Where Starr Stands
York, Byron
Where Starr Stands MONICA LEWINSKY CAME INTO KENNETH STARR'S LIFE JUST WHEN IT SEEMED HIS INVESTIGATION WAS COMING TO AN END—WITH FEW, IF ANY, INDICTMENTS IN SIGHT. A special TAS report BY...
...Extensive interviews with several sources close to the independent counsel's office, along with conversations with nearly a dozen defense lawyers involved in the BYRON YORK is an investigative writer with TAS...
...The court iling seems to say that the original order vas secretly amended to include at least )ne other person...
...It appears the answer is no...
...Again, Starr needs more evidence—which might be shaken loose by indicting Hubbell again—to prove that the payments were hush money...
...78 April 1 9 9 8 The American Spectator...
...On March 22, 1996, the judges ordered him "to investigate whether any violations of federal criminal law were committed by William David Watkins [the Clinton staffer who actually fired the Travel Office staff] in connection with his December 1993 interview with the General Accounting Office concerning the firing of the White House Travel Office employees...
...But, as in the other cases, it appears hat Starr has not found solid evidence to rove that either Watkins, the first lady, or inyone else was lying...
...No one wants to be investigated by an independent counsel...
...Two weeks after the story broke in the newspapers, a panel of federal judges—acting at the urging of Attorney General Janet Reno—gave Starr the authority to look into the matter...
...Witness David Hale, who earlier pleaded guilty to fraud charges, has said that Clinton knew about—indeed, showed interest in—the loan (which was never paid back...
...26 April 1998 • The American Spectator Even if that doesn't happen, there are still a few more incentives Starr might use against her...
...And Clinton himself testified — under oath and on video tape —that he had nothing to do with the fraudulent loan and did not know anything about it...
...Nor has Starr, apparently, in the years since then...
...They then fired all seven staffers, installed a Clinton-friendly team, and called in the FBI to give a veneer of legitimacy to the allegations of wrongdoing...
...Both Williams and later Thomases denied they were part of a plan to remove incriminating documents from the office...
...Although strongly challenged by committee Democrats, Henry O'Neill was unwavering in his account of seeing Williams with the files, which he said she took to her office...
...Or was he using the session to make a final assessment—to look the first lady in the eye—before going forward with an indictment...
...The mandate also allowed Starr "to investigate related allegations or evidence of violation of any federal criminal law...by any person or entity...
...THE LOAN First, the issue of the illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' former business partner...
...Watkins made it clear that Hillary Clinon was the force behind the firings...
...A lawyer for Williams declined to comment, but Benito Romano, Thomases' attorney, says it has been a year since he had any contact with Starr's office...
...Both McDougal and her husband Jim have been convicted on fraud charges relating to the loan —but the question remains whether Starr will be able to charge anyone else...
...Starr's team is hoping McDougal's resistance will be softened by a recent appeals court decision upholding her fraud conviction...
...Another issue is the money paid to former Clinton confidant Webster Hubbell, allegedly as payoff for his refusal to cooperate with Starr...
...House Republicans held eagerly-awaited hearings to determine the roles of Clinton staffer Craig Livingstone and detailee Anthony Marceca, the two men who worked on the files operation...
...As she finishes serving 18 months for contempt, she will be transferred to a federal prison to begin serving her Whitewater sentence...
...Beyond that, there is the question of taxes...
...She was given immunity and asked whether she had ever discussed the loan with Clinton and whether, to her knowledge, the president had testified truthfully at the trial...
...At various times in the past year, there have been strong rumors that Hubbell would indeed face indictment on tax charges...
...In a "task list" compiled by the White House counsel's office in December 1994, lawyer Jane Sherburne wrote "Hubbell: Monitor cooperation" as one of the White House's priorities in dealing with the Whitewater investigation...
...According to several sources, there has been a debate in Starr's office over what form the final report will take...
...And White House records show that Hubbell —while publicly keeping his distance from the president and first lady—visited them at the White House at least seven times in the months after he resigned from the Justice Department...
...he never provided very much useful information and finally announced that he would not cooperate at all...
...It is always possible that new evidence will emerge to change Starr's prospects, but again it appears unlikely that any charges will be brought...
...But that assumption might well be incorrect...
...I did not lie to nyself," he testified...
