Subpoena Puts Legal Logistics on Front Burner

After six months of bitter legal, political and personal wrangling with the investigator who has become his nemesis, President Clinton is now preparing to tell his side of the Monica S. Lewinsky story for the first time to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

Having received a subpoena to testify before Starr’s grand jury as early as this week, Clinton has indicated that he is willing to cooperate. His lawyer is negotiating with Starr concerning the terms and logistics of how the president can provide the grand jury with the information it needs.

“Now we’re at the point where I think the wheels do hit the road,” former Clinton advisor Leon E. Panetta said Sunday on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “The president now can present his side of the story.”

Talks between Starr and Clinton lawyers in the coming week will be crucial in determining when and how the two antagonists will have this climactic exchange--and possibly meet face to face for the first time since Starr began investigating the details of Clinton’s relationship with the former White House intern.

Whatever format is devised for Clinton to tell his story, it will be a far cry from his promise in January to provide a prompt, full explanation of his relationship with Lewinsky.

“We will give you as many answers as we can, as soon as we can,” he told reporters when allegations first surfaced that he had an intimate relationship with Lewinsky and then tried to cover it up. “I’d like for you to have more rather than less, sooner rather than later.”

It is now much later than Clinton implied, and there is no guarantee his confidential testimony will be made public. Moreover, his spirit of cooperation is clouded by the ignominy of being the first president to be subpoenaed to give testimony before a grand jury.

That is not to say that the president’s strategy has flopped. By waiting, he may be telling “more rather than less” at a more politically opportune time. Since January, Clinton’s approval ratings have soared, while Starr’s have plummeted, and most Americans seem to be greeting the protracted controversy with a big yawn.

But the main act is still to come. Exactly how the long-awaited confrontation between Starr and Clinton plays out could have a big impact on how much of a scar is left on Clinton’s legacy and the prestige of the presidency itself.

“For the president, the most important thing is to avoid the symbolism of the big black limousine pulling up at John Sirica’s courthouse,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, referring to the federal judge who presided over the Watergate trials of President Nixon’s aides. “The image of the president having to file through a crowd of reporters to fight his way into the courtroom would just be devastating.”

*

Most analysts do not think it will come to that. They predict instead that Starr will accept some means of securing Clinton’s testimony without hauling him into the courthouse.

Officially, the White House has not confirmed the receipt of a subpoena. But officials acknowledge that David E. Kendall, Clinton’s lawyer, has been told to negotiate terms with Starr.

“The president wants to get the information that the grand jury needs and has instructed Mr. Kendall to talk to Mr. Starr to do exactly that,” presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel said Sunday.

Clinton has few politically and legally palatable alternatives to finding some way to respond to Starr’s subpoena.

If Clinton were a typical citizen, most defense lawyers would advise him to exercise his 5th Amendment right to refuse to offer testimony that could be self-incriminating. But Clinton is no typical citizen.

“If he took the Fifth, that would be political suicide,” John Dean, counsel in Nixon’s White House and a central figure in the Watergate scandal, said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Although some Clinton defenders question Starr’s authority to subpoena the president, analysts say Clinton would pay an enormous political price if he chose to take that fight with Starr to the Supreme Court.

Former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos said on ABC-TV’s “This Week” that any such battle would be raging just as the nation was preparing for November’s congressional elections--and that Clinton would appear to be dodging Starr’s questions. “Democrats will abandon him on that,” Stephanopoulos said.

What’s more, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that if Clinton ignored or fought the subpoena, it “would certainly be grounds to file articles of impeachment.”

As a technical matter, the president’s lawyers may have to file a motion to quash the subpoena this week simply because the summons must be answered in some way in a matter of days. But that may be just a tool for winning more time to work out an agreement with Starr.

*

Clinton’s lawyers would prefer that Starr conduct the questioning under oath at the White House rather than in the courthouse, and that Clinton be allowed to have his lawyers present--unlike normal grand jury proceedings. In addition, the White House--but not Starr--wants to limit the scope of the questioning.

“It’s very clear the president is going to answer the subpoena,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “The only question is, in what format.”

Although the talks concerning format may reduce the indignities to which Clinton is subjected, some presidential scholars warn that the mere sight of the president receiving a subpoena has further dulled the luster of the presidency, an institution many feel already has been badly tarnished by the whole Lewinsky imbroglio.

Charles O. Jones, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says Clinton should have done more voluntarily and avoided the indignity of a subpoena.

“There is a point at which he has to come clean, not just for himself, but for the good of the office,” Jones said. “There is a magisterial quality to the presidency that is well worth preserving. That’s jeopardized by all this.”