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APPEALING TO THE TOP
July 16, 1998The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript |
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After the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to block Secret Service agents from testifying before independent counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury, the Clinton administration appealed to Chief Justice William Rehnquist to intervene. Margaret Warner talks with Ruth Marcus, legal affairs reporter for The Washington Post, about the Starr investigation.
JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has the Secret Service story.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
July 15, 1998:
Can the Justice Dept. force secret service agents to testify?
July 4, 1998:
The Supreme Court refuses to hear from Kenneth Starr.
July 1, 1998:
A report on the question of executive privilege and the Starr investigation.
June 29, 1998:
The Supreme Court upholds attorney-client privilege in the Vincent Foster case.
June 8, 1998:
The Supreme Court hears arguments in the Vincent Foster attorney-client privilege case.
June 4, 1998:
The Supreme Court refuses to expedite matters in the Ken Starr investigation.
May 1, 1998:
Dan Balz discusses the new charges against former Justice Department official Webster Hubbell.
April 16, 1998:
Ken Starr discusses his investigation with the press.
April 13, 1998:
A report on Ken Starr's subpoena of two Washington bookstores.
April 1, 1998:
A judge dismisses Paula Jones' case against the president.
March 3, 1998:
President Clinton's friend and confidant, Vernon Jordan, testified before the grand jury.
February 27, 1998:
Shields and Gigot discuss criticism of Starr's investigation .
February 26, 1998:
First Amendment implications of the Starr investigation.
February 24, 1998:
Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal is called before the grand jury.
February 18, 1998:
Washington Post reporter Dan Balz discusses presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey's testimony before the grand jury.
February 6, 1998:
Perspectives on the Starr investigation from beyond the beltway.
January 26, 1998:
Experts debate the role of the independent counsel.
January 22, 1998:
Presidential historians and experts put the brewing crisis in perspective.
January 21, 1998:
President Clinton responds to charges that he may have had an affair with a former White House intern.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the White House and legal issues
OUTSIDE LINKS
The Washingtonpost.com's library of legal documents in the Starr investigation.
MARGARET WARNER: As we just reported, there were major developments today in the legal battle over whether Secret Service agents can be forced to testify before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury. For more on what happened and what lies ahead we go to The Washington Post news room and to Post legal affairs reporter Ruth Marcus. Welcome again, Ruth.
RUTH MARCUS: Hi, Margaret.
MARGARET WARNER: Take us briefly through the events as they unfolded today.
A "whizzer" of a day.
RUTH MARCUS: Well, it was a kind of a whizzer of the day. The lawyers really earned their pay. It started out at the grand jury in the morning, where the Secret Service agents turned up. The lawyers were able to get an emergency stay from the appeals court while they tried to go to the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling that the agents had testified. Within several hours the appeals court had considered it. Not a single one of the judges wanted to hear the case. They let it go forward by the -- they let the -- they didn't want to re-hear the case. They did keep the stay in place in order to give the administration time to go to the Supreme Court to see if they could convince the justices there to slow things down and ultimately hear the case.
MARGARET WARNER: What did the court of appeals say about why they were refusing to re-hear this case?
The U.S. Court of Appeals' decision.
RUTH MARCUS: Well, the court of appeals said that the court-appeals court panel said they would not grant a further stay, other than giving the administration time to go forward to the Supreme Court, because, first of all, they didn't think that the administration was likely to succeed. And second of all, they did not think that there would be irreparable harm if the agents were allowed to testify, even if the court ultimately decided to hear the case. The full appeals court said nothing, other than none of us agree with the administration's suggestion that we hear the case; however, we do have a quite interesting blast at the Justice Department and the attorney general by one of the judges on the full appeals court, Judge Lawrence Silverman, himself a former deputy attorney general under a Republican administration who basically said this is none of the Justice Department's business. The independent counsel was in the role of the United States in this case, and the Justice Department should just basically get out of the way.
MARGARET WARNER: Explain briefly how we got to this impasse, because this issue has been simmering along for months now.
RUTH MARCUS: It has been simmering. And that has actually frustrated the folks at the independent counsel's office. They wanted to get some quick action. And they've obviously been getting it. What they did was after the appeals court panel ruled in their favor, they-
MARGARET WARNER: Let me -- you're talking about -- they actually did consider this case on the merits a few weeks ago.
