“STARR’S Report: Half a Loaf Sooner, or the Whole Thing Later?” asked MSNBC on its Internet chat show. In a typical reaction to the prospect that Kenneth Starr might send Congress an “interim report,” the participants all assumed that any report delivered in the next several weeks would be partial and tentative. So did Rep. Bob Livingston (R., La.): “I don’t want to see him give us a half-baked report. A complete report is what we want.”
And, despite expectations, it’s likely to be what we get. If Ken Starr forwards to Congress a report with “substantial and credible information . . . that may constitute grounds for impeachment,” it will be a comprehensive, finished product. Since he is obliged to make such a report under the Independent Counsel statute, it should be referred to as the statutory report, not the interim report. And since Starr need not wait to report until the President has exhausted all of his appalling appeals, Congress could be considering this report as early as July. And if Starr can’t produce one by July, he should wait until after the elections, because Congress won’t have time to take it up before then.
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