ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The hiring of two veteran federal prosecutors gives new intensity to the Whitewater counsel's investigation of the firing of White House travel office employees who were later cleared of wrongdoing.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's action comes four months after the White House suddenly produced a 21/2-year-old memo in which an aide, David Watkins, said he discharged the seven career employees at the ``insistence'' of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Starr has hired Roger Adelman, a former prosecutor specializing in white-collar crimes, and, on Tuesday, borrowed Eric Dubelier from the U.S. attorney's office.
Adelman's most famous case was the prosecution of John Hinckley, who has been held since 1981 after being found innocent by reason of insanity in the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Dubelier recently handled the case of Francisco Martin Duran, convicted of firing a gun at the White House in an assassination attempt.
``It does suggest that Starr is very serious about the travel office matter by adding these two prosecutors, and it suggests that he may have found there is sufficient information that makes it important to hire these additional prosecutors,'' Edmund Amorosi, spokesman for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, said Wednesday. The Republican-controlled committee has been looking into the case, too.
Under scrutiny is whether Watkins' nine-page statement disagrees with his congressional testimony, which did not assign as substantial a role to Hillary Clinton, who has said in writing that she had no role in the firings.
Watkins' attorney, Bob Mathias, said Wednesday that Watkins is cooperating with Starr's investigation.
Asked if he thought the case would wind up in a courtroom, Mathias said, ``Absolutely not. There is absolutely no basis for charging him with any crime.''
In addition, prosecutors have been concerned about the White House's failure for more than a year to turn over the late Vincent Foster's detailed handwritten notes on the travel office matter.
Six weeks ago, the situation was turned over to Starr, already investigating the complex Whitewater case in Arkansas. Unlike Whitewater, the travel office case is fairly clear-cut. Also unlike Whitewater, it occurred after the Clintons had moved into the White House, and for that reason it has been especially embarrassing.
Adelman, 54, continues to work at his law firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart; Dubelier, 40, who broke in under veteran New Orleans district attorney Harry Connick Sr., will work the case fulltime.
``We don't spend a lot of time in foolishness and Eric grew up in that atmosphere and did a lot of courtroom work,'' recalled Connick Wednesday.
Victoria Toensing, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, saw special significance in Starr's tapping of Adelman.
``It's obvious that Ken Starr feels there is evidence that has to be looked at by a serious prosecutor and has to be managed by someone who had extensive experience,'' she said. ``Roger's very methodical. He knows how to build a case. You would never see anything shoot-from-the-hip from him.''
``There has to have been something that surfaced that has made Ken Starr decide he needed senior prosecutorial experience,'' she added.
In addition to practicing law, Adelman teaches evidence courses at Georgetown University Law School. Among his students was Toensing's son, and she praised Adelman as someone who ``teaches because he cares about the law.''
A former colleague in the prosecutor's office, E. Lawrence Barcella, said both Adelman and Dubelier ``are intimately familiar with trying cases in front of Washington juries. If you want to get a legal and practical assessment of how a case would fly in front of a D.C. jury, you're talking about two people who can certainly give you that perspective.''
Shortly after the Clintons moved in, the travel office staff was replaced by people from a Little Rock, Ark., travel firm. In the uproar that followed, five of the seven were given new government jobs. The sixth retired, and Billy Dale, the travel office director, was tried on charges of stealing travel office funds. He was acquitted.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB