Starr Throws In The Towel
It appears that Kenneth Starr may be wrapping up his work after five years investigating President and Mrs. Clinton, reports CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Scott Pelley. The independent counsel decided Tuesday not to seek retrials in the deadlocked cases against Susan McDougal and Julie Hiatt Steele.
Sources tell CBS News that Starr didn't believe he could get a fair jury in Arkansas.
Starr had accused McDougal of obstructing his investigation by refusing to tell a grand jury about her business dealings with the Clintons. In April, a jury acquitted her of the obstruction charges, but deadlocked on two charges of contempt of court.
"Retrials raise important questions of resource allocation, said Starr. "The jury's inability to reach a unanimous verdict is a reality that we have taken seriously."
Starr's decision sets McDougal free for the first time since 1993.
Starr has also decided against a retrial of Steele. She was a minor figure in the Monica Lewinsky obstruction of justice case against the president. Starr accused her of lying about knowing of alleged sexual advances by Mr. Clinton. A jury also deadlocked on those charges.
Tuesday's announcement brings Starr a couple of steps closer to winding up a $40 million investigation that produced the second impeachment ever of a U.S. president. Three of Starr's key deputies have left this spring for private law practice.
"I don't believe he would have gotten a conviction and he would only have put my family through the misery of a retrial. I think he did the right thing," said William Henley, one of McDougal's brothers.
Starr's decision ends five years of legal warfare with McDougal who, with her late ex-husband, started the Whitewater land venture with the Clintons.
She was sent to prison after being convicted in the first Whitewater trial in 1996, was also jailed for refusing a judge's order to answer Starr's questions before a grand jury and then was tried this year for obstruction. From her jail cell to television interviews, McDougal incessantly attacked Starr's motives and tactics.
Steele's lawyer, who also made Starr's tactics an issue in her client's trial, said the decision reflected an assessment that "this was a case that could not be won."
"Whatever his motivation, we are pleased and relieved," attorney Nancy Luque said.
Starr is still pursuing tax evasion charges against Clinton friend Webster Hubbell, and sources tell CBS News that Mrs. Clinton is likely to be a witness in that case.
