Starr Has Strong Case for Impeachment, D.A. Says

He may not be a member of Congress, but as one of the state’s leading prosecutors, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury has been asked by plenty of people to give his opinion of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report on President Clinton.

After wading through the voluminous document this week, Bradbury says he believes that the prosecutor’s case is strong.

And he says the evidence detailed in the 445-page report on the president’s affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky presents a compelling case for impeachment.

“In my opinion,” he said, “[there is] enough evidence to warrant charges and proceed to trial if this were a state case involving anyone else.”

Bradbury, a Republican who just eased into his sixth term as Ventura County’s top prosecutor, would not comment on whether he thinks Clinton should resign or be removed from office.

“That’s more of a personal and political question, and I’d just as soon avoid that,” he said.

But in an interview this week, Bradbury commented at length on the legal aspects of the case and the strength of the evidence against Clinton.

“I think it’s substantial,” Bradbury said of the report’s findings. “I think that it is not just allegations but significant evidence . . . of perjury and witness tampering and obstruction of justice.”

In the report, which was forwarded to Congress last week, Starr identified 11 possible grounds for impeachment. He accused the president of lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky to a federal grand jury and during a civil deposition in a sexual harassment suit filed by Paula Jones.

And Starr said Clinton obstructed justice, first by encouraging Lewinsky to conceal their affair during the special prosecutor’s investigation, and by helping the 22-year-old intern obtain a job in New York.

Starr also states that Clinton tried to influence the testimony of his personal secretary, Betty Currie.

The president’s lawyers have criticized the report, which includes explicit details of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, and denied the charges by issuing their own point-by-point rebuttal.

As president of the California District Attorney’s Assn., Bradbury has received several requests to comment on Starr’s report. Wanting to stay out of the political fray, he has been reluctant to address any but the legal issues.

In his view, Bradbury says, Starr has put together a solid case based upon convincing evidence and statements from witnesses who testified before the grand jury.

“I think the obstruction of justice charges are probably the most significant,” Bradbury said. “Clearly, he tried to buy her silence by getting her a job.”

In addition, the local prosecutor said, the evidence strongly suggests that Clinton attempted to influence the testimony of other White House aides who testified before the grand jury.

“The president’s conversations with people he believed to be witnesses were intended to get them to parrot his views back to the grand jury,” Bradbury said.

As for perjury, the prosecutor said there are legal nuances to take into consideration with such a charge.

“It is not perjury simply to lie under oath; it has to be on a material issue,” he explained.

Some lawyers have suggested that because Paula Jones’ lawsuit was tossed out of court, that any lies Clinton made in his deposition would be legally irrelevant. “That has to be something the president’s lawyers will focus on,” Bradbury said. “I think that is a significant legal issue.”

In the 32 years he has been a prosecutor, Bradbury said, he has seen dozens of perjury cases, including those in which a witness gave false statements in a civil case.

“It’s a common offense, but it’s uncommon to prosecute them,” he said. “Unfortunately, you find people that lie under oath in many cases. But it’s impossible to prosecute all of them.”

Among the allegations, Starr accuses the president of lying in two sworn statements by denying that he had “sexual relations” or a “sexual relationship” with Lewinsky.

In the rebuttal sent to Capital Hill, Clinton’s lawyers counter by saying: “In a civil deposition, he gave narrow answers to ambiguous questions.”

Bradbury says that response would never be taken seriously in a courtroom.

“I think that the trier of fact--whether it’s a jury or the Senate or the American people--views that as absurd,” he said. “This man more than any man in America knows what ‘sexual relations’ means.”

As for the explicit details of the president’s various encounters with Lewinsky at the White House, Bradbury said such graphic information is often necessary in criminal reports.

“Courts require a recitation of facts and details from which they can draw conclusions,” he said. “For instance, if we wanted a search warrant, we would have to provide much more detail than the Starr report did. It is a very mild document compared to what is seen in sexual crime reports.

“What [Starr] is doing is appropriate for his charge,” Bradbury continued, “for his responsibility that he was given, and it was absolutely essential in order to substantiate or support the allegations that the president lied.”

He predicts that the Clinton scandal “is going to pull the country down for the next two years,” and remarked that prosecutor Starr has an unenviable task before him.

“I am glad I am not in that position,” he said.