Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: WASHINGTON--Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's impatience with Kenneth Starr's pace likely will be satisfied within three months. The independent counsel, rather than tying up all the loose ends in his investigation of President Clinton, at that point will send a long-awaited report on possible impeachment to the House of Representatives. When it arrives, the report probably will not go immediately to Rep. Henry Hyde's House Judiciary Committee, as seemed certain only a week ago. Instead, Speaker Newt Gingrich is considering a select committee--an all-star team of House Republicans, including Hyde--to deal with Starr's findings. Hardly any members of Congress think President Clinton will be impeached, and scarcely more think he ever would resign. Nevertheless, the prospect that Starr soon will come to closure is not good news for the White House. It transfers charges against the president from the closed grand jury chambers to the wide-open world of Capitol Hill. The president's aides leaped on Lott's comment March 6 on CNN's ``Evans and Novak'' program that it was time for Starr ``to show his cards.'' In a statement, the White House said Lott had acknowledged that Starr's operation ``has no end in sight'' and ``needs to come to an end''--words that infuriated the Republican leader. With good reason, Lott complained that the news media were ballooning his offhand remark. The senator really was saying publicly what many Republicans have said privately: Starr, displaying a political deaf ear, helps the Clinton defense strategy by pursuing tangential new leads. This prolongation is intensely frustrating for his prosecutors, mostly assistant U.S. attorneys detailed by the Justice Department. From the beginning, lawyers for the Clintons and other targets have mobilized a variety of delaying devices. In the autumn of 1996, for example, the independent counsel was stymied when lawyer-client privilege was invoked secretly for Hillary Rodham Clinton's relations with White House lawyers. Although ultimately decided by the courts in Starr's favor, the issue slowed down the investigation. Revelation of this claim in the midst of the presidential campaign would not have helped Clinton. But Starr and his deputies kept quiet until the dispute was revealed by court papers long after the election. Now, Starr must cope with claims of executive privilege, normally limited to national security, that would bar the testimony of the president's confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Bruce Lindsey. And although the prosecutors consider Secret Service agents protecting Clinton to be law enforcement officers who ought to be questioned about possible lawbreaking, the Justice Department has ruled that their confidential status as presidential bodyguards shields them from interrogation. It would take more than a year to sort all this out if Starr were conducting a normal prosecution, and by then, an army of Republicans would be demanding to see his cards. But this is no normal prosecution. Under the independent counsel statute, Starr can send to the House of Representatives ``substantial and credible'' evidence relating to impeachment. This is likely to be done in late spring or early summer, and to include not just the new Monica Lewinsky material but Whitewater evidence developed years ago. Until last week, it was thought Gingrich would hand this evidence off to Hyde, who was quietly recruiting his own lawyers and investigators from his home base back in Chicago. But Gingrich now is leaning toward creation of a select committee containing Hyde and some of the toughest, most knowledgeable personalities in the Republican cloakroom. They could include Rep. William Thomas of California, House Oversight Committee chairman; Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, Reform and Oversight Committee chairman; Rep. Gerald Solomon of New York, Rules Committee chairman, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, investigations subcommittee chairman on the Workforce Committee. While not enthusiastic about impeachment, Hyde was ready for the climax of a distinguished legislative career and is reported less than happy about the change. He would take the summer off, but Gingrich has pleaded with him to add his wisdom to the select committee. This new format would draw on the Republican Party's institutional memory. Michael Chertoff, the New York lawyer and former federal prosecutor who headed the Senate Whitewater investigation, could return to Washington. David Bossie, chief investigator of Burton's committee, could be called on for his remarkable data bank. People such as this will be across the table when Starr finally shows his cards. -- May the leprechauns be near you to spread luck along your way. And may all the Irish angels smile upon you this St. Patrick's Day. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
