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A series of leaks and unnamed sources has Mr. Starr's investigative team and the Clinton Administration pinning the blame on each other. Two former White House Counsels and a television producer discuss the role these leaks are playing in the on-going scandal involving President Clinton and a former intern.

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NEWSHOUR LINKS: February 6, 1998: White House adviser Rahm Emanuel discusses leaks from the Starr investigation. February 6, 1998: A background report on leaks from the Clinton administration and the Starr investigation. February 5, 1998: Kenneth Starr holds a press conference. February 2, 1998: Washington Post reporter, Dan Balz, discusses the Starr investigation . January 29, 1998: Dan Balz discusses the White House crisis. January 28, 1998: An update on the White House crisis with Dan Balz. January 27, 1998: Dan Balz, discusses the latest developments in the White House crisis. January 26, 1998: Our presidential historians discuss the importance of President Clinton's State of the Union address. January 26, 1998: Experts debate the role of the independent counsel. January 23, 1998: Mark Shields and Paul Gigot discuss the the political issues surrounding President Clinton's alleged affair. January 22, 1998: Shields and Gigot discuss the legal implications of the crisis. January 22, 1998: The legal implications of President Clinton's alleged affair. January 22, 1998: Presidential historians and experts put the brewing crisis in perspective. January 21, 1998: President Clinton responds to charges that he may have had an affair with a former White House intern.

JIM LEHRER: Now, three more views of this: those of a broadcast executive and two former White House counsels. Lloyd Cutler had the job in the Carter administration and the first Clinton term. C. Boyden Gray had it in the Bush administration. They are now in the same Washington law firm. Barbara Cochran is the president of the Radio Television News Directors Association. She's the former vice president of news and Washington bureau chief for CBS News. She also worked for NBC, National Public Radio, and the Washington Star Newspaper. First, Mr. Gray, just on the issue of Kenneth Starr, do you agree with Mr. Emanuel that he's out of control?

C. BOYDEN GRAY, Former Bush White House Counsel: I do not but I don't know the facts. There seems to be an assumption about these leaks but what we know is what we read in the newspaper and not press releases issued from the special counsel's office. So we have to get to the bottom of it, obviously, but I don't see evidence of leaks. All I can do is read the newspapers.

JIM LEHRER: Legally, just talking about, for instance, the leaks of today, Betty Currie, the secretary to the President, is there a legal issue here that's very severe, very serious?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, Rule 60 of the federals of criminal procedure require grand jury secrecy, but leaks are a thing of life here in Washington, as we all know, and there's a First Amendment issue involved, and the First Amendment may very well trump Rule 60 because the news media, such as yourself, I think are not bound by that. We don't know where these leaks came from. They are leaks, but where do they come from? That we don't know. I want to make a point too about the normal grand jury procedure, which requires secrecy if there's no indictment. There will never be any further public information about what was investigated. The independent counsel statute--and this is one of its problems--and one of the reasons why it should be canned as a law--requires even if there's no indictment--and there will be no indictment in this case, obviously--requires that all the information be made public in a report to the public and to the Congress. I think that's wrong, but that's what the law says will have to happen.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Cutler, as a legal matter, when--if you're a witness before a grand jury, you can walk out and say anything you want to, right, and so can your lawyers, is that correct?

LLOYD CUTLER, Former Clinton White House Counsel: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: So there's no law violated if somebody--if that happens?

LLOYD CUTLER: The law is clearly violated if an independent counsel or any other prosecutor or the FBI, which took part in the investigations, tells what happens in a grand jury. By law, what happens inside a grand jury is secret, and the reason for that is very clear because so many pieces of evidence come up.

JIM LEHRER: What about a--

LLOYD CUTLER: In a grand jury that may not be true.

JIM LEHRER: What about a member of the grand jury him or herself?

LLOYD CUTLER: It would be a violation of Rule 60 for the member of the grand jury to do that. We have leaks in the White House and in the Congress all the time. Most of us have broken our swords trying to find out where those leaks came from and we never do because reporters are protected. But this is a different matter. Leaks from a grand jury are very, very rare, and when they come home, they should be punished. And you can see that Ken Starr, himself, took these charges very, very seriously. He's not up there saying it wasn't us, it didn't happen, and if it happened, he has to do something about it, not only apologize but discipline the people who did it.

