Personal Secretary to President Goes Before Grand Jury

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton’s personal secretary and gatekeeper to the Oval Office was called before a federal grand jury investigating allegations of sexual indiscretions and possible perjury by the chief executive on Tuesday. And hours later, an ex-lover of former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky said she recently boasted of having oral sex with a “high-ranking person in the White House.”

In her appearance before the grand jury, presidential secretary Betty Currie was ordered to provide information about repeated White House visits she approved for Lewinsky after Lewinsky had finished her tour of duty there. Prosecutors are focusing on a series of visits that occurred during a time when Lewinsky faced the prospect of being questioned under oath about her relationship with Clinton.

In addition, prosecutors want to know whether Currie, known fondly as the “mother hen” of the West Wing, tried to make contact with Lewinsky from the White House on Jan. 16, the day Lewinsky was first interrogated by agents for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and if so, why.

Portland, Ore., drama instructor Andy Bleiler, speaking through a lawyer, acknowledged having had a five-year affair with Lewinsky that began a year after she finished high school. Bleiler said Lewinsky described her experience in Washington to him during on a recent visit to Portland.

“She never used President Clinton’s name at any time. She did use the term ‘creep’ to describe this person,” according to Terry Giles, a Rancho Santa Fe attorney who laid out Bleiler’s story at a press conference. Lewinsky also used the word “creep” in reference to Clinton during conversations with a Washington co-worker who secretly taped them.

In Washington, Lewinsky’s lawyer, William H. Ginsburg, did not dispute that his client had had an intimate relationship with Bleiler but he contended it should have no bearing on the question of whether Lewinsky and Clinton were intimate.

But the account by Bleiler and his wife, who said Lewinsky had befriended her and become almost a part of the family while the affair was going on, could be read as bolstering Lewinsky’s claim to her Washington co-worker that she had a sexual relationship with the president, something both have subsequently denied under oath.

At the same time, the Bleilers also added to existing questions about Lewinsky’s veracity. “Kathy and Andy would both describe Monica as having a pattern of twisting facts, especially to enhance her version of her of own self-image,” Giles said.

One of the tapes made by her Washington co-worker and confidant, Linda Tripp, contains this comment by Lewinsky on her sexual activities: “I’ve lied all my life.”

Hillary Clinton Leads Blitzkrieg

On a day in Washington that was supposed to have been dominated by the State of the Union address, with its report of a vanishing federal deficit and proposals for helping the old and the young, there were these other developments in the unfolding drama:

* First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton took the lead in a carefully orchestrated blitzkreig against Starr, declaring on NBC’s “Today” show that the current furor sprang from a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

White House aides sounded the same note in conversations with reporters, and on Capitol Hill at least a few Democrats ended a week of panicky silence by joining in the attack. In a floor speech just hours before the president delivered his State of the Union address to Congress, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) blistered Starr as “the most partisan” independent counsel ever and charged that his goal is “getting the president by whatever means necessary.”

* Starr ratcheted up the pressure on Lewinsky over the question of immunity from prosecution. Her lawyer argues that she deserves leniency as Starr’s only significant witness, but prosecutors counter that she is in no position to haggle because she could go to prison for committing perjury and for trying to persuade co-worker Linda Tripp to lie as well.

Whatever her own legal vulnerability, Lewinsky is widely seen as holding the key to Clinton’s fortunes; if she contradicts his repeated denials and swears they were intimate, his problems would increase appreciably.

* Sources close to the inquiry said investigators thus far have been unable to corroborate what one law enforcement source had described Sunday as “credible” indications that a Secret Service agent or other White House staff member might have witnessed an intimate encounter between Clinton and Lewinsky.

That possibility, first raised by ABC News on Sunday, was widely reported but remains unconfirmed.

Couple Facing Starr Interviews

The extraordinary news conference in Portland was apparently arranged because Bleiler’s involvement with Lewinsky had been discovered by reporters and the couple was about to be interviewed by agents for Starr.

Giles said they have patched up their marriage during the past year after extensive therapy.

Bleiler’s wife, Kathy, was quoted as saying that Lewinsky, who graduated from college in Portland in 1995 and moved to Washington soon afterward, had left saying “I’m going to the White House to get my presidential kneepads.”

Ginsburg, Lewinsky’s lawyer, cast doubt on Bleiler’s account of Lewinsky’s comments. “I think it’s curious that his [Bleier’s attorney’s] allusions are also so close to the allusions that have been leaked in other places, such as the creep, such as oral sex,” Ginsburg said. “I think the only thing original in his story is kneepads.

“But it’s like a copycat crime. We’re going to have people coming out of the woodwork.”

Ginsburg added that Bleiler’s claims are “not relevant to the issues of this [current] case.” . . . It’s a moral disgrace for a teacher to go and admit that he had sex with a teenager who is a student. . . . This is akin to the Joey Buttafuoco affair.”

Buttafuoco, formerly of New York but who now lives in San Fernando Valley, gained national attention when he admitted an affair with a teenager, who shot Buttafuoco’s wife in New York in 1992.

