Starr is probing whether her tapes were tampered with and whether Tripp lied about them when she testified the tapes she turned over to prosecutors were originals. The FBI has concluded some of the tapes are in fact duplicates. After working with Starr's office, Tripp provided specifics about Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton to Paula Jones' lawyers, who then caught the president off guard with detailed questions when he testified in the lawsuit Jan. 17. Democrats wonder why Starr's office didn't do as prosecutors frequently do in sensitive criminal investigations and stop Tripp from talking to outsiders. Some Democratic critics have suggested Starr may have tried to entrap the president.
Problems loom on other fronts, too.
The president's lawyers persuaded a federal judge to launch a probe of leaks of secret grand jury information. If the judge finds that Starr's office violated grand jury secrecy rules, she could ask Attorney General Janet Reno to remove him from office, refer any leakers to the American Bar Association for discipline, or take other action. There is a separate investigation of Starr's office by former Justice Department lawyer Michael Shaheen into whether money from foundations controlled by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife found its way into the pocket of David Hale, a crucial Starr witness against Clinton in the original Whitewater inquiry. The suspicion that Starr has a political agenda first arose in 1994. Appeals court Judge David Sentelle met with Republican Sens. Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth around the time that Sentelle and two other appeals court judges named Starr prosecutor.