Sitting President

WASHINGTON -- The independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, has concluded that he has the constitutional authority to seek a grand jury indictment of President Clinton before he leaves the White House in January 2001, several associates of Starr said last week.While the Senate sat in judgment on the president, Starr and his prosecutors have actively considered whether to ask a grand jury to indict Clinton before his term expires, said Starr's associates, who spoke on condition of anonymity.These associates emphasized that Starr had not decided whether, or when, to ask the federal grand jury here to charge Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Monica Lewinsky matter.

After four years of refusing to meet with the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group, President Bush sat down at the White House yesterday with NAACP President Kweisi Mfume. Mfume called it a "very frank, open meeting" that he hoped would mark the end of a rocky relationship between the president and the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Bush spoke to the group while campaigning in 2000 but did not accept invitations thereafter. The estrangement came to a head when Bush refused to speak at the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia this summer, blaming rhetoric and name-calling from its leaders.

An article in yesterday's Maryland section on President Clinton's scheduled commencement address May 18 at Morgan State University incorrectly stated the last time a sitting president spoke at a Maryland graduation ceremony. Clinton delivered the 1994 Naval Academy commencement address, while Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush also addressed graduates there during their terms.The Sun regrets the errors.President Clinton will deliver the Morgan State University commencement address May 18 to more than 900 graduates and their families and friends, campus and U.S. officials confirmed yesterday.

WASHINGTON - A special prosecutor questioned President Bush for more than an hour yesterday as part of an investigation into who illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer. The rare interview by a prosecutor with a sitting president is among a series of recent developments that indicate the politically sensitive investigation is intensifying and could be drawing near an end, opening the possibility that the results will be announced during the run-up to the election. The grand jury investigation covers news leaks attributed to senior Bush administration officials that exposed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame soon after her husband, a former U.S. ambassador, authored a newspaper article asserting that the president had misled the public about evidence that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON -- With little constitutional text to guide him and mainstream legal scholarship opposing him, Kenneth W. Starr would face an uphill battle if he decides to bring a criminal case against President Clinton while the president is still in office.The independent counsel has reportedly concluded that he has constitutional authority to bring a criminal indictment against Clinton before the president leaves office.Ronald D. Rotunda, one of Starr's legal consultants, believes the Supreme Court's 1997 decision allowing the Paula Corbin Jones civil suit to proceed set a precedent that would permit the indictment, trial and conviction of a sitting president for a federal crime.

ATLANTA -- Does George W. Bush have something to hide? An awkward question, unpleasant to ask at any time and especially in these warlike circumstances, but inevitable after Mr. Bush signed an executive order Nov. 1 putting the lid on presidential papers that had been scheduled to become public. The wonder is that the question isn't being asked more broadly and urgently than it has been so far. The order sabotages the intent of the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which made the papers of subsequent presidents public 12 years after a president leaves office.

CORONADO, Calif. -- President Clinton, sounding more like a presidential candidate than a sitting president, took his show on the road yesterday, where he still can turn out a crowd -- and still inspire Americans with his vision of a high-tech, high-wage America on the move."

WASHINGTON - A special prosecutor questioned President Bush for more than an hour yesterday as part of an investigation into who illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer. The rare interview by a prosecutor with a sitting president is among a series of recent developments that indicate the politically sensitive investigation is intensifying and could be drawing near an end, opening the possibility that the results will be announced during the run-up to the election. The grand jury investigation covers news leaks attributed to senior Bush administration officials that exposed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame soon after her husband, a former U.S. ambassador, authored a newspaper article asserting that the president had misled the public about evidence that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON -- The White House strategy of going on the attack in the Whitewater Development Co. controversy suggests a White House out of touch with political reality.On the one hand, it is true, as the president's surrogates insist, that there is not a single allegation of misconduct that has been directed at President Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton. But blaming the whole thing on either the partisanship of Republicans or, to use David Gergen's word, the "cannibalism" of the Washington community, including the press, misses the point.

In the ordinary lawsuit, somebody wins and somebody loses, and it's not hard to tell which is which. The trouble is that Jones v. Clinton is no ordinary lawsuit.At this juncture, it appears that Paula Jones has lost and Bill Clinton has won, but there is more to the recent decision by federal Judge Susan Webber Wright. The office of the presidency has won an important victory.As just about everyone knows, Paula Jones alleges that in 1991, when she was a low-ranking state employee in Arkansas, then-Gov.

CHICAGO - On political issues, it's been said, where you stand depends on where you sit. Bill Clinton can vouch for that. He finds that some things look different to a sitting president once he's an ex-president, who in this case is not sitting but pacing. Mr. Clinton recently expressed a desire to alter the 22nd Amendment, which contains a proviso he finds unfortunate: "No person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice." There are two people in the universe currently constrained by that limitation, and Mr. Clinton is one of them.

