Timing Is Everything, Mr. Starr

The fifth anniversary of Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton has come and gone, with the independent counsel indicating that a final report on what has become a $40-million-plus inquiry will be issued “at the earliest practicable moment.” In this context, practicable apparently means sometime before the November 2000 national elections, when the Clinton administration’s second most visible figure, Vice President Al Gore, is expected to be heading the Democratic ticket and Hillary Clinton is expected to be running for the Senate in New York.

In politics timing is everything, and a censorious report placed before the public so close to the elections would be widely and not unfairly seen as an effort to influence voters. If Starr wants to avoid that--and as someone sensitive to the charges of partisanship that have dogged his efforts he certainly must want to be fair--he will make sure his final report comes out early in the new year rather than later. Even if, as Starr says, the report simply lays out the evidence gathered by investigators and grand juries and avoids allegations of criminal conduct and other conclusions, it is certain to be heavy with political implications. From what is known of the investigation it could also set the stage for potential criminal charges where the Clintons are concerned. All the more reason for the report to be released early.

Independent counsel investigations have never been known for brevity, which is one reason Congress let the law authorizing them expire in June. Because of their secretive nature it’s hard to know why they are so drawn out. But surely by now Starr’s investigators have interrogated every possible witness and examined every shred of evidence about the Clintons’ business deals in Arkansas, the White House travel office firings, how hundreds of FBI files got into the hands of administration political operatives and, ad nauseam, Clinton’s dalliance with Monica S. Lewinsky. If the final report is truly to be a straightforward factual narrative, then it’s hard to conceive that the facts are not now in hand.

Starr says he was “horrified” when the House chose to release his impeachment report on the Lewinsky affair in its full salacious detail. That was an example of political naivete he should not repeat. Inevitably Starr’s final report will be politically explosive. That’s why he should spare no effort to assure that it reaches the public well before the November 2000 elections.