For Politicians, Lenzner Is Sleuth of Choice

In the political wars of the nation’s capital, Terry F. Lenzner is a pin-striped soldier of fortune.

Lenzer digs up the dirt that candidates sling in campaign ads and discreetly uncovers scandals before they hit the front page. A private investigator with a Harvard law degree and political connections of the highest order, he has no need to make ends meet by trailing errant spouses.

Yet Lenzner’s huge Investigative Group Inc., a blue chip firm made up of dozens of sleuths scattered around the world, could not turn down one salacious case of alleged adultery. He is now on retainer with the law firm of David E. Kendall, who is representing President Clinton in the Monica S. Lewinsky matter.

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr hauled Lenzner before a grand jury Tuesday to explain whether his firm had been retained to look into the backgrounds of Starr and his staff. Lenzner, an attorney, sought to resist the appearance by claiming attorney-client privilege. In its promotional literature, Investigative Group boasts of “complete confidentiality.”

It is no surprise to find Lenzner, the sleuth of choice for politicians, in the middle of a big Washington mess.

Lenzner, 58, was deputy chief counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee and so aggressive in his questioning that television viewers wrote to his boss, chief counsel Sam Dash, to complain. It was Lenzner who hand-delivered a subpoena to Nixon.

In election after election since giving up law for full-time investigations work, Lenzner has been quietly hired by well-paying political sponsors on both sides of the aisle, associates said.

“He is far more than an opposition researcher,” said one colleague. “He is as prominent as some of the people hiring him.”

In 1996, when Clinton’s legal defense fund became suspicious about bags of checks delivered by Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, Clinton allies called Lenzner to check him out.

“You’re a hired gun,” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said derisively to Lenzner when he testified at the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s fund-raising hearings last July.

A busy hired gun.

At the same time Lenzner was representing the Democratic National Committee and the president’s legal fund last year, an Oklahoma Indian tribe asked him to investigate Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who was opposing an Indian land claim.

The Indians never wound up hiring Lenzner--who had proposed an $18,000 investigation--but Nickles and his GOP colleagues fumed at Lenzner, nonetheless, especially for his proposal to check on Nickles’ wife.

Although called before the Senate committee to testify about Trie, Lenzner spent much of his time defending his own techniques.

“I see political research requests from both parties as being an appropriate way to obtain information to provide voters--assuming the information is obtained in an appropriate, ethical and legal fashion,” Lenzner said.

One who vouched for Lenzner was committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who had been a GOP counsel during Watergate.

“We were on, you might say, opposite sides during the Watergate committee investigation as a couple of young snappers,” Thompson told Lenzner. “And we had a lot of battles back in those days. But I think we came away from that with a mutual respect. And I have never had reason to question your personal integrity or your doing something that you thought was over the line.”

Although he has strong ties to the Clinton White House, Lenzner’s services are well used by Republicans.

Campaigns rarely hire Lenzner outright, which would require his name to appear on disclosure reports. To keep his name out of the newspapers, a law firm or consultant will subcontract with his firm.

Lenzner was hired in 1994 to aid the reelection effort of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). He investigated Republican challenger Matt Romney, prompting Romney’s campaign aides to label the company an “international spy firm” that engages in “sleazy” sleuthing.

Later, Romney had to fess up that he had hired Lenzner himself for two business deals.

In between political scandals, Lenzner stays busy in the private sector.

The United Way retained him to look into the spending practices of its then-president William Aramony, an inquiry that eventually led to Aramony’s resignation.

A Boston museum hired him to locate 13 stolen works of art. Enough U.S. companies have sought his aid in getting a foothold in the former Soviet Union that Lenzner put two former KGB agents on his payroll.

Even Mike Tyson, the boxer, needed help from Lenzner. During Tyson’s appeal of his rape conviction, Lenzner’s firm investigated whether any jurors had acted inappropriately in the case.

To get at the facts, Lenzner uses a team of former investigative journalists, intelligence analysts and law enforcement officers, along with a collection of more than 100,000 different computer databases. Although based in Washington, Investigative Group has offices in Los Angeles, London and half a dozen other cities.

Then there is his hard-charging personality. Lenzner was called “Terrible Terry” by colleagues during his days as a government lawyer during President Nixon’s first term. Fellow lawyers say that he has an uncanny ability to look into an interview subject’s eyes and sense a lie.