Starr Readies Oral Argument for a Panel of Political Judges

Nearly four decades ago, Kenneth W. Starr’s high school English teacher advised the bright, blue-eyed, blond boy to “go where the action is.”

So the kid they called “Joe-Boy,” who sold Bibles door to door and never danced until he was married, who shunned booze and dirty words and dreamed of a seat on the Supreme Court, pulled up his Texas roots and moved East.

This morning, he goes before the contentious House Judiciary Committee, before live television cameras and the American public, much of which has roundly castigated his office of independent counsel for spending millions of dollars hounding a president they like.

When Starr leans into the microphone to explain why he believes his 8-month-long investigation of President Clinton and his young paramour, Monica S. Lewinsky, has uncovered impeachable behavior, the preacher’s kid will be closer to the action than he has ever been in his life.

Indeed, he will be the action, the primary witness in the committee’s hearings into whether Clinton should be forced out of office for allegedly lying about his relationship with Lewinsky and attempting to cover it up.

Starr will find friends among the Republican members of the panel, many of whom still believe the impeachment process should go forward, despite Clinton’s strong standing in the polls and the GOP’s loss of five House seats in the midterm elections earlier this month.

“Ken Starr is a person for whom I have the greatest admiration for his integrity and ability,” Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) declared in a burst of enthusiasm earlier this year.

But Starr also will face his detractors. In addition to the Democratic members of the panel, Clinton’s own personal lawyer, David E. Kendall, who for much of this year has spared little emotion in criticizing Starr’s relentless prosecution of the president, will question him face to face.

Critics See Him as Grand Inquisitor

The independent counsel’s critics appear ready to cast him in the role of a grand inquisitor who, armed with a conservative agenda, has marched too far afield in an attempt to overturn Clinton’s reelection two years ago.

They do not like the peripheral investigations that departed from Starr’s original mandate to look into Clinton’s Whitewater real estate investment in Arkansas and they are angered by the mounting personal and financial toll borne by those in the Clinton camp. Many White House aides have had to hire lawyers because of appearances before the grand jury or congressional committees.

How Starr holds up under this intense scrutiny, and the public’s assessment of his performance, could help determine the course for the remainder of the impeachment process--whether the full House will vote on articles of impeachment against Clinton or whether the effort will end in some kind of compromise, such as censure.

Starr also could use the opportunity to reverse widespread public dislike, as reflected by opinion polls, that has grown around him since he wired Linda Tripp to secretly record her talks with Lewinsky.

Starr has devoted most of his time recently--except for going to church, spokesman Charles G. Bakaly III said--to rehearsing for today’s two-hour opening statement and questions from the panel and Kendall.

As solicitor general in the Bush administration, Starr served as the government’s chief advocate before the Supreme Court. He also is a former federal appeals court judge in Washington.

Facing Politicians, a Bitter White House

But this time he will be addressing not learned justices but skilled politicians and a bitter White House eager to give him the hook.

Bakaly conceded the “unique circumstances” of his boss’ appearance. “He will be discussing findings of facts and law not in court but in a political forum,” Bakaly said.

Hence the rehearsals, where Starr has been fielding questions from his staff in “an attempt to anticipate questions and have a dialogue,” Bakaly said.

But, the spokesman added, the independent counsel’s office is not having staff members assume the expected roles of hostile Democratic committee members. “We think that would be presumptuous,” Bakaly said.

Terrence B. Adamson, a longtime friend from the days when he and Starr clerked for a federal appellate court in New Orleans, said that he would advise Starr to be himself and not to respond to Democratic “attack dogs.”

“He is careful, considerate and scholarly,” Adamson said.

A GOP staff member on the committee said that Republican panelists hope to keep the discussion focused on Clinton and his alleged obstruction of justice, such as the timing of his telephone calls to Lewinsky, the efforts to find her a new job and his lies to White House staff members.

A Preacher’s Kid May Not Play Well

Starr could have trouble if he appears prudish and puritanical. Too much of the preacher’s kid from Texas may not go over well in the committee room.

More telling will be how he reacts to questioning from Democrats and Kendall suggesting that he improperly leaked grand jury material to the press and wired Tripp to tape Lewinsky without first obtaining judicial approval.

“It’s expected they’ll unload on him,” said the GOP aide. “It’s a question of how he responds.”

A Democratic aide on the panel said that minority members could burn Starr by using his own techniques, most pointedly Clinton’s videotaped testimony to the grand jury.

“You look at the way [Starr’s prosecutors] conducted the interview and it was very personal,” the Democratic aide said. “That came through to the public. They weren’t cruel. They just came across needlessly argumentative and it hurt their own case when people watched the video.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a Starr critic, indicated that he is looking forward to getting his shot at the independent counsel.

“He’s used disgusting tactics,” Nadler said. “Some of them have had to do with how he got the jurisdiction [to investigate the Lewinsky matter]. Then there are intriguing indications that he may have set up the president and the intimidating way he treated witnesses.

“I imagine Democrats will have tough questions,” Nadler added. Starr has taken rare opportunities to defend himself. In speeches to various law schools and in printed press releases, during an impromptu meeting with reporters in front of the federal courthouse in Little Rock, Ark., and outside his home in suburban McLean, Va., he has maintained that he and his staff have run a competent and fair investigation of the president.

Even as far back as 1995, not long after he was named the Whitewater independent counsel, Starr told a gathering of the Arkansas Society of Professional Journalists that there was nothing untoward in the fact that he was from one political party and Clinton from another.

“I am a Republican,” he said. “And, as history shows, appointment from the opposing party is the tradition in this country.”

Other times, he has not seen the need to defend himself at all.

Blumenthal Blasted Starr and Team

After Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal testified before the grand jury earlier this year, he blasted Starr and his team, complaining that he was asked only about the journalists he had spoken with about the White House crisis.

But when the House committee later released transcripts of Blumenthal’s testimony, they showed that he was not besieged with questions about his contacts with reporters and that the grand jurors themselves had chastised him for mischaracterizing their work.

Starr never said anything publicly about that incident.

Times staff writers Stephen Braun, Marc Lacey and Judy Pasternak contributed to this story.

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TV Coverage

Extensive television coverage is planned for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s scheduled appearance today before the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. All times PST.

ABC--7 a.m., live coverage. Length of coverage undetermined.

CBS--7 a.m., live coverage. Length of coverage undetermined.

NBC--7 a.m., live coverage. Length of coverage undetermined.

CNN--6:30 a.m., live coverage. Length of coverage undetermined. Special recap at 5:30 p.m.

Fox News Channel--10 a.m., live coverage.

MSNBC--6 a.m., live coverage of entire hearing.

PBS--7 a.m., live coverage of entire hearing. Special recap at 7 p.m.

C-SPAN--7 a.m., live coverage of entire hearing. Proceedings rerun starting at 3 p.m.

Court TV--7 a.m., live coverage of entire hearing.

Associated Press

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Rules of Impeachment

The Constitution gives the House the power of impeachment and gives the Senate the power to try all impeachments. If a president is tried, the chief justice of the United States presides and a two-thirds majority of senators present is needed to convict.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states: “The president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Associated Press