying attention to what the president is doing to improve the economy and improve education and deal with the other problems of America.”

With the Jones case gone, Starr is left to determine whether Clinton and Lewinsky, a former White House intern, lied under oath about their alleged sexual relationship in depositions given in the Jones case.

Starr pledged Thursday that he would act swiftly.

“We’re trying to do it as quickly as we can because we do recognize there is a very keen and powerful interest in bringing all these matters to a resolution as quickly as possible,” he said.

To that end, Starr said, he and his staff are interested only in getting to the “facts.” Evoking actor Jack Webb from the old television series “Dragnet,” Starr one-lined: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

His sound bite drew a quick and sarcastic rejoinder from the White House, where senior advisor Rahm Emanuel quipped: “Ken Starr is no Joe Friday.”

Many Republicans in Washington believe that it is the public, which seems more interested in policy and issues than accusations of a Clinton sex scandal, that is throwing cold water on any GOP attempt to stage impeachment hearings. They noted that Clinton’s job-approval ratings always seem to shoot up when his personal life and credibility are challenged.

“The president is not out of the woods, but it is getting more politically perilous for the Republicans to push this,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

“The nightmare for Republican leaders is if Ken Starr dumps a huge pile of evidence on the House Judiciary Committee that doesn’t necessarily nail the president but passes the buck to Congress,” Ornstein said. “What do they do then? Do they make all this an issue for voters in November?”

One GOP official involved in House preparations for Starr’s report clearly agreed. “This certainly doesn’t help us.”

But House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) saw no immediate urgency. “All we need to do is be calm and wait for Judge Starr. We have no risk.”

The political equation is critical to impeachment since the process needs bipartisan support, which so far is not evident.

“I’ve always felt that there isn’t much upon which the Republicans could . . . move the impeachment process forward,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). “And I think this [the announcement by Wright] takes even more steam out of the effort than what they might have had otherwise.”

Lawmakers said that congressional action will depend on the strength of Starr’s evidence.

“Judge Starr will either have a lot of evidence, a little evidence or no evidence. That will be the key to what happens next,” said Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale), a junior member of the House Judiciary Committee.

“When a bunch of prosecutors in three-piece suits steps in front of a bank of microphones and says, ‘We have completed our investigation and are ready to present our evidence,’ the public and press are going to pay attention,” Rogan said. “What happened to Paula Jones will not be the focus.”

Times staff writer Tom Schultz contributed to this story.