Return
to Story Page
To print: Select File and then Print from your
browser's menu
AGENCIES
WASHINGTON, Sept 9: Independent counsel Kenneth Starr has rejected a request by attorneys for United States President Bill Clinton to receive an advance copy of a much-anticipated report by Starr to Congress on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Starr told Clinton's private attorney David Kendall in a letter yesterday that laws passed by Congress after Watergate were intended to ensure that ``no barrier should intervene between the House of Representatives and its prompt receipt of impeachment-related information.''
``Suffice it to say that the statute imposes an obligation on me in specified circumstances to provide certain information to the House of Representatives and I will endeavour to satisfy that obligation if I believe those circumstances exist,'' he said.
Starr's office worked through the Labour Day holiday weekend, trying to finish an impeachment report against Clinton in the White House sex-and-perjury investigation.
Legal sources close to the investigation said Starr was expected in the report to outline possible impeachable offences of perjury, obstruction of justice, encouraging a witness to lie and abusing the power of the office of the President.
And, to add to the embattled President's troubles, US attorney general Janet Reno has opened an investigation into whether Clinton violated campaign spending laws during his 1996 re-election efforts, according to court documents.
Her move to a formal preliminary investigation yesterday followed a 30-day review of whether Clinton violated campaign spending laws, and represented a step forward as Reno considers whether a new independent counsel should be named.
The issue in the investigation was whether Clinton tried to circumvent campaign spending limits through the more than 40 million dollars in advertising that was paid for by the Democratic Party, but was designed to promote Clinton's re-election.
A special three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals, which oversees independent counsel law, authorised Reno to disclose her decision to launch the new investigation.
Reno made the decision in the face of escalating demands from Republicans in the US Congress that she immediately turn over the entire Justice department investigation into the White House campaign finance scandal to an outside counsel.
Clinton is expected to meet top Democrats from the House of Representatives on Wednesday to discuss the Lewinsky affair, the President's spokesman said.
``I imagine that there is a number of things that he (Clinton) wants to tell them,'' White House spokesman Michael McCurry said.
``Presumably he wants to elicit from them their view of what's going to happen in the next six weeks,'' he told mediapersons.
Democrats -- especially those facing elections in November -- are feeling the heat of the scandal. Many have been critical of Clinton and some have called on him to resign.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
------------------------------------------------------------