Whitewater Counsel’s Plans Criticized

Independent Counsel Robert Ray’s plan to divulge his Whitewater conclusions just weeks before voters decide whether to elect Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Senate is being criticized by Democrats and some legal experts.

Ray “is defying the law,” declared Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, saying the law requires the counsel to issue his findings under seal to a court and makes no provision for a separate public accounting.

“Congress was very clear about this precisely to avoid an independent counsel releasing or appearing to release a report for political purposes,” said Levin, of Michigan.

Former Watergate counsel Sam Dash, who quit as an ethics advisor to the Whitewater probe over a dispute with Ray’s predecessor, Kenneth Starr, said Friday that the law limits Ray to submitting a secret report to the special panel of appeals judges who appointed him.

Ray said critics have it wrong--he has no intention to release the report and plans only a general statement about the conclusion and findings of the Whitewater probe.

“Our plan to make a public statement is not shocking,” Ray said in a statement. “This office is not releasing a final report or a portion of a final report without court approval.”

Ray added that the U.S. attorney’s manual expressly authorizes public statements regarding matters that have “already received substantial publicity.”

“Providing the public with a statement regarding the ultimate findings and conclusions at the close of this highly publicized investigation is entirely consistent with that policy,” Ray said.

Ray plans to finish his report on the Whitewater investigation, which examined the first family’s business dealings and Mrs. Clinton’s Arkansas law work, before election day.

He’ll submit the report to the judges who appointed him, and it will probably remain confidential until early next year so the Clintons’ lawyers and others named in it have time to prepare rebuttals.

When other independent counsels filed final reports under seal with a special division of the U.S. Court of Appeals, they issued terse statements, devoid of criticism, announcing an end to their probes.

“I’m surprised” by what Ray is planning and “I think Carl Levin is exactly right,” said George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg.

“The court makes a judgment on what to release,” said Saltzburg, a former Iran-Contra prosecutor who was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

In the recently concluded probe of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Independent Counsel Carol Bruce issued a brief statement saying she “will not seek an indictment of Secretary Babbitt or anyone else.”

In contrast, Ray took Hillary Rodham Clinton and the White House to task in a three-page news release in June announcing the end of his investigation into the firings of White House travel office employees.

Ray accused the White House of “substantial resistance” to providing “relevant evidence” to his investigators and said there was “substantial evidence” that Mrs. Clinton played a role in the travel office firings.

That conflicted with the first lady’s sworn statements that she “had no role” in the decision.

Ray also issued a two-page statement announcing the end to the probe of the Clinton White House’s gathering of hundreds of FBI background files of former Republican appointees. In it, he praised the White House for its cooperation.

One legal expert says Ray’s approach seems reasonable.

“I think he’s not misbehaving by offering a general public explanation of what the gist of the report is,” former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Barrett said.