Ken Starr refuses to end witch-hunt probe

By Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the May 9, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - May 7 was the expiration date for the Whitewater federal grand jury in Arkansas. It was investigating a bankrupt real estate deal involving President and Mrs. Clinton. Although it tried for seven years, the grand jury failed in its search for criminal wrongdoing by the Clintons.

But Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr announced "no end in sight" to his probe, which will continue in Washington where he has another grand jury. He underscored the point by pushing through the Little Rock grand jury in its final hours an indictment on tax evasion charges of the Clintons' close friend, Webster Hubbell. A few days later his office indicted once again Susan McDougal, a former business associate of Hillary Clinton, for refusing to testify before the grand jury.

The orchestrated warfare also included a barrage of attacks from Capitol Hill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called Clinton an "illegal man," unfit for the presidency. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chair of a House committee probing Clinton, released doctored jail-house tapes of Hubbell's telephone calls from a federal prison. Deleted by Burton's staff were statements on the surreptitiously recorded conversations that exonerated Hillary Clinton.

Democratic lawmakers blasted Burton's selective editing as part of a well-funded election-year witch hunt by extremist Republicans intent on preserving their majority control of the House and Senate. President Clinton told reporters he expects the probe to continue for years beyond his leaving office. Chief Judge Norma Holloway Johnson helped insure that by denying Clinton's claim of executive privilege.

Hubbell has pleaded innocent and charged that Starr is using the threat of imprisonment to pressure him into making false and incriminating statements about the Clintons. "They think by indicting my wife and my friends that I will lie about the President and the First Lady," Hubbell told reporters in front of his Washington home. "I will not do so." Hubbell, a former assistant U.S. Attorney General, has already served 17 months in prison.

McDougal, too, has served 18 months in jail for refusing in 1996 to answer Grand Jury questions under a grant of immunity. She recently began serving a two-year sentence for mail fraud, misapplication of funds and making false statements in the Whitewater case. Now she faces the possibility of serving additional prison time for continuing to refuse to testify.

During a session of the grand jury in Little Rock April 23, she politely told interrogators from the special prosecutor's office that she would not answer their questions "because I believe your office is conflicted and that you should not be investigating this ... You do not have any right to ask me questions. You are totally conflicted."

She charged that in earlier grand jury sessions, the special prosecutor brought out David Hale and Jim McDougal to testify against her "and they both lied to you." McDougal, her former husband, died in prison even though he had cooperated with Starr. Hale has been exposed as a stool pigeon who was paid for his testimony from funds provided by multi-millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a right wing extremist who has bankrolled the "get Clinton" vendetta.

Scaife provided tens of millions of dollars to establish a new school of law and public policy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. Starr was offered the position of dean of the school. When news leaked out of this cozy deal, Starr announced he would not take the Pepperdine position and would instead continue his witch hunt.

McDougal told the grand jury she would cooperate if Starr and his staff resigned. She charged that in her first meeting with the staff of the special prosecutor they offered her immunity in exchange for her testimony against the Clintons. "Susan, we want a proffer from you. We want something on Bill or Hillary Clinton," she said, paraphrasing their offer.

McDougal's attorney, Mark Geragos, called Starr's indictment of his client "vindictive and retaliatory ... All of his clients could not accept the fact that he closed down the grand jury without charging President Clinton and Hillary Clinton. His exit strategy is to blame it on Susan, to say, 'if only she would talk.'"