Starr’s Inquiry Appears Close to Culmination

After a week of frantic, fast-paced developments in the investigation of President Clinton, the final act of a grand legal and political drama that has spanned much of his presidency is at last in sight.

The finale will be performed on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress soon may lose their status as spectators and become central players in an impeachment inquiry that will help shape history’s judgment of the Clinton presidency.

While nobody knows when independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr will deliver a report to Congress, a series of spectacles this last week--Clinton agreeing to testify, Monica S. Lewinsky receiving a grant of immunity and news leaking out about the evidence Starr has amassed--suggests that the independent counsel’s job is about to end and Congress’ is about to begin.

On Capitol Hill, a confused, anxious, reluctant jury awaits. Many fingers are being held up to test the political wind.

“The majority of members are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” said one House Democrat who asked not to be identified. “But this is moving to the next level. We may not be able to bite our lips and hold our tongues anymore.”

The independent counsel law requires Starr to report to the House if he finds evidence that may constitute grounds for impeachment. Although Starr never has confirmed that he plans to submit a report, Capitol Hill is girding for a September surprise, making extensive preparations to receive a report in a matter of weeks after Clinton’s scheduled Aug. 17 testimony.

“We’re ready for any eventuality,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), whose panel will handle the report and has already hired extra staff to do so. Although Hyde hopes to limit public access to the report initially, no one thinks it will remain secret for long.

Eyes on Clinton’s Standing in Polls

Republicans and Democrats alike will be watching for any change in Clinton’s high job-approval ratings once Starr’s findings move out of the murky realm of conjecture and leaks and into the glare of public accusation.

If the report is scathing and rouses the public’s anger, Democrats may be driven to distance themselves from their party leader just as they are heading into a crucial election.

But if it is an ambiguous report greeted by the public with a shrug, Republicans may be wary of attacking a popular president.

“Members of the House are, by design of the Founding Fathers, closest to the people,” said one Republican operative. “If the people don’t give two hoots, that’s going to be reflected in the members’ reaction.”

The prospect of a fall dominated by the investigation has injected vast uncertainty into a sleepy congressional election season that has, until now, provided a cozy climate for the status quo.

“No one knows what the final chapter will look like,” said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). “The one thing that links us all is that none of us knows the facts.”

“Who knows where we are headed?” asked Rich Galen, a Republican strategist and former aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). “The waters we’re in are not only not charted, we didn’t even know there was water there ‘til yesterday afternoon.”

The Constitution provides that the president can be removed from office under impeachment proceedings for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House brings impeachment charges and the Senate acts as a jury, with the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding. A two-thirds vote is required for conviction.

Starr’s inquiry, which began in 1994 as an investigation into the failed Whitewater real estate deal, expanded to other White House controversies and is now ending with the investigation of allegations that Clinton had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky and tried to cover it up.

Lewinsky this week received a grant of immunity in exchange for testifying, perhaps as early as next week, that she and Clinton did have a sexual relationship. Clinton has denied it and aides have said that he will do so again when he testifies for the grand jury.

In comments to reporters at the White House on Friday, Clinton said he would testify “completely and truthfully” but would have no public comment before then.

“I am anxious to do it,” Clinton said. “No one wants to get this matter behind us more than I do, except maybe all the rest of the American people.”

Clinton left Friday afternoon for a weekend of fund-raising on Long Island.

For Democrats, the quickened pace of Starr’s investigation has been a rude reminder of an issue they have spent months trying to forget. Asked about the case recently, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) skittered away, saying: “I don’t know. I’m not following it. I just don’t have any comment.”

“It’s the last thing on my mind,” said Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.). “I don’t intend to have an opinion on it until I know what the facts are.”

“No comment” will be no option if Starr believes there is enough evidence to send a report to Capitol Hill. Already, while Democrats continue to stand by Clinton and denounce Starr as a partisan bent on the president’s destruction, there are signs of growing anxiety.

“If she comes out and says she had sex with the president, it’s a very sad commentary on him,” said one House Democrat who asked not to be named. “It’s somewhat despicable.”

Loyalists Toe Careful Line

Even loyalists have been careful to draw distinctions between the personal and the policy aspects of their links to Clinton.

“Democrats support the president’s policies,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). “I don’t want to be passing judgment on his personal life, especially when I don’t know the facts.”

Democrats have been encouraged by the fact that Clinton’s job approval ratings have soared to record levels in the last six months and by polls showing that many care little even if Clinton did lie.

His job approval rating hit 64% in a Wall Street Journal/NBC-TV poll released Thursday. But the poll found that the percentage of people saying impeachment hearings should begin if Starr accuses him of perjury jumped to 45%, up from 39% in June.

So far, the controversy has not been a major issue in congressional campaigns. And Democrats predicted that it will stay that way.

“For this to hurt Democratic candidates, a voter would have to decide, ‘I’m not going to vote for them because the president of their party may have cheated on his wife,’ ” said one White House official. “Why would someone vote against you for something that you did not do?”

Republicans argued, however, that the scandal could help them by reducing turnout at the polls as Democratic voters, demoralized by the allegations against Clinton, stay home.

But an autumn dominated by the Starr report also could be rife with political risks for Republicans, who do not want anything to disrupt the pro-incumbent environment of this election season.

Once they have Starr’s report in hand, Gingrich, Hyde and other GOP leaders will face competing pressures as they decide how to handle it.

“I’m not looking forward to what will be a real heavy responsibility,” said Hyde. “I don’t know anyone who is anxious to do this.”

Most members are reluctant to pursue charges against Clinton unless they go far beyond his private life--in part because many members of Congress know similar weaknesses of the flesh.

Even if they face evidence of broader wrongdoing--lying under oath or obstructing justice--many top Republicans advocate a restrained approach to the report. If they do anything more aggressive than just releasing the report, they fear, it will lend credence to Clinton’s claim that the Starr investigation was a partisan witch hunt.

“The report should speak for itself,” said one key Republican strategist. “The only thing we could do, if we were to politicize it, would be to provide an avenue for the president to go after us.”

But Republicans run another kind of political risk if they underplay negative findings. A no-comment approach may alienate conservative activists, whose turnout at the polls is crucial for the GOP this fall and who in the past have urged party leaders to take a harder line against Clinton.

Conservative Senator Issues Warning

Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), a conservative presidential aspirant, warned GOP leaders Friday not to “turn their backs” on impeachment proceedings simply because they would rather have a weakened Clinton in office than have Vice President Al Gore succeed him. Ashcroft announced that he plans hearings in August on whether the president can be prosecuted if he is not impeached.

At least initially, access to Starr’s report will be limited because of its sensitive grand jury material--and because GOP leaders want some control over their party’s response. They plan to allow only members of the Judiciary Committee, designated staff members and some top House leaders to see it.

But, because Washington is a city of leaks, confidentiality is not exactly assured. “You’d need an armed guard to keep this information from leaking out,” said one leadership aide.

Congress is aiming to adjourn for the year Oct. 9, so even if Starr were to report tomorrow, there would be little time for formal proceedings--unless Congress comes back after the election for a lame-duck session.

Hyde said it would be impossible to begin impeachment proceedings before the elections. But he has not ruled out lame-duck work for his panel. If there is time before adjournment, GOP leaders are considering conducting hearings simply to make the findings public.

“It seems that if the majority of Americans, and virtually every member of the media, is critically interesting in the contents, there is some obligation to have a public airing of the facts,” said an aide to the GOP leadership.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.

An ongoing discussion of the Monica S. Lewinsky matter, with news coverage, editorials and commentary, is on The Times’ Web site, at:

https://www.latimes.com/scandal