Ex-Grand Juror Testifies in McDougal Trial

Using a rare tactic, prosecutors put a former Whitewater grand juror on the witness stand at Susan McDougal’s trial Wednesday to testify that Kenneth W. Starr’s investigators were after “the facts” and not out to get President Clinton. McDougal’s lawyer responded by subpoenaing a top Starr deputy.

In a flurry at the end of a day in which three former grand jurors testified for the prosecution, attorney Mark Geragos issued a subpoena to deputy independent counsel W. Hickman Ewing Jr. to testify when McDougal’s defense begins its case today.

The defense team is eager to change the issue at the trial to the tactics of Starr’s office instead of McDougal’s defiance of a federal judge’s order to testify before the Whitewater grand jury.

One of three ex-grand jurors appearing in McDougal’s criminal contempt trial, Jennifer Castleberry, testified that, when McDougal appeared before the grand jury in 1996, “we wanted to hear what she had to say.”

But the Clintons’ former Whitewater partner “wouldn’t talk.”

Did Castleberry believe the attorneys in Starr’s office “were out to get the Clintons?” asked prosecutor Julie Myers.

“No,” Castleberry replied.

McDougal’s lawyer argued that his client didn’t want to answer questions because overzealous prosecutors were trying to force her to give false testimony against the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Meanwhile, Jackie M. Bennett Jr., a top Starr deputy, said Wednesday that he is joining a law firm in the latest in a string of departures that suggests the prosecutor’s inquiry is winding down.

Bennett will become a partner at McTurnan & Turner, a firm in his hometown of Indianapolis, starting April 12.