...The firings have been investigated several times before: by the White House itself, by the General Accounting Office, by a House committee, and by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility...
...Starr likely won't make cases in his report that he couldn't make in court...
...Many observers assume the report will be a detailed compilation and analysis of the evidence gathered during Starr's investigation...
...Clinton billed Madison for more than a dozen phone calls and meetings relating to Castle Grande...
...It appears that the contradiction cannot be definitively resolved...
...It wasn't until much later that the public learned that Hubbell—at the same time he was stiff-arming Starr—had received about $500,000 m financial assistance solicited by friends of the president...
...If he doesn't, it is entirely possible that the Hubbell investigation, like the others, will end without any high-level indictments...
...Hubbell collected half the money and did almost no work before city officials caught on...
...The mysterious appearance of Hillary Rod-ham Clinton's old Rose Law Firm billing records in the White House residence is likely to remain a mystery...
...At about the same time, Hillary Rodham Clinton denied any payoffs to Hubbell and said the suspicions were "part of the continuing saga of Whitewater...
...Or he might be willing to talk about an October 1993 White House meeting with Clinton, a session that took place as government regulators were bearing down on the Madison case (the two bitter rivals later said they discussed Arkansas highways...
...But a month later, congressional investigators found a report from an FBI agent who said Nussbaum had "advised that he has known the appointee Craig Livingstone...
...Nine months later, in December, Hubbell pleaded guilty...
...But the source adds that "is difficult to do without direct evidence...
...But sources say Starr's staff has not been in contact with Nussbaum for more than a year, which suggests that the investigation is all but over...
...Beyond that, the White House explanation of the way the records were "discovered" was difficult to believe...
...Given that there has apparently been little investigation of the matter in the last year, it seems that Starr's team has gotten no further than Senate investigators before them...
...So there is plenty of reason to suspect that the Hubbell payments were something other than simple friendly generosity...
...But how can Starr find out more...
...Given the war of words that has erupted lately between Mrs...
...You've got to pierce the pretext that they were helping a friend," says a source...
...Several months earlier, during a March 1994 meeting at the White House, then-chief of staff Mack McLarty told the first lady that he, McLarty, would arrange for some money for Hubbell...
...Pointing to "the prospect of a lengthy trial of a former governor who was forced out of office and who is a convicted felon already," this source says that perhaps "there was not enough there to make it worth the expenditure of resources to prosecute it...
...Within three weeks of the discovery of the records, Starr subpoenaed Mrs...
...The memo was writ-en in the fall of 1993 but not released by he White House until January 1996...
...The report might instead simply recite the number of witnesses interviewed, the number of documents reviewed, the amount of investigationundertaken—and the decision not to prosecute...
...Starr's other report, his final report, might turn out to be a bit of a surprise...
...Clinton, Starr had begun that probe on the Monday before their Wednesday meeting...
...And before he is finished, the White-water independent counsel might well end up writing two reports...
...Hubbell," when they arranged for the payments, Bill Clinton told reporters last year...
...There is one more name that has become entangled in the Filegate investigation...
...McDougal could be charged with criminal contempt, which could lead to her being imprisoned for three to five years—apart from her Whitewater fraud sentence and any sentence that might result if she is convicted on unrelated theft charges in California...
...Likewise, if Webster Hubbell were to provide information about a possible scheme to pay him for silence, that might also end up in a report to Congress...
...And it's likely that the only The American Spectator • April 1998 27 direct evidence that exists will be the testimony of Webb Hubbell, should he decide to offer it...
...And it might have another effect: to uphold the rule of law...
...And Vernon Jordan put in a word for him at Revlon, leading to yet another deal...
...Robert Muse, Marceca's lawyer, did not return several calls for comment...
...Although those issues are not yet resolved, they appear headed toward conclusions that, while they will not exonerate the Clintons, will at least let them off the legal hook...
...In a court filing made public in mid"ebruary, Starr wrote that, "In March and April 1996...the Attorney General and the Special Division authorized the Jffice of the Independent Counsel to nvestigate whether particular individuals lad made false statements or committed >ther federal crimes during various govInment investigations of the firings of White House Travel Office employees" italics added...
...That might diminish her hopes for a bonanza in book and movie rights and nudge her in the direction of cooperating with Starr...
