Starr Plans to Press Case for Impeachment

First, his X-rated report to Congress detailed his version of President Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and spelled out 11 possible grounds for impeaching the president.

And on Monday, his explosive videotape of Clinton’s testimony to his grand jury will be unveiled on TV screens across America.

But independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr isn’t finished yet. He is still pressing an aggressive investigation that is aimed, informed sources said, both at a broader and stronger case for impeachment and at indictments of other major White House figures.

Starr is still looking into the roles of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and several others, including Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey; presidential secretary Betty Currie; Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a friend of the president; former Associate Atty. Gen. Webster L. Hubbell; and Susan McDougal, who was convicted in an earlier Whitewater trial, these sources said.

Some of the allegations that Starr is pursuing stem from the Lewinsky affair, such as the roles of Currie and Jordan, but others involve the original investigation of the Whitewater real estate development in Arkansas, the firing of the White House travel office staff and the White House use of FBI personnel files.

Starr was described by a longtime friend as “white-hot angry” over what he regards as a broad pattern of deception and cover-up that goes beyond the Lewinsky case and has been led by the president himself.

A Washington attorney and former independent counsel familiar with Starr’s inquiry said it is “a foregone conclusion” that Starr will cite Clinton as an unindicted co-conspirator in any indictment the grand jury might return alleging a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

David E. Kendall, personal attorney for the Clintons, dismissed any suggestion that the president might be named as an unindicted co-conspirator as “ridiculous.”

“With regard to the various Whitewater matters that the independent counsel has investigated for almost five years, with respect to the president and Mrs. Clinton, there continues to be nothing there,” Kendall added.

Bill Murphy, Lindsey’s attorney, said: “I have no reason to believe Bruce is being looked at for any reason other than as a witness.”

Starr is required by law to deliver a final report to the federal court that appointed him, summing up what his investigation has revealed. If that report is completed in time, some congressional Republicans said, the House Judiciary Committee may use it to broaden the impeachment inquiry beyond the Lewinsky case.

That might allow Republicans to challenge the Democratic argument that Starr’s report failed to meet the threshold for impeachable offenses because all its allegations stemmed from a private sexual relationship between two consenting adults.

Kendall criticized Starr’s report to Congress as a “hit-and-run campaign” aimed at damaging the president with “irrelevant and unnecessarily graphic and salacious allegations.” He denied that impeachable offenses were included and demanded: “Where’s Whitewater?”

Starr refuses to talk to reporters; Charles G. Bakaly III, his spokesman, will confirm little more than what already is on the public record about the investigation.

In his report, Starr said he was collecting and evaluating more evidence but that all phases of his investigation are nearing completion and he would make a final decision on any further action “at the earliest practical time.” Bakaly said Starr is devoting the full resources of his office, which employs 27 prosecutors and attorneys as well as a large force of FBI agents, to that goal.

But a former member of Starr’s staff who remains familiar with the investigation said that Starr probably would need several more months to complete investigations of the travel office and FBI files cases.

“He’s mad about all the deceptions,” the former staff member said. “When I heard he was reopening the ‘Filegate’ and ‘Travelgate’ cases, I thought: ‘Oh my, here we go. He won’t leave any stone unturned and will look behind every tree before he’s finished.’ ”

In papers on the travel office and FBI personnel records cases filed earlier this month in federal court here, Starr deputy Robert Bittman said the investigations “are continuing and in extremely sensitive stages.” The investigations, Bittman told the court, have reached the “highest level of the federal government” and involve “issues of singular constitutional and historic importance.”

Legal sources who have followed Starr’s investigation said that his report to Congress and the grand jury’s continuing investigation leave little doubt that a case alleging conspiracy to obstruct justice is in the works, perhaps in both an indictment and the final report.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and Clinton critic, said: “It seems likely that the independent counsel will pursue others based on the same conduct he has alleged against the president.”

Starr associates said he has believed from the beginning of his inquiry that Clinton and some of his aides have used every means possible to obstruct the investigation, from repeatedly invoking executive privilege and encouraging witnesses to remain silent to attacking Starr’s motives.

