The scandal II: Shooting Starr.

Critics try to make Starr the issue.

JOSEPH Conrad once observed that "words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality." So it should come as no surprise, on the eve of only the third presidential impeachment proceeding in our nation's history, that the Clinton defense team of Carville, Dershowitz, Conyers & Frank is out in force, battling reality with great ferocity. The goal: To put Kenneth Starr, not Bill Clinton, in the dock of public judgment. It shouldn't work. If Starr is called as a witness before the House Judiciary Committee, he will have to face at least three lines of attack now being road-tested by Clinton's cable-TV apologists. He should have no difficulty beating all of them back. The "Leaky Faucet" Argument. More than four months have passed since the publication of the maiden issue of Content magazine, in which publisher Steven Brill accused Starr of leaking secret grand-jury information in violation of Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Despite Starr's denials of any improper conduct and the torrent of criticism directed at the Brill article, the leak allegations have been the subject of three separate investigations. And guess what? We have yet to see Starr's office tied to a single leak that violates Rule 6(e). But let's suppose that Starr or one of his deputies did step over the 6(e) line. What then? The offending prosecutor could be subject to disbarment, perhaps even criminal prosecution. But it's hard to see how a prosecutorial leak excuses President Clinton for repeatedly lying under oath and obstructing justice. The "Perjury Trap" Argument. The phrase "perjury trap" appears nowhere in the entire federal criminal code. There is no "perjury trap" defense against charges of perjury-or any other crime, for that matter. But flip on CNBC's Rivera Live and you would get the impression that President Clinton was somehow forced, "trapped," into his role as a serial oath-breaker. The theory is that Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, and the Paula Jones legal team were all acting in concert. Mrs. Tripp tipped off Starr, Starr egged her on to egg on Monica Lewinsky, and Starr and Mrs. Tripp each illicitly cooperated with the Jones lawyers to bag their presidential prey. Makes the blood boil, doesn't it? But it happens to be untrue. It took me ten minutes to find this out in a telephone interview with Charles Bakaly, Starr's counselor and press spokesman. Bakaly denies that Starr or anyone in his office instructed Linda Tripp to contact the lawyers for Paula Jones at any time. "We had no knowledge that Tripp was going to the Jones lawyers," he says. "In fact, we first learned about Tripp's contacts with the Jones legal team by reading the Washington Post like everybody else." Bakaly also emphatically denies that anyone in Starr's office suggested to Linda Tripp that she coax Monica Lewinsky into refusing to file her false affidavit denying a sexual relationship with President Clinton until she had first received an acceptable job offer. Bakaly also downplays the contact made by conservative lawyer Jerome Marcus with Paul Rosenzweig, a staff attorney in Starr's office. Marcus, apparently acting at the request of one of Starr's law partners, may have tipped off the staff attorney as to the Clinton-Lewinsky shenanigans. Since this communication took place several days before Mrs. Tripp first made direct contact with Jackie Bennett, Starr's deputy, the Clinton defense squad darkly speculates that Starr may have used the "extra time" to concoct a way to get involved in the Lewinsky investigation. It's hard to see what difference this would make as long as that "way" was defensible on its own terms. But, as it happens, Bakaly says the speculation is false: "We didn't spend the intervening period crafting a strategy to get jurisdiction over the Lewinsky matter. We didn't pay much attention to the contact. We thought it was immaterial, irrelevant." Clinton defenders have resurrected the charge that Starr advised Gil Davis, Paula Jones's former attorney, on the issue of whether the President was immune from civil suits. But Starr's view on this matter has been well known for some time, and it is no impropriety for him to lay out his case to someone with whom he had no financial relationship. It should also be remembered that Starr, to the great chagrin of the Jones attorneys, filed a motion requesting that Judge Susan Webber Wright stay discovery in the Jones case because the discovery process would adversely affect his own criminal investigation. Judge Wright ultimately ruled that discovery could continue, except to the extent that it sought information about Monica Lewinsky. Filing this motion was hardly the friendly act of a co-conspirator in a "perjury trap." The "Out-of-Control" Prosecutor Argument. In a breathtaking act of political hypocrisy, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), the head cheerleader in Congress for the independent-counsel law, took to the Senate floor on October 8 to berate Ken Starr. Sounding much like Dr. Frankenstein bemoaning his own creation, Levin cites nearly every imaginable prosecutorial misdeed in his 13-page speech. For example, Levin insists that Starr exceeded his jurisdiction when he instructed FBI agents to put a "body wire" on Linda Tripp for the purpose of taping four hours of conversation between her and Monica Lewinsky. But Starr's tactics were ultimately ratified by Attorney General Janet Reno and the supervising three-judge panel when they authorized Starr to investigate the Lewinsky matter. If Starr had exceeded his authority, why did Miss Reno then give him the green light to continue going down the Lewinsky witness-tampering path? Levin accuses Starr of omitting exculpatory material from his impeachment report, including Monica Lewinsky's grand- jury statement that "no one ever asked [her] to lie." It's not true. In Section VI. A., Grounds for Impeachment, Starr writes: "Ms. Lewinsky has stated that the President never explicitly told her to lie." Levin even complains that Starr acted "inconsistently" with Justice Department policy by subpoenaing Secret Service agents, citing President Bush in support. But Secret Service agents are law-enforcement officers required by federal law to report evidence of criminality. And three former attorneys general (Barr, Thornburgh, and Bell), one former President (Ford), one former Vice President (Quayle), and every reviewing judge have rejected the Administration's bogus "protective function" privilege claim. In any case, if Ken Starr is so out-of-control, why hasn't Janet Reno exercised her authority under the independent-counsel statute to remove a delinquent prosecutor for "good cause"? If Starr violated Justice Department guidelines (which independent counsels are generally bound to follow), that would constitute enough "good cause" to justify a pink slip. Sen. Levin's excuse for Miss Reno's inaction comes down to what Clinton apologists know best: raw politics. He lamely insists that she "is effectively powerless to rein in [Starr's] excesses because her discharge of him would be so reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre in which Archibald Cox, the prosecutor investigating Richard Nixon, was fired." But is Levin talking about the same attorney general whose constant refrain is that she "just looks at the law and the facts" and ignores politics? Could it be that even Attorney General Reno, Bill Clinton's appointee, has concluded that Starr has not abused his authority and, therefore, deserves to keep his job? Of course, Ken Starr has committed his share of gaffes. He never should have talked to Steven Brill. Nor should he have entertained the job offer from Pepperdine University. But these missteps don't justify the "perjury trap" claptrap of Carville & Co. Their manufactured outrage is an obvious attempt to shift attention away from a very unpleasant subject: the President's felonious conduct.

Mr. Shea is an attorney based in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for MSNBC.com.