...City officials appeared angry at Hubbell...
...Again, the controversy ended up in Starr's office...
...As a whole, it's a reasonable conclusion that some parts of the investigation have been effectively completed," says another person with knowledge of Starr's operation...
...Senators also wanted to know about more than a dozen phone calls to the White House made by Hillary Clinton's friend Susan Thomases in the hours and days after Foster's death...
...A possible breakthrough occurred in late February when former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker—already convicted in the first Whitewater trial—pleaded guilty to a second set of felony charges unrelated to Whitewater...
...Tax issues are always lurking when you get a lot of money like that," says a source who has closely followed the investigation...
...But where did the investigation stand at the moment Monica Lewinsky sent Starr moving in a new direction...
...Some observers think it is curious that Hamilton would fight all the way to the nation's highest court to keep the notes secret if there is nothing embarrassing to the Clintons in them, but at this point their content is impossible to know...
...The $49,500 no-compete contract was arranged for Hubbell by former Commerce Secretary and current Clinton scandal lawyer Mickey Kantor...
...His probe has resulted in three trial convictions—including one of a sitting governor—and twelve guilty pleas...
...But the White Houseaccusations are simply not supported by the evidence...
...76 April 9 9 8 • The American Spectator -le also said the firings were part of the president's order to reduce White House taff by 25 percent...
...In interviews for this story, defense lawyers were asked a question about Starr's practices: Had they ever felt that Starr or his staffers were trying to squeeze their clients, trying to get them to say things they couldn't truthfully say...
...Another figure closely involved in the Travel Office affair, former associate White House counsel William Kennedy III, declined to comment...
...And the amount of money that Hubbell took from the city— $25,000—while certainly enough to charge Hubbell with a felony, might not result in the kind of long prison sentence that would persuade Hubbell to cooperate...
...Starr won a lower court ruling, and the issue is now before the Supreme Court...
...But another warns that the simple fact that Starr agreed to a plea deal with Tucker does not in itself mean that Tucker has extremely valuable information...
...There were these prolonged periods of silence," Brand says, "so I assume they had concluded whatever they were going to conclude...
...But that's not really an accurate description of the probe...
...It just seems to be one of those mysteries," says a knowledgeable source...
...Firing the staff, lying to the press, and even calling in the FBI, while reprehensible, were not necessarily prosecutable offenses...
...Randall Turk, an attorney for Craig Livingstone, says Starr's office has sent signals that Livingstone is in the clear...
...Clinton's work for the corrupt Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan...
...Then Starr's prosecutors brought the newly convicted Susan McDougal in front of the Little Rock grand jury...
...Starr's office, says a source, "wants to see what's in them before they do anything...
...He potentially has a lot of information, and by virtue of his background and stature, he's more credible" than Jim McDougal or David Hale, says one knowledgeable source...
...And she said she didn't know who hired Craig Livingstone, the White House operative who ran the file project...
...So far, of course, that hasn't happened...
...The outlines of the story are well known...
...Beyond that, much of the rest of the Whitewater investigation is nearly over...
...It is unlikely they will help Starr...
...the whole thing was over in about ten minutes...
...Those sources say Starr's staff has studied the issues involved in writing a final report...
...Serving out all her sentences won't be a problem, McDougal's attorney recently told the Washington Post...
...A few have made references to police-state tactics, and at least one participant, Lewinsky's father, obliquely compared Starr to Adolf Hitler...
...Facing time in jail, Tucker might provide new information on Castle Grande...
...Nine days before his death, Foster, who expected to be investigated for his role in the firings, met with attorney James Hamilton...
...Of course, that may have had something to do with the length of the meeting...
...The experts found prints from Mrs...
...Nussbaum said he had never discussed Craig Livingstone with First Lady Hillary Rod-ham Clinton, adding that "I do not know who brought Mr...
...That would really put the screws on her," says a knowledgeable source...
...The question quickly ended up in Starr's hands...
...The list included the names of James Baker, Marlin Fitzwater, Tony Blankley, and Kenneth Duberstein, among many others...
...He sent the original records to the FBI lab for fingerprint analysis...
...The Lippo group, source of hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable campaign contributions to Bill Clinton, became Hubbell's biggest single client...
...The subpoena was widely interpreted as a sign of Starr's impatience with her cooperation—or lack of it— in the investigation...