JIM LEHRER: Barbara Cochran, explain to folks that don't understand the news business why a reporter for a newspaper or a television network or a radio station or whatever to be handed a piece of information, either in writing or verbally, that the reporter knows may have come illegally. In other words, it may have come from inside a grand jury. And yet, there are no restrictions on the news organization in publishing or broadcasting that.

BARBARA COCHRAN, Radio-TV News Directors Association: That's right. And that's because it's not the reporter him or herself who is bound by this secrecy, but on the story today even we don't know for a fact that this came from grand jury testimony. The attribution in the New York Times said that Betty Currie, the President's secretary, had told investigators so that the information could come from preliminary interviews that she had done.

LLOYD CUTLER: That would be equally illegal under Rule 60.

JIM LEHRER: Would it be?

LLOYD CUTLER: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: But what if it came--let's say--an investigator at Ken Starr's office or somebody--some investigator interviewed Ms. Currie before she went to the grand jury--that would still be covered by the law?

LLOYD CUTLER: Yes, because that is in preparation for grand jury testimony. I will bet you that if Mr. Starr finds that to be true, he will can that investigating. He's not going to say it wasn't covered by the law. It's also highly unethical, as I'm sure he would recognize.

JIM LEHRER: Go ahead.

BARBARA COCHRAN: In any case, the reporter is trying to find the information, and it's going to come from a lot of different places, and it's going to come from sources who may not--who aren't willing to be identified. But the reporter has an obligation to try to do his best to verify this information and to present it to the public if it its in the public's interest to know.

JIM LEHRER: But no responsibility to protect the secrecy of a grand jury?

BARBARA COCHRAN: This is something that is a very tough question in news rooms. And I know I've been involved myself in stories where information might have come from any grand juror, and we decided not to publish that information because we felt that that was wrong. The information that comes at a second hand removed is considered material that can be published.

JIM LEHRER: Based on your experience, both in print and in television, is this thing out of control from a press point of view?

BARBARA COCHRAN: Well, it's very difficult right now because there seems to be so much--you know, public criticism of the story. We've even been criticizing ourselves about how it's been criticizing ourselves about how it's been covered. But we still have to keep in mind that there are very serious charges here, and they do deserve investigation. The public does deserve to know about this story. It's made more complicated by the fact that one side in this case--the President and the White House--have chosen to--not to come forward into answer questions that would seem to be answerable. For example, why did Monica Lewinsky visit the White House 37 times after her time at the White House was over?

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Gray, have you seen anything that just struck you not necessarily from a legal standpoint but possibly as just being gross in terms of what the press has done?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: I think the press has gone overboard, but having been on the receiving end of this when I was in government, then I perhaps am biased about it. I do think the press has gone overboard, and I think the competition is severe now there was just a few years ago when I was on active duty, as it were, you have the Internet that's publishing stories for news organizations.

JIM LEHRER: They didn't have to deal with that during the Bush administration?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Not quite. It went from a daily news cycle to an hourly news cycle, and I understand there were minutes in the cycle. So it's more difficult now than it was just five years ago. It may get more difficult in the future. But it's a fact of life. Judge Walsh, who I'm sure tried to police his own operation--

JIM LEHRER: Yes, he was independent counsel in Iran Contra and you had a lot of dealings with him.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: We had a lot of dealings with. We always said he could get on the front page of the Post and the New York Times anytime he wanted, which was quite frequently. And those were leaks. And we would like to think they were legal. But we couldn't do much about it.

JIM LEHRER: You never pressed the point? Did you ever try to--

C. BOYDEN GRAY: We never attacked him publicly, and we never--we talked to him privately but never publicly.

JIM LEHRER: As a practical matter, Mr. Cutler, Mr. Kendall says he's going to go to court to try to stop this. What can he do?

LLOYD CUTLER: He can go to the judge supervising the grand jury I think is Judge Penn, and ask for an investigation and sanctions if leaks actually did come out of the independent counsel's office.

