Starr’s Actions Found Wanting by Friend, Foe

On paper, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is preparing a case against William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, to submit to a panel of federal judges. But in reality, Starr’s case against Clinton is already being judged in two very different “courts”--the House of Representatives and the public--and so far they don’t much like what they see.

“Ken Starr might be a great prosecutor, but in terms of being a political strategist he is the Helen Keller of American politics: He is deaf, dumb and blind,” said Richard Galen, a Republican political consultant and advisor to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Through such actions as subpoenaing former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky’s mother, Marcia Lewis, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, Starr has made himself the center of controversy instead of his main target, Clinton.

Starr has inadvertently played into the hands of the White House, which has been working for months to portray the prosecutor as an unreliable, partisan zealot.

He has persuaded a majority of the public that he is “out to get Clinton whatever it takes, fair or unfair”--53% agreed with this in a recent Harris Poll--and that his investigation should be stopped--59% said yes in a new Gallup Poll.

And, most important, he has strengthened the consensus on the House Judiciary Committee--which will receive his findings--that the country is nowhere near ready to consider removing Clinton from office over allegations that the president had an affair with Lewinsky and then conspired to cover it up.

“There are a lot of folks in Washington who put their finger to the wind, and if they see that because of the White House’s efforts some people don’t like Ken Starr, they may take that into account in what they do,” complained Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), a member of the Judiciary Committee who has publicly advocated for impeaching Clinton.

Barr added that, for his part, Starr’s relentless pursuit of Clinton “certainly doesn’t bother me.”

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has said he will consider impeaching Clinton only if there is significant Democratic support for such action. At the moment, however, Democrats are targeting Starr. On Thursday, party members on the Judiciary Committee said Starr is “using the grand jury to silence his critics” and asked Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to rein him in.

At the White House, jubilation reigned. “This is entirely and completely Ken Starr’s doing,” crowed presidential counselor Paul Begala. “We didn’t tell him to haul mothers before the grand jury to testify against their daughters, or attorneys to testify against their clients, or Secret Service agents to testify against the people they protect. . . . It’s astonishing.”

Among Starr’s own friends, there is private dismay. “He has lost momentum,” mourned a prominent conservative lawyer and longtime Starr supporter. “It’s a cumulative thing. At the end of the line, the product you’re going to be producing has got to have credibility . . . [with] the American people.”

To be sure, Starr still has formidable strengths in his struggle with Clinton. His actions in subpoenaing Blumenthal, Lewis and the others Begala referred to have all been within the law. There is no sign that Reno will curb his pursuit of more evidence against Clinton.

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In the end, what matters most will still be the strength of the case he presents, as the independent counsel law requires, to three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals and the House.

The fate of Starr’s case “depends entirely on how it is presented,” argued Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. “I suppose that [the White House] is . . . playing to the public rather than playing to the legal side. But I don’t think it will work.”

Still, McCollum acknowledged, a decision by the committee on whether to seek Clinton’s impeachment will not be a legal judgment. “It becomes, at that point, very political,” he noted.

That may be Starr’s weak point: A tenacious and gifted practitioner of the law, he appears to have forgotten that prosecuting a president is ultimately a political battle.

“Starr is politically tone deaf,” declared former Education Secretary William J. Bennett, a strong Clinton critic. “It’s too bad, because everybody knows the central issue here should be the president.”

Starr was appointed in 1994 to investigate a series of Arkansas real estate deals involving the Clintons known as Whitewater. The transactions were financed by a federally insured savings and loan that failed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $50 million.

Starr’s investigation has expanded several times to incorporate new issues, including allegations that Clinton was involved in attempts to obstruct the original inquiry. Last month, Starr broadened his investigation to charges that Clinton may have encouraged Lewinsky to commit perjury by falsely denying that she had a sexual relationship with him.

Those allegations touched off a major political crisis. And as Starr grilled witnesses, including Lewis and a series of White House aides, about alleged sexual misconduct, Clinton supporters hotly attacked the prosecutor.

Former Clinton political aide James Carville publicly derided Starr as “sex-crazed” and mocked the prosecutor’s evangelical Christian piety, saying that he “listens to hymns, as the cleansing water of the Potomac goes by, and [says] we’re going to wash all sodomites and fornicators out of town.”

But what got under Starr’s skin, his associates said, was not the bare-knuckles rhetoric but reports that Clinton aides were spreading nasty stories about his assistants.

Starr complained that his staff “has been subjected in recent weeks to an avalanche of lies” and sent a subpoena to Blumenthal, a White House official who has made a specialty of compiling evidence of the prosecutor’s links to right-wing groups.

Starr’s subpoena of Blumenthal demanded that he surrender material about Lewinsky, the independent counsel’s office and “all documents referring or relating to any contact directly or indirectly with members of the media.”

That broad demand set off howls of protest from reporters--many of whom had not been strong supporters of Blumenthal before that moment--and gave Starr a self-inflicted black eye.

“That’s breaking Rule 101 of common sense,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.). “The press is the only ally [Starr] has in this. If he gets the press to turn against him, he’s got a big problem.”

But Shays was thinking like a politician, not a prosecutor.

To the prosecutor, subpoenaing Blumenthal seemed logical enough. Federal law makes it a crime for someone “by any threatening letter or communication” to “influence, intimidate or impede” a member of a grand jury or a prosecutor. Blumenthal was, Starr believed, spreading negative information in an apparent attempt to intimidate his assistants.

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The longtime Starr supporter said that, in subpoenaing Blumenthal, the prosecutor and his staff “must have felt they legally had the right . . . but I don’t think they realized that the adverse perceptions would outweigh the benefit. They should have done it in a more narrow, detailed way.”

He said Starr had rejected friends’ advice that he pay more attention to the public image of his investigation. And now, with the prosecutor under fire, his friends hesitated to offer any more counsel for fear of appearing “gratuitous.”

“These prosecutors are making judgments that would be OK in a normal case. But these prosecutors don’t have sound political judgment, and Ken is becoming so wrapped up [in the battle] that he doesn’t see this himself,” the supporter said.

“Is Ken Starr out of control?” Shays asked. “Everybody’s out of control. The president is out of control. The press is out of control. Congress is out of control. Ken Starr is out of control.”

And, he noted: “In the end, if he learns something that’s quite alarming and clearly illegal, that will obviously have impact with Congress--no matter how he gets it.”

Times staff writers Janet Hook, Ronald J. Ostrow and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.

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Kathleen Willey, who allegedly was accosted by Clinton, has not spoken publicly. A20