Starr to End Clinton Case ‘as Promptly as We Can’

The Whitewater independent counsel said Friday that his investigation of the personal and political finances of President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would be concluded “as promptly as we can.”

But the prosecutor, Kenneth W. Starr, declined to be more specific.

“I’m not going to give you a date. I’ve learned the hard way it is unwise to give a date certain. It cannot be done,” Starr said.

“We are mindful of the interests of the country in moving forward and bringing this to a conclusion one way or another as promptly as we can,” he said.

“We are proceeding as diligently as we can. We are already evaluating the information that we have as well as gathering additional information,” he said. He declined to say if the information involved Clinton or the first lady.

Starr spoke with reporters after a hearing in federal court here in a criminal case brought by the Whitewater prosecutor. Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas, and two other men are charged with bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion.

A judge granted the defense a seven-month delay in the trial, citing Tucker’s poor health, but accepted Starr’s argument that Tucker’s co-defendants should not receive separate trials.

Tucker was convicted last year in a separate Whitewater case. Found guilty in the same trial were Clinton’s partners in the Whitewater real estate project in Arkansas, James B. McDougal and his former wife, Susan McDougal.

Although the pending case does not involve Clinton directly, Starr called it “an integral part of what is frequently called the Whitewater investigation.”