WASHINGTON -- Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr sent Congress four box loads of documents yesterday regarding President Clinton's alleged sexual advance on Kathleen Willey, just in time to present the new evidence at impeachment hearings set to begin in six days.
Starr did not suggest, however, any new impeachable offenses based on the Willey evidence. The new material is unlikely to satisfy House Republicans who had hoped Starr would implicate Clinton in matters involving financial improprieties or abuse of presidential power, not another allegation of sexual misconduct.
The documents reached Capitol Hill as Starr secured a 15-count indictment of Webster L. Hubbell -- his third indictment of Hubbell. A Clinton confidant, former law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton and former top Justice Department official, Hubbell served a year and a half in prison for defrauding his law partners and clients but has so far fought off Starr's additional charges of tax evasion.
Now, Starr accuses Hubbell of lying to federal banking regulators and the House of Representatives while impeding federal investigations of a failed Arkansas savings and loan and a land deal known as Castle Grande.
The indictment makes veiled references to the first lady, though there is nothing in it to suggest that she is at risk of being charged. But there is nothing to rule out that possibility.
Starr has long investigated whether Clinton allies tried to buy Hubbell's silence on Whitewater-related matters by sending him stream of consulting fees for which Hubbell did little or no work. Yesterday's indictment made no mention of any such alleged hush money.
Hubbell denied the latest charges yesterday and accused Starr of a vicious vendetta aimed at forcing the Clinton ally to unfairly implicate the president in illegalities stemming from the failure of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.
"I just do not know what it's going to take to make this matter end," a despondent-looking Hubbell said. "What I do know is that I don't know of any wrongdoing on behalf of the first lady or the president, and nothing the independent counsel can do to me is going to make me lie about that."
Hubbell's attorney, John Nields, said: "It is wrong for a prosecutor to keep on indicting the same person over and over again in the hope that he may some day tell him something about his real quarry, [the president]," adding that Hubbell "did not think this could happen in America."
The independent counsel's double-barreled move signaled that Starr was not about to back down from his investigation, even as he prepares to appear Thursday as the first -- and possibly the only -- witness in the Clinton impeachment hearings.
It was unclear last night whether Starr's continuing investigation involves any issues involving the first lady, especially regarding the Whitewater land deal. The Hubbell indictment hinted that Starr has focused on Mrs. Clinton's conduct as a Little Rock attorney.
Her name never appears in the indictment; the references are all to the "billing partner" of the Rose Law Firm who was in charge of the legal transactions in 1985 and 1986. But Hubbell testified in 1995 that Mrs. Clinton was that partner.
The Willey documents, including testimony from key witnesses and other materials in two identical sets of two boxes, were not presented as evidence of a separate impeachable offense. Rather, the material can be used by the House Judiciary Committee next week to bolster Starr's original charges that Clinton lied under oath, obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses to cover up his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
In a brief letter to the Judiciary Committee's chief investigators, Starr's deputy, Robert J. Bittman, called the Willey evidence "investigative materials" related to the original Starr report on Lewinsky and "available for the committee's review."
Willey has charged that Clinton made an unwanted sexual advance on her near the Oval Office when she visited him in 1993 to discuss her financial troubles. For months, Starr has investigated whether Clinton lied under oath before Starr's grand jury when he denied the advance and whether the president's allies -- including Nathan Landow, a former Maryland Democratic Party chairman -- pressured Willey and other witnesses to remain silent or to change their stories.
Democrats quickly dismissed the importance of Starr's latest submission. On Sept. 9, Starr forwarded 18 boxes of documents on the Lewinsky investigation with a detailed report outlining 15 possibly impeachable offenses. Judiciary Committee investigators had been expecting another impeachment referral on the Willey matter but apparently received only raw evidence to consider in their impeachment deliberations.
Rep. Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Starr sent the material in response to an Oct. 2 request by the committee for further material stemming from his investigation. The material will not be made public until the committee votes to release it, Hyde said.
The form of the evidence could mean that Starr did not believe he had strong enough evidence to draft a separate, potentially impeachable charge, Judiciary Committee investigators and other lawyers said yesterday.
"I think it means he has not found evidence to sustain [Willey's] allegation, and he does not find it credible," said Nancy Luque, a lawyer involved in the Willey matter.
Committee Republicans had hoped that their request for new material would prompt Starr to release evidence implicating the president in wrongdoing related to the Whitewater land deal and Madison Guaranty as well as to the abuse of FBI personnel files and the improper firing of the White House travel office.
Such evidence could move the impeachment proceedings squarely away from the sexual realm to allegations of abuse of presidential power that could attract more interest from the public.
Starr's response to the request for more information has yielded only another allegation related to sexual impropriety, suggesting that the matters involving Whitewater, the FBI files and the travel office will not come before the committee when impeachment hearings convene.
And Democrats immediately questioned the timing of the new evidence, just six days before impeachment hearings are to begin.
"If reports as to the contents of the boxes are indeed true, this is a punt by Ken Starr," said James Jordan, a spokesman for Judiciary Committee Democrats. "This is public relations, not prosecution."
If Republicans use the material to bolster a case for impeachment, Democrats are almost certain to assail Willey's credibility, Democratic sources said. Willey told her story publicly in March on "60 Minutes," briefly becoming a cause celebre.
The White House responded with a barrage of friendly letters that Willey had written to the president long after his alleged sexual advance, suggesting that Willey's claims of a traumatic sexual advance were disingenuous. The president testified to Starr's grand jury that Willey had not told the truth.
And a friend of Willey, Julie Hiatt Steele, went public to say that Willey had asked her to lie to a Newsweek reporter about the events in the Oval Office. Starr responded to Steele's statements with an investigation to determine whether the White House had pressured Steele to change her story.
Luque, Steele's attorney, ventured that Starr would now drop his case against her client and against Landow, whom Starr suspected of pressuring Willey to remain silent.
Pub Date: 11/14/98