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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (8113)	10/10/1998 12:55:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Clinton's Legal Problems Growing By PETE YOST Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Clinton's potential problems range far beyond the House impeachment inquiry. Prosecutor Kenneth Starr is still at work. There's no settlement with Paula Jones. And if an independent counsel is appointed to investigate campaign fund raising, the president could well fall within the scope of the inquiry. Clinton's legal worries could fill a law school textbook. And new ones keep cropping up. For example, one of his private attorneys, Robert Bennett, had to inform a federal judge recently in the Jones lawsuit not to rely on what Bennett told the court last Jan. 17 when he introduced Monica Lewinsky's affidavit denying a sexual relationship with the president. Clinton affirmed Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit as accurate when Bennett showed it to him during testimony. But now Ms. Lewinsky has acknowledged the affidavit wasn't true, and Clinton has admitted to having intimate contact with her. ''Pursuant to our professional responsibility, we wanted to advise you that the court should not rely on Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit or remarks of counsel characterizing that affidavit,'' Bennett wrote the court in a Sept. 30 letter disclosed this week. Bennett and Mrs. Jones' lawyers continue to work on a possible settlement of her sexual harassment claim against the president. And U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright has hinted she could find Clinton in contempt of court for misleading testimony back in January. The legal system has ''more-than-adequate means to deal with lying because if you get caught lying, the price of the case goes way up,'' former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Douglass said. In the Jones lawsuit, ''Clinton is talking upwards of a million dollars for a bottom-of-the-barrel civil case and that's one of the ways the civil justice system appropriately reacts,'' said Douglass, a University of Richmond law professor. Adding to the pressure to settle the case, Wright this week ordered the release of additional documents from the case starting Oct. 19. And an appeals court is set to hear arguments that same week on whether to reinstate the lawsuit that Wright dismissed. Clinton has offered $700,000 to settle. Mrs. Jones is seeking $1 million. A New York developer is offering $1 million of his own money to induce the parties to settle. But so far, there's no deal. Even if the case is settled, Douglass says Wright could still find Clinton in contempt of court. Meanwhile, Starr's investigation hasn't closed shop despite sending a report to Congress last month citing 11 possible grounds for impeaching the president. The grand jury that Starr used to investigate the Lewinsky matter met twice this week. Rather than questioning witnesses, Starr's prosecutors spent Tuesday and Thursday presenting evidence to the 23-member panel. Grand jury sessions without witnesses could signal different things: Starr is wrapping up work, indictments are coming or prosecutors are delving into other areas. ''I cannot foreclose the possibility of providing the House of Representatives with additional substantial and credible information arising from these investigations,'' Starr wrote Congress this week in a letter that left Clinton supporters with a chill. Starr has important decisions to make on what to do with his inquiries into the Clintons' Whitewater land deal, on Hillary Rodham Clinton's work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan, on the White House travel office firings and on the FBI files controversy. In addition, Attorney General Janet Reno is investigating whether the president illegally benefited from Democratic advertisements during his 1996 re-election bid. She must decide by early December whether to name an independent counsel. If she does, Clinton would face the dubious distinction of being the first president to be investigated by two separate independent counsels. The Clintons' legal bills, which already have soared into the millions of dollars, will keep rising. Some of the cost is being defrayed by a legal defense fund to which donors can contribute up to $10,000 each. The president's lead criminal attorney, David Kendall, shows no signs of easing his legal attacks on Starr's 4-year-old investigation. Kendall already has prompted investigations into whether Starr's office leaked grand jury evidence to the news media and turned a blind eye to alleged payments by right-wing operatives to David Hale, a witness against Clinton. And this week Kendall prompted the Justice Department to review whether Starr's request to expand his inquiry to the Lewinsky matter in January was ''complete and truthful.'' >>>In light of Hillary's brilliant advice to Clinton not to settle >>>the Jones lawsuit out of court, she must be some kind of great >>>lawyer.