...If no one is indicted in the Hubbell case, for example, we won't learn much about the efforts to get him that $500,000...
...Instead, the White House has turned the tables on Starr in a very public campaign to discredit him...
...Starr's team looked for evidence to support the theory that Livingstone and Marceca, acting on orders from higher-ups at the White House, were searching for dirt on Republicans...
...The brevity of the questioning immediately set Starr-watchers to speculating...
...Sources say it has been more than a year since Starr's investigators have questioned any of the principals in the case...
...But there was one intriguing fact about the session...
...Whatever the answers, such questions were soon forgotten amid news of the Monica Lewinsky affair (unbeknownst to Mrs...
...Which leads to an admittedly unconventional conclusion...
...Rather, it might be the kind that has to be addressed politically, either by defeat at the ballot box, congressional action, or simple public outrage...
...Was Stan about to move aggressively on a broad range of new charges against the Clintons and their associates...
...There, when prosecutors decide not to prosecute a case, they don't issue a report explaining their decision...
...THE BILLING RECORDS AND FOSTER'S PAPERS It was a revelation that electrified the Senate Whitewater Committee...
...Aide Carolyn Huber said she simply looked down one day and saw the records lying on a table in the book room, a small chamber in the White House residence...
...And there is now evidence to suggest that Starr did just hat...
...No," says Benito Romano, attorney for Susan Thomases...
...he was quickly acquitted by a Washington jury...
...I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that he did anything willfully, intentionally wrong...
...And the report made extensive use of secret grand jury testimony to make a public case against people Walsh did not indict...
...It is possibly the central crime of Whitewater, at least the Arkansas phase of Whitewater...
...Specifically, he was authorized to look into whether Marceca had lied to inves28 Ap r i 1 9 9 8 • The American Spectator tigators...
...Stephen Braga, attorney for Catherine Cornelius, the young staffer who wanted to take over the Travel Office, says, "I have not heard anything from them in a year, nor do I believe anyone else has...
...Starr—along with his predecessor, Robert Fiske—has spent four years and about $40 million investigating the constellation of events now known simply as Whitewater...
...But she said she just didn't know...
...But historians might one day conclude that Bill and Hillary Clinton—despite their loud protests—were lucky to have one as even-handed as Kenneth Starr...
...Will the notes contain critical information...
...At this point, there is just one investigative loose end, which is a dispute over notes taken by a lawyer for Vincent Foster...
...The general feeling is that the [ Starr] report will not describe in any detail the evidence in unindicted cases because that would inevitably tar the reputations of the people who were not indicted...
...There is, for example, the fraudulent $300,000 governmentbacked loan that was obtained by the Clintons' former business partner Susan McDougal...
...Given that, the Los Angeles consulting deal becomes quite important...
...The removal of documents from Vincent Foster's office following his suicide will also probably conclude with no prosecutions...
...She can do this time," the lawyer said, "standing on her head...
...Many people in Washington have speculated that Starr will write a report to the House on the Lewinsky matter, but he might also write a report based on other aspects of his investigation...
...It appears that this case too, like that of the billing records, remains essentially unresolved...
...Instead, the Starr team is leaning toward an approach that is closer to the traditional practice of the Justice Department...
...The Justice Department even prosecuted (Continued on page 76) The American Spectator • April 1998 29 York/Starr (Continued from page 29) the office director, Billy Dale, on embezzlement charges...
...WEBB In March 1994, the Clintons' close friend Webster Hubbell was forced to resign his post as the number-three man in the Justice Department because of allegations he stole nearly $5oo,000 from his —and the first lady's —old law firm...
...A special TAS report BY BYRON YORK 0n Wednesday, January 4, Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr went to the White House to question First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton...
...The American Spectator • April 1998 25 case, plus a look at recent court documents, all suggest that most of what we know as Whitewater was actually winding down at the time of the Lewinsky revelations...
...But the billing records told a different story, revealing that Mrs...
...We also know that several other friends and political supporters of the president pitched in to arrange help for Hubbell...
...A related issue is the removal of papers—perhaps including the billing records—from Foster's office on the night of July zo, 1993, and in the days thereafter...
...Given the stark differences between the accounts of the lawyers interviewed for this story and those involved in the current battle, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the screaming denunciations of Starr are just the diversionary tactics of people who are in a great deal of trouble...
