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Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 09:40:16 -0500
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Subject: IP: Whitewater Probe Continues
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Source:  Washington Times
http://www.WashTimes.com/news/news2.html#link

Starr continues Whitewater investigation

 By Jerry Seper
 THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Kenneth W. Starr's case for impeaching President Clinton
 is only the first public accounting in a massive ongoing
 investigation --contrary to White House claims that the
 Whitewater probe is dead.

"All phases of the investigation are now nearing
 completion," the 445-page report says.

The independent counsel "will soon make final decisions
 about what steps to take, if any, with respect to the other
 information it has gathered."

While it was Mr. Starr's "strong desire" to complete the
 entire Whitewater inquiry before giving any information to
 Congress, the report said, it "became apparent" there was
 "substantial and credible information" of impeachable offenses
 and he was required under the law to refer the information to
 Congress as soon as possible.

"It also became apparent that a delay of this referral until the
 evidence from all phases of the investigation had been
 evaluated would be unwise," the report said.

Mr. Starr will soon make decisions on final reports to a
 three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
 D.C. Circuit and possible indictments, the report added.

Mr. Clinton's personal attorney, David E. Kendall, attacked
 the Monica Lewinsky report this week as a
 "hit-and-run smear campaign," saying it was nothing but an
 attempt to damage the president with "irrelevant and
 unnecessary graphic and salacious allegations." He asked,
 "Where's Whitewater?"

But the report's introduction notes that Mr. Starr's four-year
 Whitewater probe, all but forgotten in the crush of sordid
 public revelations of Mr. Clinton's sexual dalliances with the
 former White House intern, continues to target a number of
 areas:

Legal representation of a failed Arkansas thrift, Madison
Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, and a real
estate project, Castle Grande, by first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton and former Rose Law Firm partner
Webster L. Hubbell, the ex-associate attorney general
who resigned in disgrace.

The firing of seven White House travel office employees
to make room for Clinton cronies, and the role Mrs.
Clinton may have played in the decision.

The delivery to the White House of more than 1,000
secret FBI files on Reagan and Bush administration
aides, and efforts to shield White House officials,
including Mrs. Clinton, from a public accounting on how
the files were obtained and used.

The misuse of personnel records of Pentagon employee
Linda R. Tripp, whose secret recordings of
conversations with Miss Lewinsky began the grand jury
investigation.

Possible perjury and obstruction of justice concerning an
incident involving former White House volunteer
Kathleen E. Willey. Mrs. Willey said in August 1997
that Mr. Clinton made sexual advances in the Oval
Office in November 1993.

The Starr report to Congress said Miss Lewinsky told the
 president Newsweek was working on an article about Mrs.
 Willey. Mr. Clinton dismissed the accusations as "ludicrous,
 because he would never approach a small-breasted woman
 like Mrs. Willey." Later he asked Miss Lewinsky if she had
 heard about the Newsweek inquiry from Mrs. Tripp, to which
 she replied "yes."

The former intern said Mr. Clinton asked if Mrs. Tripp
 could be trusted and then told her to persuade Mrs. Tripp to
 call White House Deputy Counsel Bruce R. Lindsey about the
 matter. Newsweek published the Willey story on Aug. 11,
 1997. In his Jan. 17 deposition in the Paula Jones case, Mr.
 Clinton denied the Willey accusation.

The Starr probe also is looking into accusations that efforts
 were made to silence Mrs. Willey. Among those drawing
 attention is Democratic fund-raiser Nathan Landow.
 Investigators want to know if he urged Mrs. Willey to deny she
 was groped by the president. Mrs. Willey has since testified
 before the Lewinsky grand jury as a cooperating witness.

Mr. Landow testified before the grand jury, later telling
 reporters he took the Fifth Amendment. His daughter, former
 White House volunteer Harolyn Cardozo, who worked with
 Mrs. Willey, also testified.

In "Travelgate" and "Filegate," papers filed earlier this month
 in federal court in Washington show the investigations "are
 continuing and in extremely sensitive stages." Deputy
 independent counsel Robert Bittman told the court the probes
 had reached to the "highest level of the federal government"
 and involved "issues of singular constitutional and historic
 importance."

The Whitewater probe also is examining whether Mr.
 Hubbell hid his involvement and that of Mrs. Clinton with
 Castle Grande, a real estate project south of Little Rock, Ark.

In September 1996, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
 said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Hubbell drafted legal papers that
 Madison used to deceive bank examiners and divert $300,000
 to Mr. Hubbell's father-in-law, Seth Ward. The report said the
 papers "facilitated the payment of substantial commissions to
 Mr. Ward, who acted as a straw buyer" in Castle Grande. A
 straw buyer is one who owns property in name only, having
 never put up any money or assumed any risk.

The FDIC said the Ward payments were in violation of
 federal regulations. The report did not accuse Mrs. Clinton or
 Mr. Hubbell of criminal wrongdoing, although it raised serious
 questions about their involvement in a deal that ultimately cost
 taxpayers $3.8 million when Castle Grande failed.

Prosecutors, the report to Congress said, immediately
 recognized parallels between the job help provided to Miss
 Lewinsky by Washington lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a
 longtime Clinton friend, and "his earlier relationship" with Mr.
 Hubbell, sentenced in 1994 to prison for stealing $420,000
 from his Rose Law Firm partners. By late 1997, Mr. Starr had
 evidence Mr. Jordan helped Mr. Hubbell obtain consulting
 contracts after he agreed to cooperate in the Whitewater
 probe.

In 1994, Mr. Hubbell was paid $450,010 by 17 different
 persons or entities as a consultant and $91,750 in 1995,
 despite beginning a 28-month prison term in August of that
 year. He has yet to explain what work he did for the cash.

Some of the payments came from MacAndrews & Forbes
 Holding Co. in New York after he was introduced to the firm's
 executives by Mr. Jordan, a director of Revlon Inc. The
 cosmetics firm, controlled by MacAndrews & Forbes, also
 offered a job to Miss Lewinsky based on Mr. Jordan's
 recommendations.

With regard to Mrs. Tripp's personnel records, Mr. Starr
 has been investigating if they were illegally released in an effort
 to tarnish her reputation in the Lewinsky probe. Assistant
 Defense Secretary Kenneth Bacon approved the release to a
 reporter for the New Yorker magazine. The records show
 Mrs. Tripp was detained by police as a teen-ager 29 years ago
 and had not noted the arrest in her 1987 security clearance
 form.

The arrest later was shown to have been a teen-age prank,
 in which she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of loitering.

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes
 was questioned about the documents by the grand jury. Mr.
 Bacon also testified in the case.

 In our Investigative Section, a history of the Whitewater
 investigation.

Copyright � 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
-----------------------
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
-----------------------




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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: [email protected]>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'