Starr’s Strategy and Grand Jury

In calling the president’s personal secretary before the grand jury, which held its first session Tuesday, Starr began to lay the foundation for a possible challenge to Clinton’s account of his relationship with Lewinsky.

At issue are both Clinton’s sworn denial of a sexual relationship, made recently in a deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit, and the possibility that Clinton or others acting on his behalf sought to persuade Lewinsky to help cover up the relationship--which might make Clinton guilty of obstruction of justice.

Currie is an important figure in all of this, partly because records show that she is the official who authorized Lewinsky to enter the executive mansion numerous times, including at night, at a time when Lewinsky knew she was going to be questioned in the Jones case.

Investigators want to know whether she saw Clinton or others, and whether they discussed what she should say.

Jones’ lawyers, who had been seeking to identify several women who they suspected were past paramours of Clinton, notified Lewinsky on Dec. 17 that they also wanted to question her under oath.

People familiar with the matter said that following this development, Lewinsky, with the assistance of Clinton’s trusted friend, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., retained Washington lawyer Francis D. Carter.

In the meantime, Lewinsky--who visited the White House numerous times in 1997--continued to stay in touch with Clinton.

Lewinsky’s last visit to the White House, according to knowledgeable sources, was during the last week of December. On Jan. 7, Lewinsky signed an affidavit that was filed with the intention of persuading a judge to prevent her from being forced to answer questions in a deposition. In the affidavit, Lewinsky swore that she had not had sexual relations with Clinton.

Currie, 58, offered no comment as she descended the courthouse steps here after her session with the grand jury.

Starr has subpoenaed computerized White House records supposedly recording Lewinsky’s precise arrivals and departures. The prosecutor also is seeking records that could show the dates and times when Currie telephoned or paged Lewinsky, sources said.

The documents could help establish whether Currie tried to reach Lewinsky on Jan. 16, the day that Starr’s staff met for hours with her at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to people familiar with the investigation.

In addition to the legal problems Currie might pose for Clinton, Lewinsky has significant legal vulnerability of her own. If her own sworn denial of a sexual relationship with Clinton should prove untrue, she could be charged with perjury or related crimes. Those are felonies and conviction could result in a significant prison sentence.

Moreover, Lewinsky allegedly gave a list of “talking points” to her friend Tripp when Tripp also was subpoenaed to tell what she knew under oath in connection with the Jones lawsuit.

The document appears to suggest answers Tripp should give when questioned about an earlier episode in which Clinton allegedly made sexual advances to another female aide. The investigation is focusing on possible crimes involving obstruction of justice or suborning perjury.

The Democratic blitzkrieg against Starr was an orchestrated attack that sent White House spirits soaring Tuesday. White House Communications Director Ann Lewis had invited “surrogates” to the White House on Monday evening to coordinate their defense of the president, sources said.

The first salvo was fired on the NBC “Today” program, where Mrs. Clinton accused the prosecutor of being part of a long-running, extremist effort to destroy her husband.

She said the present furor stems from a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

“We get a politically motivated prosecutor [Starr] who is allied with the right-wing opponents of my husband, who has literally spent four years looking at . . . every telephone call we’ve made, every check we’ve ever written, scratching for dirt, intimidating witnesses, doing everything possible to try to make some kind of accusation against my husband,” she said.

“We [Hillary and Bill Clinton] know everything there is to know about each other, and we understand and accept and love each other,” she said. “And I just think that a lot of this is deliberately designed to sensationalize charges against my husband, because everything else they’ve tried has failed. And I also believe that it’s part of an effort, very frankly, to undo the results of two elections.”

Mrs. Clinton’s statement about the understanding between herself and her husband was considered crucial politically. “Hillary is a key part of this [strategy]. If she accepts it, we can too,” said a former Clinton campaign advisor.

Following the first lady’s lead in his speech on the Senate floor a short time later, Democrat Leahy accused Starr of “conducting a sting operation” aimed at the president--a reference to Starr’s use of a wire to capture potentially damaging statements by Lewinsky when Tripp talked to her at the prosecutor’s behest.

Speaking extemporaneously, Leahy charged that the goal of Starr’s investigation “seems to have become ‘getting the president by whatever means necessary.’ ”

Echoing Mrs. Clinton’s contention that Starr is part of a conspiracy, Leahy also alleged that Starr’s “outrageous” conduct seemed “oddly coordinated” to aid Jones in her suit against Clinton.

For Capitol Hill Democrats in particular, the strategy of savaging Starr had two advantages: It permitted them to counterattack charges many fear could doom the party in November’s congressional elections, and it permitted them to do so without vouching for the accuracy of Clinton’s personal denials--which many Democrats still doubt.

Times staff writers Elizabeth Shogren, Doyle McManus, Alan C. Miller, Cecilia Balli and Janet Hook contributed to this story.

* SECRET SERVICE FEARS: Probe may force agents to break vow of silence. A16

* WILLPOWER AS WEAPON: Clinton’s advantage over his foes is his determination. A16

* KIDS WANT TO KNOW: Children are also asking some tough questions. E1

* BLURRING THE LINES: Is there deepening union between trashy, legitimate? F1