November 24, 1998

ABROAD AT HOME / By ANTHONY LEWIS

Pattern of Deception

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OSTON -- Kenneth Starr was a smooth witness, a seeming Mr. Straight Arrow. But when you look at what he actually said -- look at his answers to questions -- he was as straight as a corkscrew.

1. Monica Lewinsky was confronted by Mr. Starr's agents in a hotel last Jan. 16. Wasn't it their purpose, he was asked in the House Judiciary Committee hearing, to get her to wear a wire and record Vernon Jordan or the President?

"It was not," Mr. Starr said. Then he obfuscated that seemingly flat denial by saying: "We said one of the things that a cooperating witness can do is assist us in consensual monitoring. We described that at a high level of generality."

In fact, Ms. Lewinsky testified before the grand jury -- in tears -- that Mr. Starr's people had pressed her to tape Betty Currie, the President's secretary, Mr. Jordan and possibly the President. Mr. Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, produced an F.B.I. interview report showing that Ms. Lewinsky's mother and father mentioned her not wanting to wear a wire.

2. Ms. Lewinsky, when surrounded by Mr. Starr's agents on Jan. 16, immediately said she wanted to talk to her lawyer, Frank Carter. The agents disparaged Mr. Carter and discouraged her from calling him. Abbe Lowell, the Democratic committee counsel, asked about that.

"We would not encourage someone who is involved in felonies, as we thought at the time, to in fact reach out to a lawyer," Mr. Starr replied. He added, "There is a very clear distinction in the law and in the rules of ethics between civil matters and criminal, and Mr. Carter was representing her in the civil matter."

Those were astounding statements for a lawyer to make. The law requires that a suspect who asks to talk to her lawyer be allowed to do so. Federal regulations explicitly require a lawyer's presence when an immunity deal is being discussed, as it was. Prosecutors have no right to reject a suspect's choice of a lawyer on the ground that he was retained originally for civil matters.

3. Mr. Starr was asked in the hearing whether he had requested Attorney General Janet Reno to assign the Lewinsky matter to him. In 250 wandering words he seemed to deny that, saying he had "worked collabora tively with the Justice Department" on the issue of jurisdiction. Ms. Reno's petition to the court to appoint him, now public, said, "Independent Counsel Starr has requested that this matter be referred to him."

4. Representative Robert Wexler, Democrat of Florida, asked, "Did your agents threaten Monica Lewinsky with 27 years in prison?" Ms. Lewinsky said they did just that in pressing her to cooperate. Mr. Starr took 125 words in reply, without answering the question.

5. Mr. Kendall asked about the extreme pressure reportedly used by Mr. Starr and his agents to make Julie Hiatt Steele, a witness in a collateral matter, testify as he wished. Mr. Starr was indignant. Four hundred words later he had not answered the question.

6. Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Mr. Kendall asked about what Judge Norma Holloway Johnson has called "serious and repetitive prima facie violations" by the Starr office of the law against leaking grand jury material, rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Mr. Starr bobbed and weaved over hundreds of words without answering a straightforward question: Had he or his staff committed what the court has defined as violations of 6(e)? He said that was "an unfair question." He said he could not answer because Judge Johnson had "sealed" her inquiry into the leaks. But the judge's order does not bar honest answers to the question.

7. The New York Times reported last month that a partner in Mr. Starr's law firm, Richard Porter, had helped steer Linda Tripp to him. Asked about that, Mr. Starr said, "I'm not recalling that specifically," and "I have not conducted an investigation." As if he had never heard of it.

It was a pattern of evasion, stonewalling, falsification. Mr. Starr even said he would "have to search my recollection" to answer questions as obvious as when he had concluded that President Clinton was not responsible for Travelgate or Filegate.

Some of Mr. Starr's defenders argue that it does not matter what he did -- only his conclusions count. That way lies the rot of liberty for all of us. To say that a prosecutor may abuse witnesses and violate the law in pursuit of his quarry is to forget bitter lessons of history.