...In an appearance before the House Government teform and Oversight Committee on Janiary 17, 1996, Watkins, under oath, stood by he wording of his memo...
...Hubbell received a lot of money in a short period of time in 1994...
...On January 5,1996, the White House announced that it had discovered the "missing" billing records that itemized Mrs...
...Remember that Starr's niginal order said that only David Watkins was to be investigated...
...But it remains to be seen how much they would help in an actual prosecution...
...The subject was the scandal commonly known as Filegate—the Clinton White House's improper acquisition of hundreds of FBI files on Republicans from previous administrations...
...But the early investigation revealed no solid proof to support the theory...
...He is required by law to advise the House of Representatives if he finds evidence he thinks may be grounds for impeachment, and he is also required to write a final report on his entire investigation...
...None of that is formally the subject of Starr's inquiry...
...Of course, they have all said they were just coming to the aid of a close friend...
...But he added, "In my personal view, it's not very likely they'll go after Tony Marceca...
...Clinton to testify before the Washington grand jury...
...And even on the common-sense assumption that Livingstone and Marceca might have been searching for secrets on their own, it appears that there is no solid evidence on which to bring an indictment...
...Part of the study was a review of previous independent counsel reports...
...The records had been subpoenaed more than two years earlier...
...on previous occasions, he had allowed her to be questioned at the White House...
...Clinton had steadfastly maintained that she did very little work for Madison...
...Accompanied by lawyers for both sides, they met in the second-floor Treaty Room...
...I have never gotten the impression that there was any pressure to finger anybody...
...Most of that was in the form of contracts for work that Hubbell refused to describe, leading to suspicions that the money was paid to Hubbell to buy his silence in Whitewater...
...But the first lady, speaking through a White House lawyer, had told the GAO hat she "had no role in the decision to terninate the employees," and "does not :now the origin of the decision to remove he White House Travel Office employes...
...Perhaps the most controversial of those reports was the one produced by Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh...
...During the Senate Whitewater hearings, a Secret Service officer testified that he saw Margaret Williams, who at the time was the first lady's chief of staff, leaving Foster's office the first night with several file folders...
...She has made it clear that she is content to stay in jail rather than answer questions about Bill Clinton's involvement in White-water...
...THE MOST ETHICAL INDEPENDENT COUNSEL IN HISTORY So that is the state of the investigation—minus Monica Lewinsky...
...But it might not be prosecutable fishy business...
...There seemed to be reason to invesigate the truthfulness of her statements—lot just Watkins...
...He had tears in his eyes as he stood before a federal judge in Little Rock, admitting his wrongdoing and promising to cooperate with Starr...
...You know, the never ending fictional conspiracy that, honest to goodness, reminds me of some people's obsession with UFOs and the HaleBopp comet...
...Hubbell also got good deals with the telephone company Sprint, Time Warner, and smaller companies run by Clinton campaign contributors...
...Starr's mandate was more specific...
...It seems likely that Starr will wrap up his probe not only by declining to bring many new charges, but also taking great care not to damage reputations that might be destroyed by a less principled prosecutor...
...Clinton and Stan, the meeting was remarkably free of acrimony...
...they shared their audit with Starr and testified before the Washington grand jury...
...Reports that rake people over the coals while not charging them are not well-advised," says one person familiar with the workings of Starr's office...
...Last year, the Los Angeles Times reported that Clinton confidante Marsha Scott visited Hubbell regularly while he was in prison, often bringing messages from the Clintons...
...The Walsh report accused several figures in the Reagan and Bush administrations of wrongdoing even though Walsh decided not to prosecute them...
...Starr subpoenaed the notes more than two years ago, but Hamilton has resisted, arguing that attorney-client privilege protects the notes even though the client is dead...
...If that view prevails, it is likely the Starr report will not lay out the evidence his investigators have gathered...
...We were specifically told that she was not a target," Romano says of Thomases...
...At the McDougal trial, both Jim and Susan McDougal denied that Clinton played any role in the loan arrangements...
...She was very friendly," says a person who knows what went on in the room...
...So Tucker remains a question mark...
...In ight of the first lady's insistence for immehate action," Watkins wrote, "the abrupt nanner of dismissal, from my perspective, vas the only option...
