WASHINGTON -- Robert W. Ray, the independent counsel who succeeded Ken Starr, will issue the first of his four final reports this week. The document of about 25,000 words will deal primarily with "Filegate," the snooping into FBI files of over 900 Americans by the Clinton White House.
Good news for the Clintons: The first independent counsel report concludes that this was caused by gross incompetence of the midlevel White House staff and the laxity of eager-to-please FBI officials -- but was not a conspiracy prosecutable under the Privacy Act.Ray's Round Two is scheduled to be submitted to a three-judge panel in early summer. That will deal with "Travelgate," the alleged abuses of power by Hillary and presidential aides in the prosecution of innocent (and quickly acquitted) longtime White House employees to make way for Clinton patronage.
Because active investigation continues, which Reno's Justice cannot obstruct, I presume Hillary Clinton faces far greater problems with Travelgate than with Filegate.
Round Three has to do with Whitewater and the missing Rose Law Firm files; its wrap-up was long sidetracked by the Lewinsky scandal.
Though planned for transmittal before Labor Day, the "full description" of the investigation called for in the law -- which I sense will detail tawdry corner-cutting and egregious evasiveness but not prosecutable crime -- is unlikely to have great impact on elections.
That's because the details of each of Ray's reports are to be sealed for three months, until every person named has a chance to include comments in an appendix. (In Travelgate and Whitewater, hundreds will be named.) But the truth will be out.
The above planning is newsworthy, but here's the stunner: There will be a fourth round early next year about Bill Clinton's conduct in sexual harassment cases. It will take the form of a "full description" in lieu of prosecution, or it may turn into a grand jury indictment.
What triggers that unthinkable thought is Ray's hiring of two new prosecutors last week. Logic suggests that their purpose is to position the independent counsel for a prosecutorial decision next January.
Nobody assumes Ray will seek to indict a sitting president; that would entail a fight up to the Supreme Court for no practical purpose in Clinton's waning months in office. And we can forget about any previous grand jury having left behind a sealed indictment; those are usually done to prevent flight, and Clinton won't flee.
But didn't the Senate, in its acquittal of impeachment charges, put the notion of prosecution behind us? The answer, which most Americans don't want to hear, is that impeachment is no substitute for indictment. The law will not be finished with Clinton's deception under oath until the appointed prosecutor decides whether or not to seek an indictment.
So, Clintons, beware not the Ides of March -- but watch the Fourth of July and the afternoon of Inauguration Day.
New York Times News Service