Starr Probe Nears $ Record

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr spent $7.2 million investigating President Clinton during the six-month period that included the Senate impeachment trial.

That brought expenses so far for Starr's five-year investigation of President and Mrs. Clinton and their associates to $47 million. More than a quarter of that was spent during the Monica Lewinsky investigation and the impeachment.

With the investigation continuing, Starr is on the brink of becoming the most expensive independent counsel ever.

Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh spent $48.5 million on a six-year investigation of whether the Reagan administration attempted arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and its secret war against Nicaragua's leftist government.

Starr's expenses for the six-month period ending March 31 included $5.7 million for salaries, travel and rent and $1.5 million for costs of U.S. Marshal Service, FBI and Justice Department employees detailed to Starr's office, the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said in a report released Thursday.

Mr. Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate began the first week of January and ended in acquittal on Feb. 12.

In 1994, Starr began investigating 1980s Arkansas land deals involving the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton. In January 1998 Starr's investigation was expanded to include Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Starr spent more than $13 million during the year that covered most of the Lewinsky investigation and impeachment, the GAO figures show.

Though the law creating independent counsels expired June 30, investigations already under way are allowed to continue. Starr plans to leave his post soon, and several of his deputies have interviewed with a three-judge panel to take his place, courthouse employees have said.

The GAO report, updated every six months, showed that seven other special investigations -- five active and two closed -- spent $7.3 million during the period:

• Carol Elder Bruce, appointed to investigate allegations that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt lied to Congress, spent $2.4 million. Babbitt has not been charged.

• Donald C. Smaltz, independent counsel investigating former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, spent $1.8 million. Espy was acquitted.

• Independent Counsel David M. Barrett's probe of allegations that Henry Cisneros, the former secretary of housing and urban development, lied to the FBI about payments to a former mistress cost $1.6 million. Cisneros pleaded guilty Sept. 7 to a misdemeanor.

• Ralph I. Lancaster Jr.'s investigation of allegations that Labor Secretary Alexis Herman engaged in influence peddling and solicited illegal campaign contributions spent $1.1 million. The investigation continues.

• An investigation by prosecutors Arlin M. Adams and Larry D. Thompson of Reagan administration-era corruption at the Department of Hosing and Urban Development spent $382,043.

• Daniel S. Pearson, whose investigation of financial dealings of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown ended when Brown died in an April 1996 plane crash, spent $42,381.

• Curtis E. von Kann, who investigated and cleared a former Clinton White House official, Eli J. Segal, of conflict-of-interest allegations, spent $22,632.