Starr, Others Have Spent $36 Million On Clinton Probes

Independent counsels investigating President Clinton, the first lady and other administration officials have spent nearly $36 million in two years, logging their most expensive six-month period yet by spending more than $10 million from April through September 1996, according to the most recent figures compiled by the General Accounting Office.

The GAO report provides further evidence that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is carving out a place in specialprosecutor history with his spending. In the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 1996, he spent $5,049,625, bringing his total to $22,298,708. His investigation began in August 1994, but is approaching the cost of a longer-running probe into favoritism in the Reagan administration’s Housing and Urban Development Department.

Starr’s expenses also are more than twice that of his nearest competitor, independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz, who is investigating former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy’s acceptance of gifts. Smaltz spent $2,826,010 in the six-month period, according to the GAO report. Since he began his probe in September 1994, Smaltz has spent $8,672,212.

The costs outlined in the report include travel, office expenses, salaries of attorneys hired by the independent counsels and the cost of borrowing investigators from such agencies as the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Customs Service.

Picking up steam in the spending area is independent counsel David M. Barrett, who is investigating whether former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros lied to the FBI about payments he made to his mistress. During the six-month period, Barrett spent $1,255,088. He has spent a total of $2,157,670 since started in May 1995.

Taxpayers forked over $1,345,767 in the six-month period for another independent-counsel investigation, even though the target of the probe died in early April 1996. That brings the cost of independent counsel Daniel S. Pearson’s investigation of former Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown to $2,682,538.

No one was indicted in Pearson’s probe, parts of which were referred to the Justice Department for further investigation.