Senate Panel Up In Arms Over Fingerprints Plan To Subpoena Fbi For First Lady’s Prints Sparks Shouting Match

A Senate Whitewater Committee hearing erupted into a partisan shouting match Thursday over efforts to confirm that the fingerprints of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were found on long-sought law firm billing records.

The furor arose when Whitewater Committee Chairman Alfonse M. D’Amato, R-N.Y., proposed that the FBI be subpoenaed to produce its laboratory analysis of the law firm records, which reportedly contain the first lady’s prints.

D’Amato said the subpoena is necessary because Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who is conducting a federal grand jury inquiry into the sudden appearance of the subpoenaed documents last January, refused a request by the panel to furnish his FBI analysis.

“Let’s not drag the FBI into this,” exclaimed Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, Md., the committee’s ranking Democrat, interrupting D’Amato in mid-sentence. “We should deal with Mr. Starr. The FBI agents are working for him. I don’t want to drag the FBI into a political situation.”

“Don’t raise your voice to me, senator,” D’Amato rejoined. “We’re not getting a satisfactory resolution from the independent counsel.”

As both senators angrily tried to make points at the same time, Sarbanes shouted: “Leave the FBI out of it!” He argued that subpoenaing the FBI would put its director, Louis J. Freeh, in an “untenable position” because his agents have been on loan to Starr.

“I’m sorry you’re interpreting it that way,” D’Amato said, banging his gavel for order. “Nobody’s talking about politics except yourself. I think you cry too much.”

D’Amato finally relented by saying the subpoena would be sent to Starr, with the option of sending one later to Freeh. Legal experts said such subpoenas would be of dubious legality since Starr’s grand jury inquiry is constitutionally protected from outside influence.