Starr report expected soon

The independent counsel's report draws new criticism from Dems

''You are mistaken in your views as to ... your right to review a report before it is transmitted to Congress,'' Starr wrote presidential attorney David Kendall.

The prosecutor, responding to Kendall's letter asking for access to the report a week early, wrote, ''I suggest you address your concerns to the House of Representatives'' after any report is delivered under seal there.

AP PHOTO The independent counsel's report on President Clinton should reach Congress ''this week or next,'' Senate Republican leader Trent Lott said yesterday.

Democrats, meanwhile, kept blistering Clinton with criticism as harsh as the Republicans'.

''We're fed up,'' said Sen. Ernest ''Fritz'' Hollings of South Carolina. ''The behavior, the dishonesty of the president is unacceptable and we'll see with the report what course the Congress will take.''

Lott said there might have been ''more sympathy'' for Kendall's argument if the White House had not shown a pattern of belated disclosure on other congressional investigations.

''Why is it fair that no one else in the world can get it, but they can?'' Lott said. ''I really don't think presidents should be entitled to this.''

Lott commented on the likely arrival of Starr's investigative report after discussing the matter with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is to go over the logistics of possible hearings with Democratic leaders today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat whose daughter married Hillary Rodham Clinton's younger brother at the White House in 1994, called the president's behavior ''wrong,'' ''indefensible'' and ''immoral'' in her most extensive comments on the Lewinsky matter since Clinton's Aug. 17 admission of an inappropriate relationship with the former intern.

"He should have taken responsibility earlier,'' she said on the Senate floor. However, she went on to praise Clinton's agenda and accomplishments.

After meeting with other Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota urged Clinton to elaborate on his recent apology, saying, ''I think that it's important that he continue to find appropriate forums in which to add to the comment that he's already made.''

Reaching out to lawmakers, Clinton invited House Democratic leaders to the White House on today.

''There's not much that anyone could say about this that he has not said to himself,'' White House spokesperson Mike McCurry said of the criticism from Democrats.

''I think he respects and understands people who are expressing themselves on the matter,'' McCurry said.

Lott said Starr had opened no channel of communication with GOP leaders or advised them of the report's arrival time. ''We don't know for sure,'' he said.

But a White House official and a senior House Democratic aide - both of whom asked not to be named - said they, too, expected the report by the end of next week.

What happens after the report arrives is murky. House Republican leaders are still discussing procedural issues, including how much subpoena and other authority the House should grant the Judiciary Committee if senior members decide enough evidence of impeachable offenses exists for a full-blown inquiry.

House leaders also returned from their summer recess to a series of bipartisan meetings today on how much of Starr's report to make public.

''There is some feeling that, look, it's going to get out anyway,'' Lott told reporters.

Clinton's attorneys are concerned Starr's report will be one-sided and include extensive conclusions and legal analysis instead of simply a listing of facts gathered in the seven-month investigation.

''Elemental fairness dictates that we be allowed to respond to any 'report' you send to the House simultaneously with its transmission,'' Kendall wrote Starr on Monday.

In his letter to Kendall, Starr said, ''it is for Congress, the repository of the impeachment power, to decide if and when such information should be provided to your client.''

Starr also revealed in the letter that Clinton as of April 3 had refused six invitations from Starr's office to give grand jury testimony in the Lewinsky investigation. Clinton eventually testified Aug. 17.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson Orrin Hatch, also noting White House-erected hurdles to Starr's investigation, said the special prosecutor ''frankly ... doesn't owe Mr. Kendall much."

On the House side of the Capitol, tensions are mounting over how much of the report is to be made public and whether Democrats will have a say in the distribution and investigation of the evidence it contains.

Gingrich and Minority Leader Richard Gephardt are scheduled to talk for the first time today about the logistics of a congressional investigation.

Joining them will be Majority Leader Dick Armey, House Judiciary Committee Chairperson Henry Hyde, who would head any inquiry into Clinton's conduct and John Conyers of Michigan, the panel's ranking Democrat.

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