8A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 19, 1998 NATION/WORLD Starr: Clinton thwarted probe . WASHINGTON (AP) - Making his start of impeachment hearings, Independ Kenneth Starr says President Clinton used the machinery of government and th his office" to thwart prosecutors' grand ji w ¢Ygation and the Paula Jones lawsuit. In remarks prepared for delivery to House Judiciary Committee, Starr also Democratic suggestions he had no right w ~gate the affair between the president a Lewinsky. Obstruction of justice "is ne matter," he declared. A copy of Starr's testimony was obtain terday by The Associated Press. "The evidence further suggests that th in the course of these efforts, misused hi and power as president and contravened APPHT faithfully execute the laws. That too is n matter," Starr said. The prosecutor also disclosed that his oe ed an impeachment referral to Congresso '".4 inal Whitewater allegations last year. ,s xr to_;" back. The referral related to Clinton's test heseew nothing about a fraudulent $300 The loan was from a federally back company run by former Little Rock, Ark.. judge David Hae, who testified that C encouraged him to make it. "In late 1997, we considered whetherth ig y d e s s mb b i A s justified a referral to Congress' Starr ti'b. n c b sdrafted a report. But we concluded thati inconsistent with the statutory standard the difficulty of esablishing the truth w cient degree of confidence:' Starralso told lawmakers that his vn AP PHOTO into the gathering of FBI files inside Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr leaves his McLean, Va. home yesterday. Starr House and the firing of White House tr expected to testify before the committee today workers resulted in no evidence of in Trade summit ends without dramatic action on Asia crisis KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysta (AP) - Pacific Rtm growth tn Asia than efforts to restart Japan's economy. nations yesterday failed to take any dramatic action to It has long been Asia's engine of growth," Clinton halt Asia's worst economic crisis in decades, approv- said. ing only limited measures at a summit beset by diplo- APEC is the region's top forum for dealing with Tmatic squabbling, economic problems and issues requiring mutual aid. Opposition by Japan forced the 21-govertment The summit had offered the leaders a chance to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to delay produce their first comprehensive plan to pull the action on what was to have been its centerpiece - a region out of the financial crisis that began in Thailand deal to boost trade by slashing tariffs on goods worth in July 1997 and has since spread to Russia and Latin -$1.5 trillion. America. The United States accused Japan of failing to show ut the leaders' final statement offered no new pro- leadership. grams, apart from a $10 billion support plan "It is an unconscionable outcome," said U.S. Trade announced separately by the United States and Japan. Representative Charlene Barshefsky. APEC endorsed free trade, while it called for more Even before the two-day meeting began, Vice international financial aid and endorsed a U.S. propos- President Al Gore ignited a storm by praising alto speed loans to Asian countries in crisis. Malaysian political dissidents, breaking with APEC The group rejected calls by the summit's host, tradition by addressing a non-economic subject - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for human rights, tighter controls on foreign exchange trading or the Some Asian governments accused Gore of med- movement of capital into and out of countries. dling in internal matters. Mahathir blames currency speculators for much of the "The Chinese people and the Chinese r e$gti$o n' s ,government would never, ever make irre- woes. sponsible remarks on other countries' The state- 'internal affairs," said Chinese Foreign Vie President Al Gore ment pointed Mintster Tang Jtaxuan at a presa confer- to signs of prc.angered many by recovery in . Gore was standing in for President the hardest- Clinton, who remained in Washington due praising M alaysian hit economies to the Iraqi crisis, With an easing of ten- of Indonesia, ions with Iraq, Clinton left the White political dissidents. South Korea House yesterday on a five-day economtc and Thailand. mission to Asia. But it urged In a departure statement, Clinton urged them to con- Japan to act decisively to revive its ailing economy and tinue adopting the painful measures recommended by bolster the economies of its neighbors. the International Monetary Fund for economic health. "Nothing is more important to restore stability and "There's a real commitment to growth-oriented offenses by the president. The White House dismissed Starr's statement as a repeat of his earlier impeachment referral "in new wrapping paper." "The only new thing in the statement is on page 46 and 47 in which he declares the president is innocent in the FBI files and travel office matters" it said in a statement. Starr's testimony reiterated many of the same alle- gations, in the same harsh language, that he included in his referral to Congress in September, accusing Clinton of eleven impeachable offenses. Starr charged that Clinton: "Made a series of premeditated false statements under oath" in his Jan. 17 deposition testimony in the Jones lawsuit. "Participated in a scheme" at the deposition to deceive the trial judge in the lawsuit by not correct- ing his lawyer's false assertion that the president did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky, Starr's tes- timony alleges. Used his Cabinet "unwitting surrogates" to sup- port his false story denying the affair for months. He said the president "concocted false alibis" to aides, who then repeated the inaccurate information to the grand jury. Starr eventually subpoenaed Clinton, who testified Aug. 17 before the grand jury. Starr said Clinton lied during that testimony, too, and again when he told the American public in a speech that night that he had given "legally accurate" testimony in the Jones case. Other misuses of power, according to Starr, occurred when Clinton and his administration assert- ed govemnmental privileges to conceal information from the grand jury. Alluding to the graphic sexual detail included in his written report in September, Starr acknowledged some believed it was "too thorough." "We respectfully but firmly reject the notion that our office was trying to inflame the public," Starr stated. "We must dispute the suggestion that a report to the House suggesting possible impeachable offenses...should tell something less than the full story." Starr is the leadoff witness at the first impea- ment hearings of a president is a quarter century. House Judiciary Committee has given Starr two hours today to present his evidence. That will be fol- lowed by questions from committee investigators and lawmakers. Then Clinton's private lawyer, David Kendall, will get