Starr Hid Perjury as GM Lawyer, Complaint Says

The Justice Department opened another review Wednesday into the conduct of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, this one based on a complaint from South Carolina that he concealed perjury while defending the General Motors Corp. in lawsuits stemming from fatal car fires.

The complaint, filed by a lawyer who had sparred with Starr in GM product-liability litigation, alleges that Starr improperly withheld from the courts an internal GM report that weighed the cost of being sued against the expense of fixing cars with faulty fuel tanks.

Starr allegedly knew about the report for three years, the complaint said, and yet repeatedly concealed it in an effort to boost GM’s defense.

The affidavit is the latest in a series of complaints against Starr that have been forwarded to Justice officials in the last six weeks, since Starr began openly battling the White House with his investigation into President Clinton’s relationship with former intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Justice Department officials said that they will examine the complaint and also will decide whether one unit at Justice should review it along with two other complaints from congressional Democrats and a third from Lewinsky’s lawyer, William Ginsburg.

While the earlier complaints alleged improper press leaks from Starr’s office, the new allegations are related to the very issue--perjury--behind Starr’s investigation of the Clinton-Lewinsky matter.

“We will review it, but it’s too early to say what will happen,” said Bert Brandenburg, chief spokesman at Justice. “It’s yet to be decided where exactly something like this would be sent.”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. said recently that the department is waiting to see what happens with another complaint that was filed by Clinton’s private attorney, David E. Kendall. The complaint, given to the federal judge overseeing the grand jury that is looking into the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship, alleges improper leaks.

“We are dealing with issues that are in many ways novel,” Holder said last week. “We are dealing with things that are relatively new.”

Starr’s office declined comment Wednesday, noting that the complaint was made against him in his capacity as a private lawyer at the Kirkland & Ellis firm in Washington.

Jay Lefkowitz, Starr’s law partner at that firm who assisted him in some of the GM cases, was out of town Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.

Kyle Johnson, the GM spokesman on legal and safety issues, called the allegations “unfounded” and noted that an appellate court had ruled that Starr did not have to divulge the existence of the report because of attorney-client and attorney-work product privileges.

“Mr. Starr’s and Kirkland & Ellis’ representation of GM was proper in every respect,” Johnson said.

But Starr’s critics question his credibility.

“He ought to be disciplined,” said Joe McRay, a San Francisco attorney who has represented other plaintiffs in liability cases against GM.

“He ought to be disciplined,” said Joe McRay, a San Francisco attorney who has represented other plaintiffs in liability cases against GM.

“And someone disciplined ought not to be representing the United States, as he does in his capacity as independent counsel.”

The affidavit was filed by Greenville, S.C., lawyer J. Kendall Few, who has opposed Starr in some of the GM litigation.

Few uncovered a 1973 internal report by Edward Ivey, a GM engineer, that discusses cars with faulty side-saddle fuel tanks that were prone to ignite in collisions.

Ivey calculated that “each fatality has a value of $200,000,” that there were a maximum of 500 fatalities each year in GM accidents with fuel-fed fires and that there were 41 million GM automobiles on U.S. roadways.

His “value analysis” determined that it would cost GM about $2.40 a car in legal liability exposure if nothing was done to recall or fix the cars.

“This cost will be with us until a way of preventing all crash-related, fuel-fed fires is developed,” Ivey wrote.

In 13 separate trials, Ivey testified that he never presented his findings and could not remember why he had prepared the report. According to Ivey’s 1981 statement to GM lawyers that he had determined the costs for the company’s Oldsmobile division and had distributed his report to some of his superiors, such testimony would have been false.

Mother Jones magazine has reported on its Web site that Starr--citing attorney-client privilege--had filed at least six motions in GM’s South Carolina case to keep that information secret.

Few, in his affidavit, said that Starr “has taken active, energetic and successful steps to conceal and cover up perjury.”

Few also said in the affidavit that Ivey knowingly withheld his analysis, and that Starr too “has been fully aware” of the report but never divulged the contents in depositions and trial testimony in at least 13 lawsuits.