JIM LEHRER: But he has to prove--does he have to prove that? I mean, how does that--

LLOYD CUTLER: He would have to prove it. He would presumably be entitled to discovery and other rights to prove it. And Judge Penn would call on Mr. Starr, I'm sure, to conduct his own investigation and report and turn over results of his investigation to the other side.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what about the point that Mr. Emanuel was making a while ago that if these leaks are coming from Kenneth Starr's office, that there is a political motivation, and you heard what he said--I won't repeat it--does it--explain the reporter's responsibility when he or she gets a leak to ascertain that, what the person's ax is that was trying to be ground?

BARBARA COCHRAN: Well, I think, you know, that's a very big responsibility, and it's something that has been missing from time to time in the way the story's been reported. But we should point out again that this material isn't necessarily coming directly from the Office of the Independent Counsel. Defense attorneys talk to other defense attorneys. It could be coming from someone who's not directly involved but who may be on the periphery and maybe have good reason to know what's being said, so that needs to be made clear. But if in terms of the motivation, I think it helps the viewer/listener/reader if the source can be identified as sources close to the defense--sources close to Monica Lewinsky, course close to the White House, all of that gives the--gives the person who's consuming the news some idea of what the motivation might be for getting this piece of information out there.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Cutler, based on your experience, two administrations and other experiences you've had in Washington in the legal world, does this story seem to be driven mostly by the new media, or by political motivations all around?

LLOYD CUTLER: Oh, I think it's driven largely by the media. There's no question there will always be political motivations when you have Congress with a majority on one side and the President and the White House being from the party on the other side. That's inevitable. But we have a true aggressions law about the press circulating information before it may really check it out. And that is, in part, as Boyden said, due to the proliferation of news sources and the fact that if you don't get there first, you're in trouble; you've lost the story. There is such a competition to have the story first that you print rumors without checking out rumors. Now, for example, Margaret just referred earlier--

JIM LEHRER: Barbara.

LLOYD CUTLER: I'm sorry--to the 37 visits that Monica Lewinsky was supposed to have made, according to waive records. I understand that's a gross exaggeration of the number that show up on the waive records.

JIM LEHRER: But these things get published and then they get repeated and then they become gospel.

LLOYD CUTLER: And then we get an endorsement of the entire news organization. NBC has learned, ABC has learned--

JIM LEHRER: Well, last night--

LLOYD CUTLER: You get a story and there are 20 news agencies that claim they broke it and they made a responsible decision at a corporate level--NBC has learned--to go with the story.

JIM LEHRER: Last night is a perfect example, Barbara. The New York Times came out with this in their first edition, 10:30 something at night. Television, all of the--the cable folks, and everybody else, even some of the commercial networks interrupted programming and whatever and attributed it to the New York Times, which was "the" source. It wasn't the New York Times --I mean, we checked it out and we confirmed it--there was some of that this morning, I noticed, on the morning programs. That's relatively new, is it not?

BARBARA COCHRAN: That's different this time around. I mean, in news organizations that I've worked in you always had to verify it directly for yourself. Although, there was one exception, and that was back when I was working at the Washington Star, and The Washington Post was--

JIM LEHRER: Which was the afternoon newspaper here in Washington.

BARBARA COCHRAN: Exactly. And The Washington Post, our competition, was the only one with the Watergate story, and we finally resorted to simply saying The Washington Post reported that--and then doing the reaction story that came out of that. And we're a little bit in that same situation now. Now, the New York Times is a very solid, very established news organization, and I think everybody feels pretty safe saying the New York Times reported that. But obviously if there has been a mistake, then all these other news organizations will have to go back and say, well, that was wrong, but here's--

JIM LEHRER: The New York Times was wrong, and so were we--you ever seen anything like this?

LLOYD CUTLER: No. And nothing, in my experience, approaches this. I think , in part, though, and this may be again a reflection of my own bias--and the White House has maybe for strategic reasons put a clamp on--on all official pronouncements, if not leaks, and I think it's a failure to respond, as mentioned, which I think is part of the problem.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, Barbara Cochran, gentlemen, thank you both, all three--I mean--sorry.

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