Lewinsky’s Mother Goes Before Federal Grand Jury

A federal grand jury heard almost three hours of closed-door testimony from former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky’s mother, Marcia K. Lewis, on Tuesday as prosecutors pressed their search for evidence that Lewinsky had an affair with President Clinton and joined with him in illegal efforts to cover it up.

Lewis is considered a potentially important witness for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr because her daughter apparently confided in her when Lewinsky was casting about for ways to prevent lawyers in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit from investigating the relationship with Clinton.

And Starr could use the threat of prosecution to pressure Lewis into helping him. Unlike spouses, parents enjoy no special legal right to refuse to testify about their children.

Meanwhile, a retired Secret Service agent now living near Pittsburgh has described seeing Lewinsky, when she worked in the White House, deliver papers to Clinton in the Oval Office on weekends and sometimes remain for about half an hour.

In Clinton’s sworn testimony in the Jones case, which remains under seal, he reportedly said he did not remember being alone with Lewinsky--except perhaps for brief periods when she delivered papers to him in the Oval Office.

Lewis C. Fox, who retired last year, told the Observer-Reporter of Washington, Pa., that he saw nothing unusual about the visits and doubted they afforded an opportunity for intimacy.

“It would be nothing unusual for people to show up with papers for the president,” he said.

In other developments:

* Lewinsky’s lawyer, William H. Ginsburg, said in Los Angeles that if ordered to do so, his client would appear before the federal grand jury here. He said she “has no intention of falling on her sword” and going to jail to avoid testifying.

Ginsburg also said Lewinsky is “mortified” that her mother has been called before the grand jury and suggested Starr was trying to pressure his client by squeezing her family.

* U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled in Little Rock, Ark., that the trial of the Jones suit will begin May 27 as scheduled. She rejected a motion filed last week by Clinton’s lawyers asking that the trial begin two months earlier.

Wright said going to trial sooner would be unfair to Jones, whose lawyers are still seeking more evidence of sexual dalliances involving Clinton.

* The president received an enthusiastic welcome from House Democrats, whom he and Vice President Al Gore addressed in a closed-door party retreat at a resort in the Virginia countryside.

After Clinton spoke to the group about the party’s legislative agenda, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, dean of the Democratic Caucus, rose to give Clinton words of encouragement, drawing a standing ovation, according to people who attended the meeting. Also offering praise for the president was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

*

When Lewis emerged from her almost three hours before the grand jury, her Washington-based lawyer, Billy Martin, told reporters they would not comment regarding her testimony.

But Lewis, 49, has loomed as an important figure from the outset. Secret tape recordings of conversations with Lewinsky made by her friend Linda Tripp suggest that Lewis was a party to discussions about how Tripp could avoid or mislead Jones’s lawyers when she herself was called upon to testify.

If Lewis played such a role, both mother and daughter could be in legal jeopardy.

When Lewinsky was questioned by Starr’s aides on Jan. 16, she initially answered questions. But soon Lewinsky said she needed to confer with her mother.

Lewis was in Manhattan that day. To the frustration of the investigators--who wanted Lewinsky’s immediate acquiescence in taping phone calls they hoped to arrange with Clinton, his personal secretary or others--Lewis took several hours traveling to Washington by train.

When she finally arrived at the Arlington, Va., hotel where Starr’s staff was questioning Lewinsky, Lewis was informed that she, too, was potentially a subject of investigation.

People familiar with the matter said one of the prosecutors informed Lewis that, based on evidence already obtained, there were grounds to suspect that:

Lewis knew about her daughter’s relationship with Clinton, may have encouraged her to dissemble about it and may have taken into safekeeping mementos or gifts from the president.

Lewis then conferred alone with her daughter down the hall from the two hotel suites Starr’s staff rented. Before they could agree to the deal prosecutors were offering, Lewis said, she would need to talk to her former husband, Los Angeles oncologist Bernard Lewinsky.

This led to the father’s engagement of his longtime friend and lawyer, Ginsburg.

Starr began investigating Monica Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton--and whether the president directly or indirectly encouraged her to lie about it under oath--after Tripp called prosecutors.

Tripp gave Starr hours of taped conversations in which Lewinsky described an intimate relationship with Clinton and suggested she had informed her mother.

According to reported versions of the tapes, Lewinsky had, among other things, commiserated with Tripp about being subpoenaed, on Dec. 7, to provide testimony in the Jones suit.

*

On one occasion, for instance, Lewinsky reportedly was talking with Tripp on the phone when her mother called on a separate line. When Lewinsky returned to her conversation with Tripp, she said her mother thought Tripp’s idea of feigning an injury to avoid testifying was “brilliant.”

Lewinsky, who may be called before the grand jury as early as this week, could invoke her constitutional right against self-incrimination. But if Starr then offered her limited immunity--pledging not to use anything she said against her--Lewinsky could be jailed for contempt of court if she persisted in refusing to speak.

“She will not go to jail like Susan McDougal,” Ginsburg said in Los Angeles, referring to the Whitewater figure who has been in jail since September 1996, for refusing to testify in that case.