Vernon Jordan Denies Telling Intern to Lie

As charges of sexual impropriety and possible perjury continued to roll over President Clinton like a muddy wave Thursday, close friend and advisor Vernon E. Jordan Jr. denied counseling former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky to lie about her relationship with the president.

“At no time did I ever say, suggest or intimate to her that she should lie,” said Jordan, who sources have suggested sought to obtain Lewinsky’s silence at Clinton’s behest.

Meanwhile, a scheduled Lewinsky deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit against Clinton was postponed indefinitely--a potentially pivotal development because previous sworn statements in that case by Clinton and Lewinsky, who say that they did not have a sexual relationship, have raised questions about perjury and obstruction of justice.

The Lewinsky matter is considered the most serious threat in Clinton’s trouble-strewn career because, unlike previous episodes, it goes beyond questions of sexual morality to include the possibility of clear-cut criminal charges.

In other developments:

* Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr defended his use of a hidden recording device to obtain statements from an unsuspecting Lewinsky about her relationship with Clinton. At Starr’s request, Lewinsky’s friend and confidant, Linda Tripp, wore a wire to a meeting with the former intern. Tripp had already tape-recorded conversations with Lewinsky and delivered the tapes to Starr.

“We used appropriate investigative techniques that are traditional law enforcement techniques,” Starr said in an impromptu news conference.

Clinton’s lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, had blasted Starr, saying, “We should think long and hard before we have sting operations against a sitting president.”

* Questions arose about whether Clinton has altered his account of his relationship with former Arkansas nightclub singer Gennifer Flowers. Allegations by Flowers that she had had a 12-year affair with then-Gov. Clinton rocked his 1992 presidential campaign, but Clinton denied them at the time. In his statement under oath to Jones’ lawyers last Saturday, Clinton reportedly acknowledged having been intimate with Flowers.

Jones’ lawyers, attempting to show a pattern of extramarital affairs as a means of bolstering the credibility of their client’s accusations, have questioned Clinton, Lewinsky and others under oath about such activity.

But the White House said Thursday that the president’s sworn statement is not incompatible with his 1992 assertions.

* Betty Currie, the president’s personal secretary, was among several White House aides who have received subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury about the Lewinsky matter, it was learned. Jordan acknowledged that he, too, had been subpoenaed.

It was Currie who referred Lewinsky to Jordan for help in obtaining a job last month, Jordan said in his statement Thursday.

Secret Service Potential Targets

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said he did not know exactly which aides had been subpoenaed. Among those who could be the targets of such subpoenas are Secret Service agents, whose proximity to Clinton makes them potentially valuable sources of information about the comings and goings of visitors.

But what they would know about specific persons or events would depend on circumstances and the memories of individual agents. Records are kept of almost everyone entering the White House compound, but that is not necessarily true of individuals who have direct contact with the president.

Agents are always nearby and keep detailed records of the president’s whereabouts, but they are not normally physically present for his meetings in and around the Oval Office. As for the residential quarters, they usually escort visitors to the area but do not accompany them further and thus may not know whether such visitors meet directly with the president or who else may be present.

It was not clear what records the Secret Service keeps of visitors to the residential quarters.

The statements by Jordan, who is considered one of Clinton’s closest and most trusted friends, were aimed at spiking the most serious and potentially dangerous allegations in the controversy: that the president had an affair with Lewinsky and that he sought, directly or indirectly, to persuade her to cover it up.

Some political analysts believe proof--if it should emerge--that Clinton became intimate with a then-21-year-old White House intern could itself push public tolerance of an admittedly flawed president to the breaking point. But the legal issues are far more threatening.

It is the fact that both Clinton and Lewinsky have already made sworn statements denying they had an intimate relationship that sets this episode apart from its predecessors. Clinton faces the possibility of criminal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice if it should develop he has lied under oath about the matter.

Jordan Tried to Help Lewinsky Find a Job

Jordan, who read a prepared statement and declined to answer questions, said, “I want to say absolutely and unequivocally that Ms. Lewinsky told me in no uncertain terms that she did not have a sexual relationship with the president.”

