Word: starrs
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...timing was lucky since the respite was fleeting; by the middle of the week she was back in Kenneth Starr's crosshairs, after it was disclosed that Judge Norma Holloway Johnson had rejected Ginsburg's claim that Starr was obliged to honor a blanket-immunity deal that would have guaranteed her never having to get used to prison food. Lewinsky represents Starr's best chance to nail down a case of obstruction of justice against the President, a pattern of persuading associates to keep his secrets to themselves...
...other Starr witnesses looked a lot less promising. He could indict Susan McDougal for criminal contempt before his Arkansas grand jury packs up and goes home this week, but she has already shown that she prefers ankle chains to testifying against the President. And although Starr indicted Clinton pal Webb Hubbell last week (along with his wife Suzanna, his lawyer and his accountant), it was only for alleged tax crimes that are typically handled as civil matters, which even some of Starr's supporters felt was a stretch. Sources tell TIME that Starr's office is weighing still more charges...
...largely circumstantial case, Starr's ace is Lewinsky, whose lawyers have made clear from the start that they weren't going to let her go to jail, and whose florid romantic aspirations left a trail behind her like rose petals: e-mails and phone calls, beeper pages and presents. And affidavits. Though Lewinsky swore in early January that she had no sexual relationship with the President, a later proffer to Starr reportedly admitted to just that, was vague on the question of obstruction and said nothing at all about the mysterious "talking points" she gave her friend Linda Tripp...
...Starr has another alternative: he can indict Lewinsky for perjury and obstruction. That way, if Lewinsky doesn't help Starr make his case to Congress, he will have a chance to make it in a court. She would be defendant, not star witness, and through her prosecution Starr could introduce Tripp's tapes and the evidence he has gathered in the past three months. "This is a law-enforcement issue, not a political issue," says a lawyer in the case. "If you don't think Congress will do anything with it, why not try it and let it come...
Ginsburg remains outwardly confident this won't happen, crediting Starr with a sharper political sense than he has displayed so far. Indicting Lewinsky, says her lawyer, would be a p.r. disaster. Many outside lawyers generally agree: she can deny having sex with the President, say she was fantasizing on those tapes and stalking and hanging around, but nothing more. If she calls the President to testify on her behalf, he'll say the same things. Everything else Starr has is largely circumstantial, so long as everyone sticks to the script. And to indict her for lying about...