Starr Seeks to Compel Lewinsky Meeting

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr on Friday asked a federal judge to order Monica S. Lewinsky to cooperate with House Republican managers and “allow herself to be debriefed” by the prosecutors handling the impeachment trial of President Clinton.

Starr’s office also asked U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to revoke Lewinsky’s immunity agreement against prosecution if she refuses to cooperate--thereby clearing the way for him to indict her for obstruction of justice for allegedly joining with Clinton to hide their secret sexual relationship from lawyers in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.

The judge is expected to make a ruling today or Sunday, before the Senate votes--possibly as early as Monday--on whether to allow depositions or live testimony from any witnesses in the impeachment trial.

But should Lewinsky be forced to give a pre-testimony interview to the House managers, it could give them a much-needed boost in their efforts to convince senators that the trial should continue with a number of witnesses telling their stories on the floor of the Senate chamber.

Absent any voluntary testimony from Clinton, which has been repeatedly rejected by the White House, Lewinsky would far and away become the trial’s most sensational witness.

Some Democrats quickly cried foul over the last-minute maneuvering by Starr’s office and the House managers outside the Senate chamber, where the trial continues today.

“My first reaction is, wow!” said Abbe Lowell, chief Democratic counsel of the House Judiciary Committee.

“Legally speaking, it could not be more inappropriate for the House Republicans to collude with the independent counsel to try to gang up on a witness. As a political issue, I am stunned that the House Republicans would be immune to the appearance of desperation and heavy-handedness.”

Added another House Democratic aide: “One wonders if this is appropriate or even ethical.” The White House said it had no immediate comment.

A top prosecution aide said that, for the House team to make its best case for calling witnesses, it had “to more precisely know what they say.”

The steps to try to force Lewinsky’s cooperation began Thursday, when Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), the lead House manager, wrote a letter to Starr stating that they were in the process of assembling a witness list and complaining that Lewinsky’s lawyers “have declined to make her available for an interview.”

He noted that under her immunity agreement, in which she agreed to cooperate with Starr and appear before his grand jury last summer, she was “required to submit to interviews and debriefings if so requested by” Starr’s office.

Hyde added that he wants the interview to take place this weekend, adding, “Your assistance with the interview will be appreciated.’

Robert J. Bittman, deputy independent counsel in Starr’s office, then telephoned Lewinsky’s lawyers and requested that she be made available.

But her lawyers, Jacob A. Stein and Plato Cacheris, declined, saying they did not think it right for her to assist the managers and not also the White House lawyers.

Stein and Cacheris, in a follow-up letter, told Bittman: “We believe it is inappropriate for Ms. Lewinsky to be placed in a position of a partisan meeting with one side and not the other.

“Therefore,” her lawyers wrote, “we have recommended against interviews with either side.”

In response, Bittman cited a provision in Lewinsky’s immunity agreement that states she could be “fully debriefed” by “any other institutions as the OIC [office of independent counsel] may require.”

Bittman also did not buy the argument that she would just be talking to one side of the case.

“While I understand Ms. Lewinsky’s misgivings,” he wrote, “. . . the managers are acting on behalf of the House of Representatives as a whole, not on behalf of a political party. Their task is constitutional in nature.”

Still, Lewinsky’s lawyers did not budge. On Friday, they wrote back to Bittman, saying that they interpret the provision in the immunity agreement to mean Starr’s “agents” and not unknown “others.”

They added that she would respond to any subpoena from the Senate.

With that, Starr’s office filed an emergency petition late Friday afternoon with Johnson, asking her to order Lewinsky to be interviewed by the managers or risk losing her immunity.

He noted that the Senate, while not yet deciding on whether to allow witnesses, has not precluded either the managers or the White House to conduct preparatory work in the event that depositions from witnesses and live testimony are permitted.

“Nothing,” Bittman told the judge, “. . . restricts the ability of the House to debrief witnesses in a non-deposition setting.

“Indeed, it would be strange for the Senate to prohibit the House and the president from doing the investigation necessary to determine whether they wish to call witnesses and which witnesses to list in their motions.”

An aide to the prosecution team said the managers want to question Lewinsky in part because the president’s attorneys have challenged her grand jury testimony on several key points, such as the handling of the gifts Clinton gave her.