Why Kenneth Starr's prosecution of Julie Hiatt Steele was not so ridiculous.

On May 7 the first (and probably last) trial of Julie Hiatt Steele for lying and obstruction of justice ended with a hung jury. The low-key coverage of the event reflected several pre-established media themes: a) Steele is a "peripheral" figure hounded by a vindictive special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr; b) the Steele trial is a pathetic coda to Flytrap's now-finished symphony ("Starr's Last Gasps," says Time); and c) the sole remaining function of the case is to help determine the credibility of Kathleen Willey, the Richmond, Va., socialite who accuses President Clinton of crudely groping her near the Oval Office in 1993.

All wrong, I'd argue. What follows is a short primer on the Steele case for those who, understandably, have been paying more attention to the wars, tornadoes, mass murders, and nuclear espionage that constitute the rest of the news:

Who is Steele?

Steele is a former friend of Willey's. The issue is whether Steele provided the truth to Starr's grand juries about what Willey told her about Clinton's supposed grope. Steele, it's been alleged, has at various times offered three different stories:

Story No. 1: That Willey told Steele of a presidential pass the very day it occurred, in November 1993--and that it was a sexual advance that left Willey "humiliated, scared, embarrassed." Steele told this story to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff in March 1997 (according to his book Uncovering Clinton) after Willey had suggested to Isikoff that he could check out the grope story with Steele.

Story No. 2: That Willey only told Steele "about the incident weeks after it happened, saying only that the president had made a pass at her," not necessarily an unwelcome pass. According to Isikoff, Steele told this version to him in the summer of 1997, just as he was preparing to write up the Willey story for Newsweek. Steele at that time said that Story No. 1 was a lie she had told him at Willey's request. Isikoff reported both Steele's initial story and Story No. 2 in his first piece on the Willey episode, published in Newsweek in August 1997. Isikoff has reported that Steele repeated Story No. 2 to him as recently as early 1998, and at Steele's trial, two of her friends said she told them something like Story No. 2 before Isikoff even appeared on the scene.

Story No. 3: That Willey "never told [Steele] of any sexual advances made by President Clinton," even welcome sexual advances, and that the first Steele heard about any such thing was in 1997 when Willey called her and asked her to lie to Isikoff. Steele took this position in an affidavit she signed in February 1998, after the Lewinsky scandal broke. It is the story she told Starr and claims today is the truth. Steele also denies that in recanting Story No. 1 she confirmed to Isikoff that Willey had told her about any pass. In effect, Steele says she never told Story No. 2.

President Clinton's story, which he repeated under oath to a grand jury, is that he never made any sort of pass at Willey (i.e., it jibes with Steele's Story No. 3). Willey, in her Steele trial testimony, stuck to the story that she told Steele of an unwanted pass the day it happened (Story No. 1), although she said that she only knows she told Steele immediately because Steele once reminded her of it!

The prevailing perception, of course, is that there were only two Steele stories, one pro-Willey, one anti-Willey. Press accounts--even Isikoff's account in his book--tend to omit Story No. 2, presumably for simplicity's sake. But Story No. 2 is what makes Starr's prosecution of Steele seem rational.

So why has Starr pursued Steele?