ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- In a surprise move, Julie Hiatt Steele's
lawyers rested their case today without calling any witnesses,
saying prosecutors failed to prove that she had hindered Kenneth
Starr's investigation of President Clinton.
Ms. Steele is charged with lying to investigators to undercut
former White House employee Kathleen Willey's allegation that
Clinton made an unwanted sexual advance.
Defense lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton to
dismiss all four charges of obstructing Starr's investigation and
making a false statement to the FBI.
When Hilton said the case would continue, Steele lawyer Nancy
Luque told him, ``Your honor, the defense rests.''
In opening statements, the defense team had told jurors that Ms.
Steele would take the witness stand in her own behalf.
Ms. Steele testified before two grand juries that her onetime
close friend, Mrs. Willey, didn't take her into her confidence
about the 1993 encounter. Ms. Steele says she first heard about the
alleged incident in 1997, when Mrs. Willey asked her to lie to a
Newsweek reporter to corroborate the story.
The contradiction between the two women's stories was one factor
that prevented Starr from including the Willey matter in his
impeachment referral to the House in the Monica Lewinsky
investigation.
Ms. Steele is the only person indicted by the independent
counsel's office in the Lewinsky investigation.
Out of the presence of jurors, Steele lawyer Andrew Hurst had
argued that even if Ms. Steele had told lies to investigators,
Starr's prosecutors failed to show the statements were material to
either the independent counsel's investigation or Paula Jones'
sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.
In arguing for dismissal, Hurst said the affidavit that Ms.
Steele signed for the Jones lawsuit was deemed unimportant by
Clinton lawyer Mitch Ettinger, whose testimony for the prosecution
Tuesday was contentious.
Declaring that Ms. Steele's statements were not material to
either the Jones case or Starr's investigation, Hurst said ``I
would submit, judge, they are trying to blow this one by you'' by
seeking to convict Ms. Steele for alleged lies that are not tied to
any official proceeding.
But Hilton said he found ``sufficient evidence'' to go forward
on all the counts. ``This defendant knew of the Jones case and knew
of these grand jury investigations,'' the judge said of Ms. Steele.
Earlier today, prosecutors rested their case after three days of
testimony, including Mrs. Willey's account of what she described as
a ``very forceful'' sexual advance by Clinton in a hallway next to
the Oval Office.
Mrs. Willey confided the encounter to at least five other
people, while Ms. Steele related it to at least three people,
according to evidence presented to jurors.
With so many witnesses saying they were told about a
Clinton-Willey encounter, Ms. Steele's lawyers faced a tough
argument -- that Mrs. Willey never took her onetime close friend,
Ms. Steele, into her confidence.
On the third day of the trial Wednesday, prosecution witness Amy
Horan testified that she initially refrained from telling Starr's
grand jury some information because Ms. Steele was so insistent
that she'd never confided the Clinton-Willey encounter to Mrs.
Horan.
``I don't think she was trying to change my story,'' Mrs. Horan
said of Ms. Steele. But before Mrs. Horan testified in Starr's
probe, Ms. Steele insisted ``we have never discussed this.''
Mrs. Horan testified that ``due to our conversation, I couldn't
be sure'' that she'd been told of the alleged incident as early as
1993. The uncertainty made her hold back telling that to the grand
jury. But Mrs. Horan testified she is positive Ms. Steele told her
of the alleged advance in September 1996.
Mrs. Horan said Ms. Steele's legal team made her feel ``awful''
before the trial in the course of ``four or five'' phone calls and
four face-to-face meetings. They reminded Mrs. Horan that her
friend Ms. Steele ``was facing 20 to life'' if convicted, she said.
Besides Mrs. Horan, two other witnesses -- longtime friend Mary
Highsmith and Richmond, Va., TV producer William Poveromo -- said
Ms. Steele informed them of the alleged incident.
There was testimony at the trial that Mrs. Willey told at least
five other people besides Ms. Steele: Ruthie Eisen, Linda Tripp,
Marlene MacDonald, Betsy Pond, all of whom are former White House
staffers; and a Virginia woman, Diane Martin.
