Starr Sex Questions Focused on First Lady, Hubbell Says

Presidential friend Webster L. Hubbell says Kenneth W. Starr’s prosecutors asked him for details about the Clintons’ sex lives and his own.

In an interview with the New Yorker magazine that was made public Sunday, Hubbell said prosecutors seemed especially interested in speculation about First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster.

He said the inquiries were connected with Starr’s investigation of Foster’s death in 1993.

Three earlier investigations had found that Foster killed himself with a shot to the head, and Starr’s office eventually agreed with that conclusion.

Hubbell did not return a telephone message left at his home Sunday. A representative of Starr’s office told the magazine that the office “asked relevant and proper questions. A professional and thorough suicide investigation always focuses on motives.”

Hubbell, a former associate attorney general and partner in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., served 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of bilking clients and the firm, where Mrs. Clinton and Foster also were partners, out of several hundred thousand dollars.

He now is on a year’s probation after a negotiated guilty plea to tax evasion.

Hubbell said prosecutors “wanted to know about Hillary’s sex life. About the president’s sex life and mine too. They specifically asked if Hillary and Vince had had an affair.”

He said: “I was surprised. For one thing, I think it’s awful personal. And I don’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

Hubbell said prosecutors asked him detailed questions about whether he had had extramarital sexual relationships with specific women.

The magazine said Hubbell denied having had any affairs.