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Journalism of Courage
WASHINGTON, July 19: The spotlight in the White House sex-and-perjury probe has moved onto reluctant Secret Service agents who are being flushed out of the shadows to testify about the US President’s private moments.
With independent counsel Kenneth Starr set to continue questioning members of the White House security detail this week, lawyers for the agents indicated Sunday the men would have little to say.
John Kotelly, counsel for White House security detail Chief Larry Cockell, told ABC Television the 47-year-old career agent played a purely background role for President Bill Clinton.
Cockell "has been trained not to talk about what he sees and hears the President doing. He’s a law enforcement agent," said Kotelly, noting also that agents are not by President Bill Clinton’s side 24 hours a day.
"The Secret Service recognizes that they are required to be there by law but that every President resists having them there at all times so they try not to be obtrusive and be in the President’s presencewhen they don’t need to be," said Kotelly.
Michael Leibig, lawyer for three other of the seven Secret Service agents subpoenaed by Starr, told the NBC television network the Secret Service agents "are trained not to notice things."
"The training of the uniformed division officers is specifically not to pay attention, once they’ve cleared the security issues. They’re trained not to pay attention to what’s going on," he said.
Starr won a hard-fought court ruling Friday from Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist that forces the White House Secret Service agents to testify before his grand jury.
Starr is investigating whether Clinton lied under oath about a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and asked her to lie about it too.
Cockell, whose professional anonymity was shattered when US newspapers ran pictures of him shadowing Clinton at public events, is scheduled to appear Tuesday before Starr’s grand jury. The agents’ lawyers have said their clients did not see Clintonand Lewinsky in a romantic encounter. But Starr asserted on Friday he believes the guards have "may have observed evidence of possible crimes while stationed in and around the White House."
A legal correspondent for Time magazine predicts in the latest issue that the agents will cite attorney-client privilege as grounds for not telling the grand jury what they heard Clinton and his lawyers discussing.
While their lawyers stressed the agents’ reluctance to testify, media reports and political figures suggested Starr’s pursuit of the Secret Service could undermine an important American institution, especially if the subpoenas turn up no useful evidence.
"If … these subpoenas then look like the fishing expedition some now suspect them to be, the fact of Mr Starr’s being legally in the right will make this episode mildly less reckless," the influential Washington Post said in its lead editorial Sunday.
The New York Times said Starr "struck at the innermost circle of those around thePresident, the Secret Service agents who provide a 24-hour flesh-and-bone shield against potential harm."
Newsweek magazine reports that at least two agents told Justice Department lawyers they saw Clinton and Lewinsky — although not in an indiscreet situation. Newsweek says Starr is focussing on a visit by Lewinsky to the White House on December 28, 1997, and that he hopes the agents will fill in the blanks of information he already has.
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Trent Lott told the Fox Network the legal fight over the Secret Service testimony suggest the Clinton camp "appears to be hiding some thing".