“There’s no question he now hopes to find a wider pattern of obstruction of justice,” the former member of Starr’s staff said.

Another former member of the independent counsel’s staff suggested that Starr still could seek indictments related to the Lewinsky affair and the FBI files, as well as the Whitewater deal.

In his report to Congress, Starr signaled that there could be indictments arising from the Lewinsky matter. He mentioned two lines of continuing investigation:

* Perjury and obstruction of justice related to former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey’s allegations that the president sexually harassed her. Willey testified before the federal grand jury, but Starr has been investigating whether efforts were made to silence her. Nathan Landow, a wealthy Democratic fund-raiser, appeared before the grand jury and later told reporters that he had invoked his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

* Possible misuse of Pentagon personnel records of Linda Tripp, the Defense Department employee and former White House aide who tape-recorded her conversations with Lewinsky as the former intern talked about her encounters with Clinton. Tripp was arrested for a minor violation as a teenager but failed to disclose the arrest on Defense Department employment forms as required by law. That information was leaked to the news media in possible violation of the federal privacy law.

Here is the status of the major aspects of Starr’s investigation.

Whitewater

Starr has focused on whether the Clintons were involved in any wrongdoing in this controversial Arkansas land development deal. The deal was financed in part by Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, whose owner, James B. McDougal, was the Clintons’ partner in the Whitewater deal. The S&L; went bankrupt, at a cost of $60 million to taxpayers.

Grand juries so far have indicted 16 people in connection with Whitewater, and there have been 12 guilty pleas and three convictions. McDougal was convicted with his wife, Susan, and sent to prison, where he died. But the Clintons, who have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, have remained untouched.

Starr has investigated whether Hillary Clinton told the truth about the extent of her legal work for Madison Guaranty and whether Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, asked a former Arkansas judge to make an improper loan to McDougal.

Starr’s report noted that he was also investigating whether Hubbell, Hillary Clinton’s law partner at Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., “concealed information about certain core Arkansas matters” in which she was involved.

The independent counsel also is appealing a court’s dismissal of an indictment accusing Hubbell of evading taxes on $450,000 in payments arranged by friends of the president when Hubbell was under criminal investigation by Whitewater prosecutors. The report to Congress said prosecutors were investigating whether a relationship existed between the payments to Hubbell and his lack of cooperation with prosecutors, “especially his incomplete testimony.”

Starr’s final report, according to legal sources familiar with his investigation, also may cite the discovery of Hillary Clinton’s law firm billing records in the White House long after Starr had subpoenaed them.

Travel Office

Starr is investigating the White House’s controversial firing of seven travel office employees in May 1993, specifically, whether then presidential aide David Watkins perjured himself during a congressional investigation when he testified that Hillary Clinton had played no role in the firings.

During a House committee hearing into the matter, the White House turned over memos written by Watkins suggesting that the first lady had instigated the firings at the urging of Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, a longtime friend of the Clintons who had sought a share of the White House travel business. The president later apologized for the firings and offered other government jobs to most of those who were dismissed.

Legal sources familiar with the investigation said that Starr, in his final report, is likely to cite Watkins’ testimony as part of a pattern of White House deception.

FBI Files

The controversial case involving the FBI personnel files is a little murkier. When more than 900 files on past government employees of mainly Republican administrations suddenly surfaced at the White House, Clinton aides called it “a bureaucratic snafu.”

D. Craig Livingstone, who headed the White House office of personnel security, said the confidential background folders were obtained by mistake in an innocent effort to keep White House security credentials up to date. Republicans charged that Clinton officials may have been trying to dig up dirt on past administration officials.

Although Livingstone and a top aide, Anthony Marceca, said they had been unaware of the potentially sensitive data that fell into their hands, a former assistant challenged their testimony and declared that they were aware some of the files were on former GOP officials.

The President’s Testimony

* See President Clinton’s videotaped testimony as soon as it is made available by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday morning at https://www.latimes.com

* STICKING TO THE SCRIPT: Clinton repeatedly used a prepared statement during taped grand jury testimony. A18

* THE HILLARY FACTOR: Democrats hope first lady can drum up voter interest among women in November. A30

* RELATED STORY: A20