STARR POWER

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Who would ever have believed that Whitewater, the money-losing land deal that has dogged the Clintons since the last campaign, would deliver a political payoff? But the more Bob Dole mentioned it, even when delicately veiling the subject in the broader "character" issue, the more it seemed to make Dole look meanspirited.

Yet Clinton's resounding re-election all but guarantees that Whitewater and its many progeny, from Travelgate to Filegate, will continue to haunt this presidency. The election may have diminished Whitewater as a purely political issue. But the investigation of independent counsel Kenneth Starr marches on, divorced from electoral politics, its recent invisibility a measure not of weakness but of gathering strength.

Consider that Attorney General Janet Reno has formally recommended that Starr's jurisdiction be expanded on at least five separate occasions. Starr's mandate extends from the original Whitewater land deal to the activities of the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan run by the Clintons' partners Jim and Susan McDougal, to other real estate ventures like Castle Grande, which Hillary Clinton allegedly worked on at the Rose law firm. That's just what is known within the independent counsel's office as the "Arkansas phase" of the investigation. In the "Washington phase," focusing on events that have occurred since the Clintons have occupied the White House, there are the death of former deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, the discharge of the travel-office workers, the disappearance and reappearance of various documents under subpoena, the procurement of hundreds of FBI files, and the truthfulness of testimony about all these matters by everyone from the President and First Lady to friends and advisers like Susan Thomases and Bernard Nussbaum to low-ranking aides. Possible crimes being investigated range from an array of financial frauds in Arkansas to perjury and obstruction of justice in the White House. Starr is already presiding over so many investigations that there may have to be a separate independent counsel if Reno recommends an investigation into Clinton's role in Democratic Party fund raising by John Huang, the go-between with foreign interests who recently resigned from the Democratic National Committee.

Meanwhile, in Arkansas one of the main witnesses to the Whitewater transactions, Jim McDougal, is cooperating with Starr, and his ex-wife Susan remains under intense pressure to do so. While Jim's credibility will be assailed, whatever he has told prosecutors thus far has been deemed sufficiently important for Jim to have been moved into a "safe house," as he puts it, and he has cut off contact with the press and much of the outside world while he is being groomed for future testimony. This is much the same treatment previously accorded David Hale, the Arkansas lender who proved to be the government's star witness last summer at the McDougals' trial.

Susan McDougal is in jail for contempt after refusing to answer Starr's questions before a grand jury. Having been granted immunity for anything other than perjury, Susan can no longer invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege. In various interviews since her conviction, including an appearance on ABC's 20/20, Susan has cited her fear and distrust of Starr and his prosecutors as her reason for silence. That distrust seems genuine, but it is hardly the full explanation.