a chance to question the independent counsel, Starr, a former judge not accustomed to the politi- cally charged atmosphere of congressional hearings, has been holding rehearsal sessions with his own staff. Clinton, meanwhile, was visiting Japan and Sot Korea. Committee Republicans signaled their intention to broaden the hearings, setting votes today on subpoe- nas for four more witnesses White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, the president's most trusted adviser; attomney Robert Bennett, who represented Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit; Daniel Gecker, the lawyer for Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey; and Nathan Landow, a Maryland Democrat who had con- tacts with Mrs. Willey. She has accused the president of a sexual advance inside the White House. Committee Chairperson Henry Hyde (R-111.) also requested a Justice Department memo on alleged campaign fund-raising abuses from the 1996 cam- paign. Starr's prepared statement also gave an overview of other aspects of his four-year, $40 million probe. Vice President Al Gore, right, and other world leaders wave to the crowd at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting I Kuala Lumpur yesterday. policies," said Prime Minister Jenny Shipley of New Zealand. - Nobody ... sought to take APEC back to the pro- tectionist years of the past." On the eve of the summit, Gore announced a mod- est agreement with Japan on a joint approach to deal- ing with the financial crisis, including a $10 billion support package to help struggling Asian nations. But in trade, long-standing disputes blocked any major agreement. APEC leaders had hoped to produce a $1.5 trillion plan for freer trade in nine industries. Japanese reluc- tance to open two of the proposed sectors - fish and wood products - forced them to send the plan to the 124-nation World Trade Organization in Geneva for resolution. Gore's speech Monday expressing sympathy with Malaysia's anti-government teform movement caused divisions among APEC's leaders. Yesterday Mahathir brushed aside reporters' ques- tions about Gore's comments, saying he was not aue of any differences between their positions. Protests by supporters of Malaysian dissident Anwar Ibrahim have taken place since he was fired as deputy prime minister, charged with corruption and sexual misconduct and put on trial after challenging Mahathir's 17-year rule. Anwar has denied the allega- tions. The U.S. side rejected suggestions that Gore's com- ments, which came from a speech written for Clinton to deliver, had distracted the summit from dealing with the serious economic crisis in Asia. Michigan Student Assembly ELECTIONS November 18 & 19 SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVES LS&A Engineering Rackham Music Business Medicine Dentistry Nursing Social Work Pollsites in Fishbowl, Union Basement, Pierpont Commons or online: http://www.umich.edu/-vote Questions? e-mail: election-board@umich.edu Hyde expands impeachment witness list to Clinton friends IMPEACH Continued from Page IA charged that Clinton "misused his authority and power as president and contravened his duty to faithfully execute the laws." He also dismissed suggestions from Democrats that he had no right to inves- tigate a consensual sexual relationship between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, saying obstruction and perjury "is not a private matter." The new witnesses were expected to be questioned first in private depositions. Republicans would then decide whether to summon them, or additional witnesses, at public hear- ings, committee officials said. Both Gecker and Landow are expected to be called early next week, followed by Lindsey and Bennett during the first week of December, officials said. The Republicans showed a renewed but belated interest in campaign fund- raising allegations against the president. Hyde asked the Justice Department for a prosecutor's memo that provided a detailed argument for appointing an independent coun- sel to take over the criminal investi- gation of fund-raising abuses in the 1996 election, a committee official told The Associated Press. The official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the Justice -Department was weighing the request. Attorney General Janet Reno currently has three separate inquiries under way to determine whether an independent counsel should be named to take over the fund-raising investigation. "This is an impeachment in search oF a crime." - James Jordan Democratic Judiciary Committee members' spokesperson The memo by Charles LaBella, for- mer chief of the Justice Department's campaign finance task force, contains grand jury information which by law must be kept secret. But a Justice Department offi- cial, requesting anonymity, said yes- terday that federal courts have issued orders in the past allowing grand jury secrets to be sent to Congress if the material was to be used in an impeachment inquiry. The administration was willing to exam- ine that option, but the official noted that drafting and obtaining such a court order would be done in secret and might take days to complete. The additional witnesses indicate a Republican effort to 'explore whether Clinton's alleged efforts to influence witnesses in the Jones sex- ual harassment case went beyond Lewinsky to Willey. Hyde said Gecker, who repre- sented Willey, "may have testimony regarding possible efforts to influ- ence testimony in the (Paula) Jones case and before the criminal grand jury" in Starr's investigation. "We must not look away from any evidence that relates to the core issues of this inquiry: lying under oath, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and abuse of power. It is our duty to fully review such infor- mation before completion of this inquiry," Hyde said. While the committee's staff has not ruled out seeking even more wit- nesses, a Republican member, Q. Steve Chabot of Ohio, said e "overwhelming consensus was against calling" Lewinsky, presiden- tial friend Vernon Jordan or Oval Office secretary Betty Currie. As for Starr's scheduled appearance today, Hyde said: "He's the one person other than the parties themselves who knows the most about this. He spent a long time and lots of money. We'd e to know just what he found:'" Clinton himself was thousands of miles away on a trip to Asia. Democrats were infuriated that Starr was given authority by Hyde to delve into matters such as the Whitewater real estate transactions, misuse of FBI files, firings at the White House travel office and payments to presidential friend Webster Hubbell. "This is an impeachment in search of a crime," complained James Jordan, a spokesperson for Democrats on Judiciary Committee. The Clinton administration, given 30 minutes to cross-examine Starr, assigned David Kendall - Clinton's private lawyer who has accused Starr of leaking grand jury material and has relentlessly pur- sued a contempt of court motion against him.