Disputed Data Hinder Probe, Starr Says

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. — Critical of “significant” impediments to his investigation, Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr said Saturday that President Clinton’s White House lawyers, as government employees, are “duty-bound” to turn over disputed notes.

And in a harsh depiction of a key Whitewater figure, Starr said former Clinton business partner Susan McDougal wants “a license to lie”--immunity from perjury charges--in exchange for telling what she knows about the failed financial venture.

Clinton, in Barbados for a meeting with Caribbean leaders, was asked by a reporter if he thought Starr’s comments had become “a little personal.” He responded, “Not on my part.

“I think it’s obvious for several years now we’ve been very cooperative and will continue to be.”

However, Starr said unprecedented claims of privilege by the White House has impeded his investigation for months.

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“It is unhelpful to our investigation when relevant information is denied a grand jury when there are invocations of privilege instead of full and complete cooperation and candor,” Starr said.

“Never in history has this kind of privilege been asserted in a federal criminal proceeding.”

Starr and the first couple are in a legal battle over notes from interviews between First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and government attorneys in July 1995 and January 1996 about her role in the Whitewater land deal.

The president authorized an appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court--overturning U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock, Ark.--ordered the White House to surrender the notes.

Clinton said his White House counsel, Charles Ruff, insisted that the notes should be protected under attorney-client privilege.

Starr’s view of the matter differs. In a speech to newspaper editors, he said: “White House attorneys . . . represent the federal government, and as such, they are duty-bound to disclose relevant information to a federal grand jury.”

White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis characterized Starr’s pursuit as “a fishing expedition” because the notes cover topics already addressed by Hillary Clinton under questioning by Starr and in her grand jury testimony.

Regarding McDougal, Starr said he will not grant any special conditions for her grand jury testimony.

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McDougal has been jailed for contempt since September for refusing to testify before a grand jury looking into wide-ranging matters involving the Clintons.

She was convicted of bank fraud in May 1996, along with ex-husband James B. McDougal and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. She was sentenced to two years in prison.

James McDougal received a lenient three-year prison term last month because of his cooperation in the Whitewater investigation.

While Susan McDougal has already refused testimonial immunity, Starr said “she has refused to testify unless granted immunity from perjury as well. She wants as a condition for revealing what she knows . . . in essence, a license to lie.”

Mark J. Geragos, the attorney who represents Susan McDougal, called Starr’s comments the “height of hypocrisy from someone who parades around with his own license to lie.”

“The idea that she wants ‘a license to lie’ is absolutely despicable. She stayed in jail for nine months precisely because she won’t lie,” Geragos said.