ATLANTA -- Does George W. Bush have something to hide? An awkward question, unpleasant to ask at any time and especially in these warlike circumstances, but inevitable after Mr. Bush signed an executive order Nov. 1 putting the lid on presidential papers that had been scheduled to become public. The wonder is that the question isn't being asked more broadly and urgently than it has been so far. The order sabotages the intent of the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which made the papers of subsequent presidents public 12 years after a president leaves office.

WASHINGTON -- With little constitutional text to guide him and mainstream legal scholarship opposing him, Kenneth W. Starr would face an uphill battle if he decides to bring a criminal case against President Clinton while the president is still in office.The independent counsel has reportedly concluded that he has constitutional authority to bring a criminal indictment against Clinton before the president leaves office.Ronald D. Rotunda, one of Starr's legal consultants, believes the Supreme Court's 1997 decision allowing the Paula Corbin Jones civil suit to proceed set a precedent that would permit the indictment, trial and conviction of a sitting president for a federal crime.

WASHINGTON -- The independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, has concluded that he has the constitutional authority to seek a grand jury indictment of President Clinton before he leaves the White House in January 2001, several associates of Starr said last week.While the Senate sat in judgment on the president, Starr and his prosecutors have actively considered whether to ask a grand jury to indict Clinton before his term expires, said Starr's associates, who spoke on condition of anonymity.These associates emphasized that Starr had not decided whether, or when, to ask the federal grand jury here to charge Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice related to the Monica Lewinsky matter.

From its inception, Jones vs. Clinton was larger than anything alleged in it.The lawsuit's sole allegation was that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton made an obscene sexual overture to Paula Jones in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991. There were no witnesses and no corroborating evidence. Yet this case managed to stay in the news for more than three years, and it affected the way we view the presidency, politics, the media, the courts and the legal profession.Last week, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the lawsuit, and unless her decision is overturned on appeal, Jones will never have a chance to prove her allegation, and Clinton will never have a chance to disprove it. Meanwhile, only two people, Clinton and Jones, know what happened, and even a trial might not have uncovered the truth.

An article in yesterday's Maryland section on President Clinton's scheduled commencement address May 18 at Morgan State University incorrectly stated the last time a sitting president spoke at a Maryland graduation ceremony. Clinton delivered the 1994 Naval Academy commencement address, while Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush also addressed graduates there during their terms.The Sun regrets the errors.President Clinton will deliver the Morgan State University commencement address May 18 to more than 900 graduates and their families and friends, campus and U.S. officials confirmed yesterday.

From its inception, Jones vs. Clinton was larger than anything alleged in it.The lawsuit's sole allegation was that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton made an obscene sexual overture to Paula Jones in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991. There were no witnesses and no corroborating evidence. Yet this case managed to stay in the news for more than three years, and it affected the way we view the presidency, politics, the media, the courts and the legal profession.Last week, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the lawsuit, and unless her decision is overturned on appeal, Jones will never have a chance to prove her allegation, and Clinton will never have a chance to disprove it. Meanwhile, only two people, Clinton and Jones, know what happened, and even a trial might not have uncovered the truth.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's sudden and vividly televised bout with the flu has once again turned a bright light on the question of the 67-year-old president's health and whether it may be an issue in the election campaign.Publicly, Democrats were following the predictably cautious course of wishing the president a speedy recovery while privately enjoying the prospect of fresh discussion of the qualifications of Vice President Dan Quayle.But the Democrats conceded that even if there were a political opening, they are powerless to exploit it. Unless the president has a continuing health problem, as opposed to an isolated episode of illness, the voters will be making their choice next November, as they did in 1988, on the relative strengths of the presidential candidates rather than on who might succeed them.

In an address to a sometimes exuberant joint session of the Maryland General Assembly -- the first ever by a sitting president -- President Clinton began trying yesterday to sell the education and welfare reform proposals at the heart of his second-term domestic agenda.Amid warm applause, Clinton made his case for national test standards for fourth- and eighth-graders, increased school spending and continued welfare reform."Education and welfare reform are about bringing all Americans to the starting line of the economy, then making sure all of them are ready to run the race," Clinton told state lawmakers.

In the ordinary lawsuit, somebody wins and somebody loses, and it's not hard to tell which is which. The trouble is that Jones v. Clinton is no ordinary lawsuit.At this juncture, it appears that Paula Jones has lost and Bill Clinton has won, but there is more to the recent decision by federal Judge Susan Webber Wright. The office of the presidency has won an important victory.As just about everyone knows, Paula Jones alleges that in 1991, when she was a low-ranking state employee in Arkansas, then-Gov.