Word: subpoenaing
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Starr and his team still have the option of subpoenaing Clinton. The President defied them, refusing to answer their questions fully. "No prosecutor would accept that from an ordinary witness," says John Barrett, a former Iran-contra prosecutor now teaching at St. John's University School of Law in New York City. "You'd get a subpoena the next day and ask specific, pointed questions until you got answers, or you'd indict the guy." But the Chief Executive plays by different rules...
Legally, Starr would almost certainly win a subpoena fight--Clinton already conceded the grand jury's legitimacy by testifying--though appeals could take months if the Supreme Court chose to hear the case. The harder prediction was political. Would the public blame Clinton for dragging out a subpoena fight now that he's admitted sex and lies, or Starr for continuing to hammer away on more Monica minutiae...
Starr's first steps after Monday showed awareness that restraint gave him strength in a war of attrition. Instead of picking an immediate subpoena fight with Clinton, he was apparently weighing whether the smarter course might be just to finish up a few remaining witnesses and send the House his report "of any substantial and credible information...that may constitute grounds for an impeachment." Along with other important evidence, the transcript of Clinton's answers and evasions could be included for the Judiciary Committee to make its judgments, and could help Starr's case. But Clinton seemed to relish...
...construed things narrowly," one source familiar with Clinton's testimony told TIME. "He was accurate but not helpful, and that was his goal." Such prevarication may earn Clinton a new subpoena, of course, presuming Monica stood by her story. But the President's legal team knows that would make Starr appear to be simply pursuing salacious details, which is exactly how they are trying to paint him. The independent counsel's other option? Take the intern's testimony for what it is -- courtroom evidence of presidential perjury -- and send the whole kit and caboodle along to Congress...
...going to get Monday night -- and by all accounts, not even his grand jury testimony mentioned the specifics. He came out fighting too. Attacks on the independent counsel peppered a speech that was "surprisingly defiant," according to TIME Washington correspondent Jay Branegan. "He's daring Ken Starr to subpoena him to get the rest of the testimony...