January 17, 1999

The Trial May End, but the Trials Will Go On

---

Related Articles

Issue in Depth: Clinton Impeachment Trial

Forums

Join a Discussion on The Impeachment Trial

---

By JILL ABRAMSON

ASHINGTON -- Whether they want to see President Clinton driven from office or whether they have completely tuned out the Senate impeachment trial, Americans, on the first anniversary of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, do agree on one thing: They want it to be over.

Associated Press

Monica S. Lewinsky.

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell has called the matter "the most investigated sexual relationship in all of human history." But when the end will come for the investigation of Clinton's liaison with the former White House intern depends on the definition of end.

The dissection of the Lewinsky affair will continue at least as long as the Senate trial grinds on -- no one is sure how long that will be -- and probably a lot longer.

There are three criminal cases pending involving peripheral figures in the Clinton scandals: Webster Hubbell, Susan McDougal and Julie Hiatt Steele. Three more investigative bodies are looking into aspects of the Lewinsky case. And even that is not necessarily the end. If Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr believes anyone lied during the Senate trial, he could seek more indictments.

All this from what began nearly five years ago as an inquiry into Clinton's involvement in a real-estate deal in 1978, the year Clinton was first elected governor of Arkansas.

Polls show that a majority of voters want censure and a quick end to the proceedings. More than 60 percent of voters in most recent polls oppose removing the President from office. Most of all, they are tired of the Lewinsky issue and want Congress to move on.

In a recent CNN/USA Today poll, voters ranked the impeachment trial 10th in a list of issues to which Congress should give priority in 1999, with only 16 percent citing it as an important concern.

The likeliest outcome of the unpredictable Senate trial is still that the president will not be forced from office, but will face some form of censure.

Starr and his staff are watching the trial closely. If, as part of a censure deal, the president admits that he lied under oath -- something White House advisers say is unlikely -- he could be criminally prosecuted for perjury. Although indictment of Clinton has been considered unlikely until after he leaves office, one of Starr's legal advisers, law professor Ronald Rotunda, believes that nothing in the Constitution bars the indictment of a sitting president.

Charles Bakaly, a spokesman for the Independent Counsel's Office, would not comment on any indictment speculation, including a report in December by CBS that Starr had not ruled out a deal that would free the president of future criminal liability if, during censure negotiations, he admitted perjury. The report was attributed to anonymous friends of the independent counsel.

Last fall, during a breakfast with reporters at a Washington hotel, Bakaly said he expected the Independent Counsel's Office to be in business for two more years. Now he says he has given up predicting when the office will finish its business.

Actually, the investigation has a life of its own. The only person who could remove Starr is Attorney General Janet Reno, and that is all but unthinkable, for political reasons. And even if she did remove him -- or if he resigned -- the work of the office would continue until all trials and appeals were completed and final reports written on all matters under investigation.

"The office is seeking to conclude the investigative phase and matters it was assigned to by the special division as quickly as possible, and then complete any prosecutions that arise from that," Bakaly said last week.

While Starr has stayed offstage since his marathon testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in November, he has hardly vanished from the scene. And the president is not the only one still in Starr's line of sight. If the Senate calls witnesses, Starr's staff will review their testimony to see if it square with what they told his grand jury. And if witnesses veer too far from what they told the grand jury last year, they, too, could face perjury charges.

Ms. Lewinsky, who became a cooperating witness for Starr's office, could find her immunity agreement revoked if she is called before the Senate and tells a different story.

On Jan. 7, the opening day of the president's impeachment trial, Starr's office sent out a stark reminder that it is still up and running by indicting Ms. Steele, one of the peripheral figures in the Lewinsky investigation. Ms. Steele's prosecution will provide yet another occasion for the president's sexual conduct to be deconstructed.

On Tuesday, Ms. Steele is to be arraigned in Federal court in Alexandria, Va., on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice arising from the Kathleen E. Willey tentacle of the Lewinsky investigation. This tentacle sprouted when Mr. Starr began investigating whether President Clinton was truthful about his relationship with Ms. Willey, a former White House volunteer who says the President groped her, and whether there had been unlawful attempts to influence her testimony in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case. Ms. Steele, a confidante of Ms. Willey, has said Ms. Willey asked her to falsely confirm her allegations about the White House grope. Ms. Steele's lawyer said the charges against her were politically timed and without merit.

Mr. Bakaly said the case against Ms. Steele was filed when it was ready and the timing had nothing to do with the beginning of President Clinton's impeachment trial.

Then there is the trial of Ms. McDougal, scheduled to begin March 8 in Little Rock. A former Arkansas business associate of the Clintons, Ms. McDougal faces charges of criminal contempt for refusing to answer Mr. Starr's questions about the President.

Mr. Hubbell, the former Associate Attorney General who was indicted for a third time by Mr. Starr last year, is to be tried on fraud and false statement charges in June in Washington. Meanwhile, Mr. Starr is awaiting a decision on his appeal of a tax case against Mr. Hubbell that was dismissed by the trial judge.

These cases could provide problems for President Clinton, especially in the unlikely event that either Ms. McDougal or Mr. Hubbell decides to cooperate with Mr. Starr. Ms. McDougal has loudly accused Mr. Starr's office of mistreating her and has said she knows of no criminal conduct by the Clintons. And Mr. Hubbell warned that Mr. Starr's prosecutors "can indict my dog, they can indict my cat, but I'm not going to lie about the President."

Still underway is an inquiry ordered last fall by Norma Holloway Johnson, a Federal judge in Washington, into whether Mr. Starr improperly leaked confidential information about his investigation to reporters.

HERE are also two open investigations involving Linda Tripp, Ms. Lewinsky's former friend whose taping of their telephone conversations set off the inquiry a year ago. A Maryland prosecutor is looking into whether she violated that state's wiretapping law, and Mr. Starr's office is examining her tape recordings to determine whether any were doctored.

And administrative business remains, including the writing of final reports on other lines of Mr. Starr's investigations of the Clintons: the Whitewater real estate deal, which was his original mandate, the firings of the White House travel staff and the White House's improper gathering of F.B.I. files. In those matters, Mr. Starr told the House Judiciary Committee, he did not find evidence of impeachable offenses or criminal wrongdoing by President Clinton. Finally, Mr. Bakaly added, it will take time to close down the Independent Counsel's Office, which has been investigating the President for nearly five years.

And then there are all the appeals.