Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Washington grand jury investigation of the White House sex scandal will not be finished by May, as many had expected, a source close to the probe said Monday. This means Congress is unlikely to have to pass judgment on President Clinton or decide any questions of impeachment or punishment in a perilous election-year climate. "We're not paying attention to anyone else's calendar. We are going to gather the information and do the job we were appointed to. We'll do it as fast as we can, but it's not going to be done by May," the source, who is familiar with prosecutor Kenneth Starr's plans, told Reuters. This was the first firm signal that the independent counsel will not refer his findings from the Washington grand jury to Congress for action some time next month as many lawmakers had expected. Starr said last week that the end of his probe of Clinton's old Arkansas business dealings and personal deportment in the White House was "not yet in sight." However, another grand jury meeting in Little Rock, Ark., and dealing most with the Clintons' Whitewater business dealings before he became president was due to go out of business May 7. Starr was under no obligation to report to Congress on that grand jury's actions. Because of his ongoing work, Starr said he was giving up a job offer that had brought him much controversy -- a law school deanship at California's Pepperdine University partially funded by one of Clinton's fiercest foes, Richard Mellon Scaife. "When Ken Starr says there's no end in sight, I think there's no case in sight, there's no credible evidence in sight," Clinton political adviser Paul Begala said. A senior Republican congressional aide said the window for House action this year on a Starr referral would close by late May due to the heavy legislative agenda and pressure for early adjournment to allow campaigning for the November elections. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs in the elections. Republicans currently control both bodies. Many Republicans would prefer to go to the voters without having to make the unenviable choice of either tangling with a popular Democratic president on issues the public clearly finds distasteful, or having anti-Clinton conservatives accuse them of shirking their duty to uphold the rule of law. "Anything after May, you're running into such a calendar that there's actually more time back home in their districts there is here on (Capitol) Hill," the aide said. The pace of Starr's probe of charges that Clinton conspired to obstruct justice in the dismissed Paula Jones sexual harassment case -- charges Clinton has denied -- seemed to slow last week after prosecutors postponed scheduled testimony by Clinton's private secretary, Betty Currie. Currie, a potentially pivotal witness, was the first person summoned when Starr's grand jury began looking into Clinton's relationship with former intern Monica Lewinsky in January. The prosecutors offered no explanation for postponing her second appearance, nor did they say when Currie would be called. Anthony Zaccagnini, a lawyer for another key figure in the sex scandal probe -- whistle-blower Linda Tripp -- said in a television interview Sunday it would be weeks before his client went before Starr's panel. "The pace of part of the investigation of trying to gather facts in certain areas has been slowed down by the assertion of privileges," Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly said. This was a reference to White House efforts to shield some Clinton aides from certain areas of questioning on grounds that some White House conversations must remain confidential. Starr is also challenging a Secret Service effort to block testimony by presidential bodyguards in order to preserve the me-and-my-shadow relationship between presidents and the people who guard them. "When people refuse to answer questions and provide evidence, when people refuse to do that, that does have the effect of hindering and delaying the fact-gathering process," Bakaly said. In a related development, former Clinton business partner Susan McDougal said Monday she would refuse to talk to a Starr grand jury in Little Rock later this week. McDougal, who has already served 18 months in jail for declining to testify about the controversial Whitewater real estate venture involving the Clintons, said Starr is waging a public vendetta and "doesn't care whose life he ruins." "I think right now what he wants (to find) is anything that will not make his investigation look like a failure ... Bill Clinton was never criminally involved in anything," she said. -- Two rules in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know. 2. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
