Lewinsky Returns, May Testify Next Week Two Secret Service Agents Subpoenaed In Clinton Sex Scandal

Monica Lewinsky and her mother, Marcia Lewis, were reunited in Washington on Thursday night after Lewis spent two grueling days before a federal grand jury investigating her daughter’s alleged relationship with President Clinton.

Lewinsky returned to Washington from Los Angeles, where she has spent the past 10 days at her father’s home in an effort to escape virtual imprisonment in her Watergate complex apartment under media siege.

Lewinsky’s attorney, William Ginsburg, is continuing to try to win her total immunity from prosecution before she is summoned to appear before the grand jury, probably next week.

Earlier Thursday, federal prosecutors summoned a retired Secret Service officer to the courthouse in Washington where the grand jury is hearing testimony on the Lewinsky matter. A second officer, who is still on active duty, also received a subpoena Thursday but has not yet been called to testify.

Prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel indicated that the two subpoenas were the first of many, and administration officials were debating whether and on what grounds to challenge the subpoenas.

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has indicated that he intends to call current and former Secret Service officers before the grand jury to try to establish details of the supposed relationship between the president and Lewinsky, a 24-year-old former White House intern and junior aide. Starr is pursuing accusations that Clinton carried on an extended sexual relationship with Lewinsky and then induced her to lie about it under oath.

Administration officials, concerned that forcing Secret Service agents to testify about their duties would compromise their ability to guard the president, discussed Thursday how to deal with Starr’s subpoenas.

Attorney General Janet Reno said that the Justice Department would work with Starr and with the Treasury Department, the parent agency of the Secret Service, to seek a resolution short of a major court battle.

“That matter is pending now,” Reno said Thursday. “We’re reviewing all matters in relation to that issue and it would not be appropriate for me to comment at this point.”

The retired officer, Lewis Fox, spent only about 45 minutes at the courthouse and it was not known whether he actually appeared before the grand jury. He said as he was leaving, “I think everybody knows why I’m here.”

Fox, who served in the Secret Service’s uniformed division, not the elite plainclothes unit that actually guards the president, has given several differing accounts of an encounter between Clinton and Lewinsky that he claims to have witnessed in 1995.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that he said he ushered Lewinsky into the Oval Office on a weekend afternoon in late 1995, where she was alone with Clinton for about 40 minutes.

But White House and Secret Service officials have questioned his account, saying that uniformed Secret Service agents do not have access to the Oval Office when the president is there, and that it is not their duty to admit guests to the president’s office at any time.

Uniformed officers guard the White House and foreign embassies, serving essentially as security guards, not bodyguards.

A second witness, a young woman, entered the courthouse Thursday, but her identity could not be established. The woman’s lawyer, Ralph J. Caccia, did not answer questions. A White House official said he was unaware of any White House employees being called before the grand jury Thursday.

Ginsburg said that Lewinsky would not resist a summons to the grand jury and, if called, would answer all questions once granted some form of protection from prosecution.

“She will testify truthfully, and the chips will fall where they may,” Ginsburg said.

“The White House may not be happy with some of it. Starr might not be happy with some of it. Jordan may not be happy with some of it. But wherever the truth leads, it leads.”

He was referring to Vernon Jordan, an influential Washington lawyer and a close friend of Clinton’s, who has been accused of coaching Lewinsky to lie about her relationship with the president.

Lewinsky denied in a sworn affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct case against Clinton that she had had a sexual relationship with the president. But she has told others that she did have an affair with him and asked them to assist her in covering it up, exposing her to possible perjury, witness tampering and obstruction of justice charges.

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