With several prominent Democrats joining a GOP chorus calling for a special inquiry into the Whitewater case Tuesday, the White House says chances are increasing that the administration will appoint a special prosecutor.
"Everybody would agree that it would get the heat-level down," says senior adviser Bruce Lindsey.
President Clinton, sounding more conciliatory than in the past, told CBS anchor Dan Rather in Prague: "I think we ought to be accountable on the chance that any information we had would be valuable to the Justice Department."
But, he noted: "I'm completely relaxed about this cause I didn't do anything wrong except I made a bad business deal."
Indeed, there have been no claims of criminal wrongdoing by the president or Mrs. Clinton for their investment in the defunct Whitewater Development Corp. - nor for her role as an attorney representing a failed Arkansas thrift linked to Whitewater.
Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, who has led Republican demands for a special investigation, downplayed the Clintons' culpability.
"I don't think there's anything really big at the end of this tunnel," Leach says. "It's eyebrow-raising, but not necessarily the end of the world. It doesn't bring down a presidency, and it shouldn't."
Yet, unanswered questions, media pressure and the Clintons' flinching reactions to official requests for documents, was followed by Democrats joining calls for a special prosecutor to be appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to make a full inquiry.
"I don't believe it serves (the Clintons') interests or the interests of the nation to have any sort of shadow or questions about whether an unbiased investigation has been conducted," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
Joining Feingold Tuesday: Sens. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Bob Kerrey, D-Neb.; Charles Robb, D-Va. New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Sunday was the first top Democrat to call for a special counsel.
Despite bipartisan calls for an independent investigation, Lindsey says he's troubled by the precedent of knuckling to political pressure.
"There's a trade-off here, which is: can the Republicans make a bunch of charges, which create smoke . . . and force there to be an investigation where there's no factual basis for an investigation."
The Whitewater case almost guarantees Congress will approve an independent counsel bill in 1994 previously blocked by Republicans.
The law, passed in 1978 after Watergate, was killed in 1992 by GOP members of Congress furious with independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's six-year, $ 37 million inquiry into the Reagan administration's Iran-contra affair.
A special counsel, or so-called special prosecutor, such as Feingold and others want, would be appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Attorney General.
But, an independent counsel - as defined under the expired law - provides for an investigator/prosecutor, staff and grand jury, appointed and answerable to the federal courts, free from interference by the administration.
The Whitewater affair "adds a new dimension . . . to the outcry for legislation," says Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa. "The new awareness of the need for it may spur some votes that weren't there before."
