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Starr lays out investigation of Clinton while being investigated himself
Updated November 16, 1998
7:40 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Court TV)— Independent Counsel Ken Starr is scheduled to appear Nov. 19 before the House Judiciary Committee as the key witness against President Clinton. However Starr may have to answer questions about his own behavior -- and not just before Congress.
Newsweek reported that the Justice Department is "close to launching a formal ethics probe" into Starr, focusing on his Jan. 16 confrontation with Monica Lewinsky.
Lewinsky alleges that Starr's deputies discouraged her from calling her attorney and said any immunity deal would be jeopardized if she did so. Lewinsky said they threatened her with 27 years in prison and belittled her when the former White House intern said she wanted to call her mother.
Justice Department regulations say a person's lawyer must be present for discussion involving an immunity deal.
For several weeks the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has been weighing whether to open an investigation of Starr and his staff over the immunity episode with Lewinsky and several other complaints against Starr.
Department spokesman Myron Marlin said Sunday that "so far we have not launched an investigation into the independent counsel."
Among the many allegations sent to the department about Starr, "we have dismissed many of them as unwarranted," Marlin added Monday. "We are seeking additional information from Starr's office to see if the remaining allegations warrant investigation."
Marlin would not say which allegations had been dismissed and which are still being reviewed.
"We are gratified that a number of the allegations have been dismissed," Charles Bakaly, a spokesman for Starr's office, said.
In Congress, Democrats are expected to portray the independent counsel as a right-wing prosecutor on a rampage against Clinton in concert with the president's political opponents. Starr's motives and tactics, as much as the president's actions will be the focus of the House Judiciary Hearing set for Thursday.
John Conyers, Jr., ranking minority leader on the Judiciary committee, voiced concerns with Starr's investigation. On Oct. 27, Conyers sent a letter to Starr's office requesting evidence related to Starr's referral. That particular request seemed to focus more on the investigation itself than the president's alleged misconduct.
For example, Conyers asked for "any motion, supporting materials, evidentiary materials or notes of any presentation made or submitted on or around January 17, 1998 in support of your request to Attorney General Reno for expanded authority to investigate the Lewinsky matter."
Then on Monday, Conyers sent Starr another letter asking him to make his deputies and associates available to provide testimony to the Judiciary Committee about the details of how the Lewinsky investigation was conducted.
Democrats allege that Starr aggressively investigated the Lewinsky matter before getting formal authorization from the Justice Department, having Lewinsky's friend, Linda Tripp, wear a body wire Jan. 13 to record a conversation with the former White House intern.
After working with Starr's office, Tripp provided specifics about Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton to Paula Jones' lawyers, who then caught the president off guard with detailed questions when he testified in the lawsuit Jan. 17.
Democrats wonder why Starr's office didn't do as prosecutors frequently do in sensitive criminal investigations and stop Tripp from talking to outsiders. Some Democratic critics have suggested Starr may have tried to entrap the president.
In his letter to Starr, Conyers also requested interviews taken from Lucianne Goldberg, a literary agent, who counseled Tripp to tape her conversations with Lewinsky. Starr has been criticized for not calling Lucianne Goldberg to testify before the grand jury.
Allegedly, Goldberg was a key figure in a "right-wing conspiracy" against the president, that involved a member of Starr's former firm, Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis.
Starr could defend his involvement in the wire-tapping as fully within his discretion as a prosecutor, even though Attorney General Janet Reno didn't approve an expansion of Starr's mandate until Jan. 16.
Former Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a strong critic of Starr for pursuing the Lewinsky allegations, said, "I think his actions deserve all the scrutiny he's getting, but I'm not at all sure Starr won't do well.
"The sympathy of the public during a televised hearing is with the witness...I think of the appearance of Oliver North, who ran away with the congressional hearing in Iran-Contra."
Starr also faces an investigation by the judicial branch.
On Oct. 30, U.S. District Judge Norma Hollaway Johnson appointed a special master to look into the possible violation of secrecy rules by Starr's office, citing "serious and repetitive prima facie violations" of grand jury secrecy rules.
If the judge finds that Starr's office violated grand jury secrecy rules, she could ask Attorney General Janet Reno to remove him from office, refer any leakers to the American Bar Association for discipline, or take other action.
There is a separate investigation of Starr's office by former Justice Department lawyer Michael Shaheen into whether money from foundations controlled by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife found its way into the pocket of David Hale, a crucial Starr witness against Clinton in the original Whitewater inquiry.
The suspicion that Starr has a political agenda first arose in 1994.
Appeals court Judge David Sentelle met with Republican Sens. Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth around the time that Sentelle and two other appeals court judges named Starr prosecutor. Faircloth, who lost his bid for re-election Nov. 3, had been outspoken in demanding that Starr's predecessor, Robert Fiske, be replaced.
Sentelle said he, Faircloth and Helms did not discuss politics at their luncheon meeting.
Starr also had conversations with Paula Jones' lawyers before being named independent counsel. The two sides discussed the constitutional question of whether an incumbent president is immune to civil suit. Starr said he wasn't.
The prosecutor didn't disclose the discussions to the Justice Department when he got permission to investigate possible crimes committed by the president in the Jones case. Starr said there was no conflict and therefore no need to disclose.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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