...So the impression that emerges after a detailed look at Starr's investigation is that it has been extremely careful, cautious, and fair—certainly not the work of the partisan attack dog...
...They had concluded that he hadn't done anything wrong...
...not surprisingly, news of the meeting was buried deep inside the next day's papers...
...Part of that illegal money went into the Whitewater corporation, and Starr has been trying to determine whether Bill Clinton lied in 1996 when he denied any knowledge of it...
...In the long run, it might turn out that the corruption inside the Clinton White House is simply not the kind of wrongdoing that can be addressed by an independent counsel...
...Williams denied it and insisted she had gone to Foster's office that night with the "irrational hope that I would walk in and find Vince Foster there...
...With all their other issues, to divert resources to prosecute her does not seem to be highly likely...
...After the trial, Jim McDougal decided to cooperate with Starr and changed his story, saying Bill Clinton did indeed know about the loan...
...The idea that higher-ups ordered the file project has apparently not panned out...
...Our dealings with this independent counsel were always professional and very cordial...
...But those statements vere later dramatically undercut by the publication of Watkins' so-called "soul leansing" memo...
...TRAVEL GATE It is widely assumed that Starr has been investigating the 1993 firing of the White House Travel Office staff...
...No," says Stephen Braga, Catherine Cornelius' lawyer...
...There would be "hell o pay," Watkins continued, if he "failed o take swift and decisive action in confornity with the first lady's wishes...
...The investigation, which at times has seemed like an amorphous, far-reaching search for facts, has now become narrowly focused on just a few issues...
...an audit done by the Los Angeles controller's office concluded that Hubbell had bilked the city and suggested prosecution might be in order...
...Mrs...
...That doesn't mean suspicions do not remain, but suspicions—even when supported by some circumstantial evidence—are not a sufficient basis for criminal charges...
...Never," says Randall Turk, who represents Craig Livingstone...
...Lawyers for other figures involved in the issue also confirm they have not been contacted by Starr's office in at least a year, all of which suggests that Starr does not plan to indict anyone in this matter...
...But sources close to Starr's office are simply not sure precisely how helpful Tucker will be...
...His investigators "were all gung-ho on that one," says a knowledgeable source...
...In fact, it was downright upbeat...
...According to several published accounts, the first lady told Starr she didn't know anything about the retrieval of the files...
...I didn't know who left them there," Huber told the Senate committee...
...who] had come highly recommended to him by Hillary Clinton, who has known his mother...
...Others, speaking on background, said much the same thing...
...The stories they tell stand in sharp contrast to the accusations that have been directed at Starr during the Monica Lewin-sky affair...
...After her testimony, the first lady told reporters that "I, like everyone else, would like to know the answer about how those documents showed up after all these years...
...It vas in the form of a letter written—but 'ever sent—to Mack McLarty...
...FBI Director Louis Freeh called the files project an "egregious violation of privacy" and said he and the FBI had been "victimized" by the White House...
...After all, most of the people from whom Hubbell took money were paying him as a political favor and thus didn't care if he failed to actually perform any work...
...To do so, he would have to prove that they arranged for Hubbell's business deals in exchange for his silence on Whitewater...
...None accused Starr of pressuring witnesses...
...And the same is true with Filegate...
...In recent weeks, several lawyers, including the president's own, have accused Starr of unethical behavior—or worse...
...Someone did...
...It was a story she had told many times in the past...
...I can't believe they want to prosecute Susan for criminal contempt," says another knowledgeable source...
...Senate investigators immediately suspected that the records—which had been examined by Vincent Foster during the 1992 campaign—might have been among the documents removed from Foster's office and taken to the White House residence in the aftermath of his death...
...If Hubbell did not pay all his taxes, that would certainly be Starr's strongest weapon against him...
...Still, the White House session on Filegate raises questions about the Starr investigation...
...But several subsequent revelations have tended to support hush-money suspicions...
...There is some basis for that hope...
...Asked if he believes Starr's office has exonerated Marceca, Turk answered, "That's not a fair way to characterize it...
...Starr, meanwhile, was grasping at straws in a search for physical evidence that might connect someone in the White House to the records...
...There is a good chance that, unless new evidence appears or some crucial witness decides to cooperate, Starr will not be able to make a case...
