Congressional Democrats yesterday urged the Attorney General, Ms Janet Reno, to move quickly in investigating new allegations that the office of the independent counsel, Mr Kenneth Starr, misled her about the genesis of the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
Newly disclosed records show that when Mr Starr sought to secure approval from Ms Reno in January 1998 to look into the Lewinsky matter, his prosecutors told Reno aides that they had "no contacts" with the legal team of Ms Paula Jones, who had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton.
But in fact, the independent counsel's office has acknowledged that just days earlier, an attorney working closely with the Jones camp had contacted a Starr prosecutor about Mr Clinton's involvement with a White House intern. Mr Starr's attorneys said that was when they first learned of allegations that Mr Clinton had encouraged her to lie about their affair.
While Mr Starr's critics have accused him of failing to reveal possible conflicts in his investigation, the new disclosures represent the first indication that his prosecutors may have misled authorities actively when they sought to expand their inquiry.
Officials in Mr Starr's office have steadfastly denied any collusion with lawyers for Ms Jones, whose suit led to the perjury and obstruction case that led to Mr Clinton's impeachment.
But Democrats said yesterday that the discrepancy bolsters their claims that Mr Starr had a clear conflict of interest in investigating the Lewinsky affair because of undisclosed contacts with the Jones camp - both before and after he became independent counsel.
Mr Julian Epstein, Democratic chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, said he believes that the discussions between the Starr and Jones camps should have been disclosed to Ms Reno when she was considering authorising an expanded investigation into the Lewinsky allegations.
"Had these contacts been properly discussed," said Mr Epstein, "there might not have even been authorisation for the expansion of Starr's investigation." According to a report in yesterday's editions of the Washington Post, the Justice Department has sent Mr Starr's office a letter saying that it is considering investigating whether his prosecutors misled Ms Reno.
Democrat Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a strong Clinton defender, charged that Mr Starr had "set up" Mr Clinton after collaborating with Jones lawyers. He called it "a classic sting operation".
Ms Abbe Lowell, who was the Democrats' House Judiciary Committee counsel during the impeachment proceedings, said: "This impeachment stands on Ken Starr's shoulders and if there's something weak about those shoulders, it's important that history understands that."
Central to the question of whether Mr Starr's office misled Ms Reno are hand-written notes of a January 15th, 1998 meeting between the independent counsel's office and the Justice Department.
At the meeting, Mr Starr's prosecutors outlined the fast-breaking developments in the case over the previous several days - including their conversations with Ms Linda Tripp about tape recordings she had made of her telephone conversations with Ms Lewinsky. And they made their case for expanding their inquiry to include possible evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice against Clinton.
Notes that were taken separately at the meeting by at least three participants and were later turned over to House investigators show that Mr Starr's lawyers told Ms Reno's aides that they had had "no contact" with Jones's attorneys.
The notes contained no mention of at least one conversation earlier in the month about the Tripp-Lewinsky matter between a Starr prosecutor and Mr Jerome M. Marcus, a Philadelphia lawyer who had done extensive work for the Jones legal team. Ten months later, Mr Starr told the House Judiciary Committee: "The attorney general made her decision knowing the information that we had."