The Trooper Project, which ended in February, was apparently a dud. But last week it blew up in Starr’s face, raising new questions about his probe at a time when the political world is wondering where - and when - the three-year, $30 million effort will end. Was rummaging through Clinton’s alleged sexual history a sign of desperation? Not necessarily. In white-collar criminal work you follow the man, not just the money. If Clinton had spent his spare time playing poker, Starr’s men say, card sharks would have been high on their interview list. Still, The Trooper Project made Starr look seedy, grasping and lost.
Word of the project surfaced in the capital’s most prominent position: a front-page story in The Washington Post coauthored by Bob Woodward. The paper reported that Starr had undertaken a ““new line of inquiry’’ in ““recent months’’ focused on the troopers’ ““knowledge of any extramarital affairs.’’ The agents, said Trooper Roger Perry, ““wanted to show that he was a womanizer.’’ Clinton’s spin doctors declared that Starr had wrecked his credibility. ““This investigation is winding up in a ditch,’’ crowed James Carville. The president himself was mute in public. But in private, aides say, he seethes when Starr is mentioned, calling the investigation a modern-day version of ““McCarthyism.''
Some of the criticism was warranted. On a few occasions, it turns out, the FBI interviews descended into rank speculation about Clinton’s sex life - with locker-room leering. It was ““unwise,’’ Starr’s aides did concede, to ask about Paula Jones. It’s also a stretch to think he talked business with another woman whose name came up: Gennifer Flowers.
But in some respects the Post story was overstated. In all, the FBI asked about more men than women. In a later interview with NEWSWEEK, Perry acknowledged that he had volunteered much of the information about alleged liaisons. Sources say the FBI reports - ““Form 302s’’ - show that little of what Perry says he discussed was passed on to higher-ups and that the agents asked for specifics only to test his credibility.
Starr is understandably frustrated: he has few credible witnesses about the transaction at the heart of the investigation. The deal in question is a fraudulent $300,000 federal loan made in 1986 to Susan McDougal, a Clinton partner in Whitewater. Last year Starr won a conviction of Susan, and he was hoping - expecting - that she would seek leniency in exchange for corroborating allegations that Clinton had helped obtain the loan. Instead, she went to jail on contempt charges, where she remains, refusing to cooperate. Why? Her husband, James, also in jail, told investigators he knows one reason: she and Clinton, McDougal alleges, were lovers. Sources close to Starr’s inquiry tell NEWSWEEK that Susan has privately talked to friends about her relationship with Clinton - and her discomfort at the idea of having to testify about it. (The White House refused to comment.)
Where does Starr go from here? In the next two weeks he will release a final report on Vince Foster’s death, which had been delayed by questions about procedures in the FBI crime labs where the Foster evidence was examined. Starr will repeat the conclusion he was set to make months ago: that Foster committed suicide. Starr is also examining whether to seek new indictments against Webb Hubbell. But on the big issues - did Clinton perjure himself? did Hillary obstruct justice? - Starr is in prosecutor’s purgatory: close enough to see a case, not yet close enough to make it. He won’t make a final call on whether to try to indict the Clintons until at least the end of the summer. Meanwhile, he won’t just be asking questions - he’ll have to answer some.
