Magazine Says Starr Forced White House Search in 1996

A lawyer scoured President Clinton’s White House residence, including the first family’s underwear drawers, as part of a compromise to head off a search warrant in 1996, a magazine reported Sunday.

The search followed the belated discovery Jan. 4, 1996, of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s billing records for work on behalf of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, a failed Arkansas thrift at the center of the Whitewater investigation, the New Yorker said.

It said John Bates, a deputy to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, had told the White House that Starr was planning to seek a search warrant for the living quarters to look for documents related to the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Ark., where Hillary Clinton had been a partner.

After what the magazine described as heated negotiations, a compromise was reached under which Jane Sherburne, then of the White House counsel’s office, searched the area top to bottom, including the room of the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea.

“So Sherburne crawled through every room in the residence, searching everywhere from the bathrooms to the underwear drawers,” the article said. “As required by the agreement with Starr’s office, Sherburne even combed through Chelsea Clinton’s possessions.”

“After I finished, I felt like standing in the shower,” she was quoted as saying. The White House lawyer never found what Starr was seeking.

Neither Starr’s office nor the White House had any comment on the report. Sherburne could not immediately be reached.