Whitewater

WASHINGTON -- The report to Congress from the independent counsel -- whose inquiry began four years ago with an examination of a complicated land deal called Whitewater -- finds no offense by President Clinton in that area that would merit impeachment, lawyers with knowledge of the report's content said yesterday.Investigations involving the White House travel office and the administration's use of FBI files also found no impeachable offenses, the lawyers said.Parallels in conductBut the report draws parallels between the president's conduct in the investigation of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the Arkansas aspects of the inquiry.

The name strikes fear into the hearts of the whitewater timid. I know. Been there, felt the fear. The name is spoken in hushed, reverential tones by experienced enthusiasts. All serious whitewater adventurers have either done or long to do this river. It is West Virginia's mighty Gauley River. The Gauley is among the most thrilling whitewater rivers in the United States."I have Gauley posters on my wall," a whitewater guide in Vermont informed me.Although he has yet to do the Gauley, he looks at his poster and dreams - or so he says.

WASHINGTON -- It is very unusual for someone to be prosecuted for the tax violations that President Clinton's old friend and former appointee, Webster Hubbell, was accused of Thursday.But it is not remotely unusual for a prosecutor to use any lever he can get his hands on to tighten the vise around a potential witness he thinks can advance an important case.In that sense, suggested tax lawyers and former prosecutors interviewed yesterday, the prosecution of Hubbell on tax charges is merely a means to an end -- which is itself a means to a further end.Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor, appears to be trying to put pressure on Hubbell in hopes of extracting information that could be used to build a case against Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton, the central quarries in the four-year inquiry into the Whitewater land deal and related matters.

WASHINGTON -- A look at Webster L. Hubbell's day-planner for 1994 tells the story of his dramatic tumble. The pages early in the year are filled with hourly appointments -- meeting with the attorney general, lunch at the White House, interview with New York Times Magazine.By December, the pages are nearly blank.But whether on his way up or down, the former Clinton confidant and golfing buddy has never veered too far from the hub of activity. Now Hubbell, suspected of being paid to keep mum about the first family's secrets, is about to return to the hot seat.

AMERICANS depressed by independent counsel Kenneth Starr's hunting expedition through President Clinton's private life must prepare for more.Mr. Starr announced last week that no end was in sight to his investigation into Mr. Clinton's personal behavior.He has hired a lawyer who specializes in talking to the press, as though this had been his problem with public opinion.His announcement coincided with Paula Corbin Jones' decision to appeal a federal judge's dismissal of her lawsuit. A strange synergy between the lawsuit and the investigation has had Ms. Jones' legal team seeking depositions on Mr. Clinton's behavior, for Mr. Starr's prosecutors to investigate for possible perjury and subordination.

WASHINGTON'S early spring has everyone smiling -- especially Bill Clinton. The warm, sunny weather and a profusion of spring colors have been accompanied by an unparalleled string of successes for the president after a rough winter of discontent.Gone, for the moment, is the prospect of an embarrassing trial next month that would have laid bare the president's extracurricular dalliances.Pressure is building on special prosecutor Kenneth Starr to wrap up his Whitewater inquiry quickly. The probe has failed to live up to the high expectations of Clinton detractors.

WASHINGTON -- James B. McDougal, a former Clinton business partner who had been cooperating with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr in the Whitewater investigation, died yesterday in a federal prison hospital in Texas. He was 58.McDougal was serving a 3 1/2 -year sentence after Starr's office successfully prosecuted him on fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, a McDougal-owned Arkansas thrift that cost taxpayers $60 million when it failed.His death appears to reduce the legal risks to President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was a clear setback to Starr and his prosecutors, who huddled in their offices last night after McDougal's death was announced.

Rescue workers in Zimbabwe were searching yesterday for the body of a Maryland man whose riverboat capsized downstream of Victoria Falls during a whitewater rafting trip. HTC Tour operators and the U.S. State Department said he is presumed dead.John Mayer, 45, of Rockville has been missing since Feb. 11. A tour operator in Zimbabwe said Mayer had moved from Maryland to Hong Kong and was vacationing when the accident occurred.In addition to Mayer, six other passengers and a guide on the inflatable riverboat were tossed into the Zambezi River during an afternoon trip, said Jeremy Brooke, owner of Shearwater Tours in Harare, which organized the outing.

At 35, Robert J. Bittman is at the top of the legal world.As one of Kenneth W. Starr's chief deputies, Bittman has come a long way from prosecuting drunken drivers in Anne Arundel County.The University of Maryland graduate says his six years prosecuting drunks, con men and murderers in the aging Annapolis courthouse have been invaluable in gathering evidence and helping to decide whether the president of the United States should be charged as a felon."What I'm doing now is very important work, but what I did in Anne Arundel County was just as important to the people it affected," Bittman said.

FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON, this has been one tough Supreme Court. A few weeks after a unanimous tribunal opened at least the prospect of a Paula Jones trial before Mr. Clinton leaves office, it stepped in to allow Whitewater prosecutors access to notes government attorneys made of their conversations with Hillary Rodham Clinton.Whatever one thinks of the way the White House ducks and dodges as inquiries proceed about the Clintons' tangled legal affairs, the court's action potentially weakens the lawyer-client secrecy privilege.