You mean this one?
Starr Subpoena Sharpens Clash With Clinton
Inquiry: The developments show a willingness by Kenneth Starr to take a
particularly confrontational tack with his White House adversaries.
By DAVID WILLMAN, ELIZABETH SHOGREN and RONALD J. OSTROW, Times Staff Writers
Starr Subpoena Sharpens Clash With Clinton
WASHINGTON-Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr signaled
Tuesday that he will prosecute White House officials if he
believes they have spread false information about his
staff-escalating to frenetic proportions his confrontation with
President Clinton and his aides.
In an extraordinary day of rhetorical combat, Starr summoned to a
federal court Sidney Blumenthal, a senior Clinton aide who has helped
map the White House political assaults on Starr.
Starr took the additional step of subpoenaing any notes or records
of Blumenthal's that deal with news media contacts-prompting
reactions of outrage from the White House and elsewhere.
"It's us today and probably you tomorrow," White House
spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters.
The developments show a willingness by Starr to take a particularly
confrontational tack with his White House adversaries and to absorb
fiercely critical reviews in the process.
Said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil
Liberties Union: "The independent counsel is a government official and
the conduct of his office is fair game for public comment and criticism.
. . . What Ken Starr perceives as suspicious behavior, the framers of
the Constitution saw in a very different light. They called it free
speech."
By seeking to investigate what White House aides might be telling
the media about his staff, Starr has expanded further the scope of his
investigation of allegations that Clinton had an affair with former White
House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and encouraged her or others to lie
about it.
The chief federal judge overseeing aspects of Starr's investigation
ruled that prosecutors are entitled to question Blumenthal and to
obtain relevant notes and other materials that he compiled after joining
the White House staff last August. According to his attorney,
Blumenthal is now scheduled to testify before the grand jury Thursday.
"Our conclusion after today is Ken Starr is out of control," said
Blumenthal's lawyer, Jo Marsh. "He has total disregard for the rights of
private citizens and for anyone else other than his staff."
Starr's subpoena of Blumenthal demanded that he turn over any
materials he has about Lewinsky and the staff of the independent
counsel's office. In addition, the subpoena sought "all documents
referring or relating to any contact directly or indirectly with members
of the media which related or referred to [Starr or any member of his
staff]."
According to a person familiar with the matter, Blumenthal
complied with the subpoena and turned over records reflecting his
contacts related to Starr's investigation with numerous reporters,
including Elizabeth Shogren and others from The Times.
Blumenthal, who before joining the White House was a writer for
the New Yorker, the New Republic and the Washington Post,
criticized Starr in an interview Tuesday night.
"For Ken Starr's theory to make any sense and be operable, I
could not be acting alone. I would have to be acting with
co-conspirators, and the co-conspirators would have to be necessarily
members of the media," Blumenthal said. "Ken Starr regards freedom
of speech and freedom of the press as worthy of investigation as a
criminal conspiracy."
Starr's subpoenaing of Blumenthal also amounted to a show of
support for two prosecutors in his office, Bruce Udolf and Michael W.
Emmick, whose personal and professional conduct has been the
subject of innuendo and attack.
Udolf, known for his aggressive pursuit of public corruption cases in
Miami, in the 1980s was fined $50,000 by a judge in Georgia because
he kept a suspect in jail for four days without either a bail hearing or
access to an attorney. Emmick, who until last July held a senior
position in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, was once
accused by a federal judge of bringing an indictment out of vengeance.
Without naming Emmick or Udolf, Starr sought to explain his
office's subpoenaing of Blumenthal.
"This office has received repeated press inquiries indicating that
misinformation is being spread about personnel involved in this
investigation," Starr said in a statement. "We are using traditional and
appropriate techniques to find out who is responsible and whether their
actions are intended to intimidate prosecutors and investigators,
impede the work of the grand jury, or otherwise obstruct justice."
Federal law makes it a crime for someone "by any threatening
letter or communication" to "influence, intimidate or impede" a member
of a grand jury, a prosecutor or certain other officials.
The war of words over the subpoenaing of Blumenthal
overshadowed the appearance at the courthouse of Terry F. Lenzner,
whose private-investigation firm has assisted the defense of the
president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton throughout Starr's
3«-year investigation of the failed Arkansas real estate venture known
as Whitewater.
More recently, Lenzner's firm also has worked in tandem with the
lawyers who are defending Clinton against the sexual-harassment
lawsuit brought by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas government
worker.
In a joint statement, lawyers representing the Clintons said the
services of Lenzner's investigative firm have contributed to a proper,
"vigorous defense."
"There is public information available, which, of course, it is our
duty as counsel to research and gather," the Clintons' lawyers said,
adding: "But we have not investigated, and are not investigating, the
personal lives of . . . prosecutors, investigators, or members of the
press."
Lenzner, a lawyer who worked on the staff of the Senate committee
that investigated Watergate, said as he left the courthouse that he had
testified before the grand jury for about two hours. But Lenzner
declined to tell reporters whether his firm has gathered information
about Starr or his staff.
"I can't comment on that," Lenzner said.
McCurry said he stood behind his comments Sunday, when he
denied that the president or anyone on his behalf had retained private
investigators for the purpose of looking into the backgrounds of
prosecutors or reporters.
"I think there's a difference between looking at what matters are on
the public record, what's in the public domain, how people have used
their positions of trust and authority, whether they have misused those
positions of trust and authority and personal derogatory information,"
McCurry said.
In addition to Lenzner, two other witnesses appeared before the
grand jury: Jocelyn Jolley, who supervised Lewinsky's work in the
White House legislative affairs office, and Jennifer Palmieri, who
remains a staff member at the executive mansion.
An attorney for Palmieri said after she testified that Palmieri knew
of no inappropriate conduct by anyone at the White House. Jolley, who
was transferred from the White House to another federal position on
the same day in April 1996 that Lewinsky was shifted to a public
affairs post at the Pentagon, declined to comment.
Jolley's lawyer, Judy Catterton, would not discuss her client's
testimony. She termed Jolley "a very quiet, very religious young
woman who is not accustomed to any hoopla. . . . This process is
kind of scary."
In a related development, Starr sought to enlist the Justice
Department's former internal watchdog, Michael E. Shaheen Jr., to
conduct an investigation of alleged leaks of confidential information
from the independent counsel's office, The Times learned. But Deputy
Atty. Gen. Eric Holder blocked the move.
A senior Justice Department official said Holder turned down
Shaheen's request for department attorneys and FBI agents to carry
out the investigation because he did not want to interfere with a leak
complaint pending before chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway
Johnson.
That complaint, in which David E. Kendall, Clinton's defense
lawyer, accused Starr's office of leaking information from the grand jury
inquiry, resulted in Starr's pledge to investigate the allegation.
In turning to Shaheen, Starr sought to involve the only person to
head the Justice Department's office of professional responsibility
since it was created in 1975. Shaheen, who enjoyed a reputation for
independence and integrity, retired from the department last
December. He has not been replaced.
The senior official said Starr had hoped to include Shaheen's
appointment in his office's response to Kendall's complaint.
Times staff writer Cecilia Balli contributed to this story.
I think it speaks to my own point rather eloquently. Not much different from the Post articles. |
