Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [110]
Hubbell himself would express bafflement at the Starr prosecutors’ growing certainty that he was stiffing them. He would later say, seated at a breakfast table at the Mayflower Hotel, “If they say I got some benefit out of the plea, I still don’t know what that was. My understanding of the deal was that if I cooperated with the investigation, they would consider recommending a downward departure.… And in the end, they took no position on downward departure. And I got no downward departure. So I don’t know what more they thought they could have gotten.”
OIC delayed sentencing until late June, during which time, Hubbell later pointed out, “I met with congressional committees, I met with the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], I met with everybody and anybody who wanted me. Including the other independent counsels by that time. They wanted me as well.”
Hubbell insisted he was an open book. But OIC believed there were a few pages stuck together. “They clearly were wanting something on the president or First Lady,” Hubbell said. “They asked everything from who was having affairs, to what was Hillary’s involvement in Whitewater—what was Bill’s involvement? They even asked, Did I have an affair with Hillary?” This was fueled, Hubbell surmised, by Jim McDougal’s running around telling the press, “Webb knows where the bodies are buried.” Hubbell put his coffee cup down and said, his eyes widening, “I mean, what’s he talking about? I think the disappointment in their regard is that—probably Jackie Bennett’s view is that I still know something. And I just don’t know what it is. I mean, I’m being honest—it was never clear what they wanted me to say.”
Ironically, the same Ken Starr whom the Clinton White House viewed as an overly zealous extremist, was getting a reputation within his own office as someone too trusting and who was not being aggressive enough. Hardin felt that the botched plea deal was directly attributable to Starr’s naive expectation that people would “keep their word.” Many OIC prosecutors agreed. “I mean, Ken Starr hadn’t spent a life with people sitting there lying to his face,” said Hardin. “They don’t do that in appellate arguments.”
Overall, Ken Starr’s team of prosecutors felt that their boss was too weak and accommodating rather than too tough in his role as independent counsel. The Hubbell episode was a prime example.
Later, sipping iced tea in the cool comfort of his Texas law office, Hardin offered his opinion: “I don’t have any doubt that Webb Hubbell held back. What he held back I don’t know. I mean, did he have anything that could have changed the nature of the case? I don’t know that. I’m not suggesting that. All I’m saying is that Webb Hubbell was not forthcoming.
“I think the judgment of history will be—we don’t know what Webb Hubbell knew. I don’t think we ever will.”
THE Hubbell investigation, which later triggered charges that Starr’s operation had strayed too far afield, was not the only piece of work that Ken Starr had inherited from Robert Fiske. The efforts to shore up David Hale as a witness and to see what goods this disgraced former municipal judge might have on President Bill Clinton had likewise begun well before Starr appeared on the scene.
Even before Starr took over, prosecutor Rusty Hardin had pulled Hale’s lawyer into a closet in the court house and negotiated a deal by which Hale pledged to “truthfully disclose all information” relating to OIC’s investigation. In return, OIC would seek leniency when it came time for sentencing.
What followed was an unusual series of secret