...His attorney, former House Iran-Contra counsel John Nields, declined to comment...
...But would Starr be able to charge any individuals higher up the chain...
...The paper also reported that Scott traveled to Little Rock to meet with Hubbell at the time he was first called before the Whitewater grand jury...
...But Hubbell didn't keep his word...
...In our encounters, they handled themselves very professionally...
...On more than 15o occasions during her testimony before the Senate, Thomases said that she did not recall some of the conversations and events in question...
...She also told federal regulators that she didn't remember doing any work for a real estate deal called Castle Grande, a sham transaction that involved, in varying degrees, such figures as the McDougals, Tucker, Hubbell, and Hubbell's relatives...
...If there were going to be charges brought in those areas, they probably would have been brought by now...
...Another plum that came Hubbell's way was a consulting deal with the city of Los Angeles...
...If Starr doesn't get the help he requires, both investigations will likely end without any further action...
...Susan McDougal's intransigence has put Starr in a bind: he needs more witnesses if he is to make a case against the president...
...THE REPORT Even if Starr brings no more criminal cases, he is still required to report on his work...
...Clinton, Foster, Huber, and Huber's assistant But they found nothing that told them anything about the records' chain of custody...
...Persons with cnowledge of Watkins' situation say it has peen more than a year since he had anysubstantive contact with Starr—adding that Watkins does not expect to be charged with anything...
...Livingstone into the White House...
...And Stanley Brand, attorney for George Stephanopoulos, says his client last made a Travel Office-related appearance before the Washington grand jury nearly two years ago...
...rile American Spectator • April 9 9 8 77 It is fair to say that some of Starr's lawyers view Walsh's work as a model of how not to write a final report...
...The Clinton administration, anxious to steer White House business to the president's friends, made up allegations of financial wrongdoing against the Travel Office staff...
...Lawyers for others involved in the investigation say the same thing...
...There is no indication that she will ever cooperate...
...If, for example, some previously uncooperative witness is able to provide credible information about the $300,000 loan—pointing to the possibility that Clinton lied under oath when he denied knowledge of the loan—Starr might well report that to Congress...
...But it is not clear whether the same applies to Marceca...
...Finally, while Hubbell was in jail, he kept in close contact with the White House...
...In that prison she will not be free to appear in the media —as she did recently on CNN's "Larry King Live"—and thus will be less able to keep her case in the public eye...
...And as Starr assesses Tucker's value, he still has to decide what to do with Susan McDougal...
...In addition, Starr's probe of the firings of the White House Travel Office staff seems largely complete, and, barring the appearance of new information, it appears unlikely he will take any action there...
...On October 25,1996, the court gave Starr authority to investigate whether former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum committed perjury when he testified beforea House committee on June 26, 1996...
...Watkins had told the GAO that the decision to fire the Travel Office staff was the result of a study of the office conducted by the accounting firm Peat Marwick...
...FILEGATE It is difficult to recall the excitement of many Republicans in June 1996 when it became known that the White House had improperly requested—and received—the FBI files of hundreds of members of previous Republican administrations...
...To thumb one's nose at the law, which McDougal has done, ultimately undermines the system...
...Since then, she has served nearly 18 months in jail and has loudly accused Starr of police-state tactics...
...Perhaps, he says, Starr had nearly as much motivation as Tucker to make a deal...
...This contact, incidentally, led Starr to question whether Jordan's endorsement of Monica Lewinsky to the same company was part of an effort to buy her silence...
...Some who have followed the investigation closely believe that the government simply cannot tolerate McDougal's behavior...
...The last time we spoke it was quite obvious from what they were saying that they had no intention of pursuing anything against Craig," Turk says...
...no indictments there...
...Did it mean that Starr was just wrapping up the loose ends of an investigation that was over—in which he would take no action against the Clinton White House...
...Of course, it remains an open question whether it is Starr's job to to continue pressing this point...
...Both the president and the first lady denied it...
...The probe has uncovered an enormous number of clear contradictions in testimony, suspicious circumstances, and downright fishy business involving the Clintons...
...McDougal refused to answer, leading Judge Susan Webber Wright to cite her with civil contempt of court...
...No one had any idea...what the nature of the allegations were against Mr...
Vol. 31 • April 1998 • No. 4