RUTH MARCUS: Right. And the three-judge panel of the appeals court said there is no privilege, we don't know what you're talking about, let them go ahead and testify. And after that, the independent counsel's office broadened the subpoena most dramatically with the lead agent in charge of guarding the president, Larry Cockle, who was one of the folks who appeared at the grand jury today and who was the sort of most dramatic possible witness in the sense that he is the one really next to the president's body. That escalated the situation in a way that the independent counsel's office wanted to happen so that instead of having the legal appeals drag on for weeks and months, we're going to get some kind of reading from the Supreme Court in a matter of days about whether they're willing to take the case and potentially a resolution at least allowing the testimony to go forward.
MARGARET WARNER: You were also a former White House reporter. Explain what is the distinction. Why did the Secret Service -- do they seem to feel that a new broader subpoena is more threatening now that it includes the so-called plain clothes officers, rather than just the uniformed ones -- explain the difference.
The difference between uniformed officers and plain clothes officers.
RUTH MARCUS: Well, the Secret Service is actually upset about both classes of officers. There are folks who are in uniform who are the people who you see standing along the White House, various rooms, that you're there for a tour or if you're ever close to the Oval Office, you'll see officers stationed outside there, and the independent counsel's office wants those folks to testify about whether potentially they saw the President with Monica Lewinsky and what they saw. But the thing that has given this latest round of subpoenas the real emotional impact that it had is the idea of the folks who literally are there next to the president as he does his business not so much in the White House but out in public who are the people who would literally take a bullet for him and throw themselves in front of his body if some harm were to come his way. And it's that sense of potentially putting that division between the president and the folks whose job it is to guard his life that really has the Secret Service agitated and that I think the White House has seized on as the most politically salient piece of what the independent counsel's office is trying to do, much as Clinton's lawyers and other folks seized on the idea of subpoenaing Monica Lewinsky's mother, this one subpoenaing the guy right next to the president. We've seen the Secret Service agents next to the president risking their lives for him and being shot for him. It has a lot of emotional impact.
MARGARET WARNER: And this is a new development, is it not, that people at the White House have even spoken out on the Secret Service issue?
RUTH MARCUS: They kind of seized the moment and suggested not only that it was a problem to interfere with the president and the Secret Service but also raised the question of whether the independent counsel was trying to do something really nefarious, in their view, which was to use the Secret Service agent as a kind of eavesdrop around the relationship between the president and his attorneys. For example, on the ride back from the deposition in the Paula Jones case what was heard. There's not really any occasion that that is, in fact, what the independent counsel is going after.
MARGARET WARNER: And has the independent counsel addressed that, or given any assurances that that's not what he is after?
Independent counsel Kenneth Starr's intentions.
RUTH MARCUS: No, he has not been heard from on this, at least in public and at least in the papers that we've been able to see. But it's our sense from various interviews that what he is focused on is more in the nature of trying to use these agents really as the best kind of corroboration that is, yes, they saw Monica Lewinsky with the president, yes, they saw them potentially alone. Those agents would be really the most credible potential witnesses in any court or other legal proceeding, much better than any of the other kind of folks involved in this case. They have no obvious bias or ax to grind and they're kind of reliable witnesses.
MARGARET WARNER: And explain for us -- Linda Tripp was before the grand jury today-explain for us where this Secret Service debate or controversy fit in terms of the pace that Starr's trying to lay out and conclude here.
RUTH MARCUS: Well, as much as one could determine, Starr could be at the point essentially wrapping up-at least wrapping up the things that he's allowed to get to. We still have hanging out the questions about attorney/client privilege, which when and if they're resolved and that's at the appeals court, as well, could open up a whole new avenue of inquiry for him not just as Deputy Counsel Bruce Lindsey but perhaps other White House lawyers and what they knew. But other than that and other than the possibility of getting in perhaps some fairly quick way the Secret Service testimony, Starr seems to be basically down the road of the possible witnesses that he could interview in this, except for the one big missing link here, which would be-that's probably two big missing links. One would be the president and the second would be Monica Lewinsky.
MARGARET WARNER: And then briefly just tell us what are Chief Justice Rehnquist's options now?
Chief Justice Rehnquist's options.
MARGARET WARNER: Ruth, thank you very much. I'm sorry. We have to leave it there.
RUTH MARCUS: Thank you.
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