It’s Starr’s Turn to Be Investigated

Kenneth Starr again. Ugh. What will it take to make him go away? His presence is as ubiquitous as it is unctuous, like a nagging child who refuses to accept that his incessant tantrums are unworthy of our attention.

Just when it seemed likely that the Senate would bring a dignified end to the partisan impeachment farce, Starr came up with Monica Lewinsky as an 11th-hour offering to House prosecutors desperate to keep his non-case alive.

Once again the cameras captured Starr emerging from his home, tight little smile in place, just thrilled that yet another potential witness against the president was at that moment on the rack. No matter the outcome of the Senate’s deliberations, this man will not rest until the president of the United States is, at least figuratively, burned at the stake.

How else to explain his obsessive-compulsive behavior? Starr’s obligation was to impartially present the facts in a report to the House and then step aside. Instead, he became a fervent advocate for impeachment, causing his ethics advisor Samuel Dash, the highly respected Watergate prosecutor, to resign in protest.

Of course, the case need never have gotten that far. It should have been dropped when Starr failed to connect the president with any wrongdoing in the Whitewater case. Remember, that was what Starr was supposed to be investigating, but he came up with nothing. Ditto for Filegate, Travelgate and myriad other false charges. But “guilty until proved innocent” is the credo of Kenneth Starr.

Instead of bowing out graciously, he joined forces with the right-wing fringe that has been trying for six years to exploit the Paula Jones case to undermine the president. A damning investigative piece in Sunday’s New York Times documents Starr’s close ties to “a small secret clique of lawyers,” right-wing opponents of the president, that forced the Jones case into the courts. “While cloaking their roles,” the Times stated, “the lawyers were deeply involved--to an extent not previously known--for nearly five years in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit. They then helped push the case into . . . the office of the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr.”

It is that connection between the Jones lawyers and Starr’s office, never admitted in Starr’s statements to the attorney general’s office, that supports the White House claim that a perjury trap was set.

One of the key players in this escapade was Richard W. Porter, Starr’s law partner. Porter was also an associate of Peter W. Smith, the Chicago financier who since 1992 has pumped $80,000 into exploring Clinton’s sex life.

It was Smith who solicited David Brock to write a story for the right-wing American Spectator magazine that first mentioned the name “Paula.” That prompted Jones to raise a claim of harassment dating back to Clinton’s time as Arkansas governor.

Brock, who since has apologized to Clinton for his article, says he met with Starr’s law partner Porter to discuss the story before its publication. Soon thereafter, another of Porter’s legal friends, Jerome M. Marcus, enlisted the legal team that represented Jones. Billing records show Porter was paid for “legal strategy” and prepared a memo on “investigative leads” that could embarrass Clinton.

Marcus’ call to a friend in Starr’s office tipped the prosecutor to Linda Tripp and Lewinsky. And it was Marcus and Porter who, according to the Times, “helped arrange for Mrs. Tripp to take her explosive allegations to Mr. Starr.”

Prominent in the group was Theodore Olson, a close friend and former law partner of Starr, who was also the lawyer for the American Spectator magazine. Olson was part of a team that helped prepare the lawyers who took the Jones case to the Supreme Court.

There’s an unanswered question in this of enormous import: Did Starr and the lawyers working on the Jones case collaborate to ensnare the president in a perjury trap in the days leading up to Clinton’s grand jury testimony?

It’s high time that Starr himself was seriously investigated. The ongoing judicial inquiry into leaks and other possible illegalities by his office should be extended to include the ideologically driven politics and conflicts of interest that contaminate Starr’s enterprise.

This is a man who has left a trail of destroyed reputations and broken lives while throwing the country into turmoil. Whatever the misdeeds of the president, they pale in comparison to what is already known of the efforts of this grand inquisitor to control the political life of the nation.