Jordan said he helped Lewinsky, first to find a job in New York and then to obtain the services of a lawyer, out of a sense of duty stemming from his own good fortune in life. It had been suggested that the New York job was part of an effort to get Lewinsky out of Washington and launch a new career after she gave up the Pentagon job that followed her White House tenure.

Jordan, 62, emerged in late 1992 as a frequent companion of then-President-elect Clinton. At a time when the president and some of his Arkansas friends were being criticized for golfing at a country club in Little Rock that had not traditionally admitted blacks, Jordan, who is black, provided a balancing image, usually riding on the passenger side of Clinton’s golf cart.

Jordan first gained national recognition as executive director of the National Urban League, from 1972 to 1981. Clinton chose Jordan to head his transition team, after the then-Arkansas governor’s election as president in 1992.

Jordan is a senior partner at one of Washington’s premier law firms, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He serves on numerous corporate boards, including Revlon Inc., one of the companies to which he introduced Lewinsky as a prospective hire in the last few weeks.

For his part, Clinton on Thursday continued to deny the allegations, telling reporters covering his Oval Office meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that he “would never ask anybody to do anything other than tell the truth.”

The president also attempted to convey a desire to be more forthcoming about the matter. “We will give you as many answers as we can, as soon as we can, at the appropriate time,” he said. Starr last Friday sought and received permission from federal judges to expand his Whitewater investigation after learning about the Lewinsky matter.

Starr had in his possession the secret tape recordings of Lewinsky’s conversations with Tripp, a reported 17 tapes covering about 20 hours of conversations in which Lewinsky swung between anger and despair over her plight.

The tapes reportedly suggest Lewinsky had been troubled by the alleged relationship for some time, but was driven to the brink of panic when she was subpoenaed to answer questions under oath in the Jones suit.

Tripp, herself a former White House aide who, like Lewinsky, was transferred to a job at the Pentagon, had been tape recording her telephone conversations with Lewinsky for some time and recently took the tapes to Starr.

His investigators, seeking to confirm their authenticity, fitted Tripp with a secret recording device and had her discuss the issue with Lewinsky again.

Tripp Showed Interest in Writing a Book

Tripp also took at least two tapes to Lucianne S. Goldberg, a New York literary agent she once approached about doing a book on the late White House aide Vincent Foster, Goldberg said. Tripp, working in the White House at the time, may have been the last person to see Foster before he killed himself in 1994.

Interviewed by telephone in her New York office, where she was besieged by reporters, Goldberg said, “The National Enquirer is downstairs with a $750,000 offer for the tapes. It’s an agent’s nightmare: I’m sitting here with nothing to sell and money is running in the streets.”

She said the tapes are being turned over to Starr.

As media demands for records and other information intensified Thursday, McCurry said the White House would not now release computerized records showing the precise times Lewinsky entered and departed the executive mansion.

It also was learned that White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff and his deputies have rejected advice from other presidential aides, who recommended immediate disclosure of those records. By withholding them, these aides argued, the White House is fostering an impression that there is something to hide.

“It is the ultimate bunker mentality now,” said one aide.

But McCurry said the White House did not want to release information piecemeal before it was sure of all the facts.

It is already known, however, that Lewinsky visited the White House numerous times after she had completed her tenure at the White House and began working as a public relations assistant at the Pentagon in April 1996.

There were somewhat conflicting accounts Thursday of why Lewinsky left the White House.

As one administration official described it, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Evelyn Lieberman became concerned that Lewinsky had become what White House insiders call “a clutch,” a person who seizes every opportunity to be near the president, White House ceremonies or other official events when their duties do not require it.

“Evelyn enforced pretty strict codes of conduct on interns and staff, and she had pet peeves. She didn’t like people to hang around the president or the West Wing for no particular reason,” the official said.

“When Evelyn found that her [Lewinsky’s] office wasn’t functioning well either, she did what she has done to about hundred billion other people: She moved her out of there.”

Lieberman’s action did not stem from suspicion of an affair between Lewinsky and Clinton, this source said.

“It wasn’t that [Lewinsky] was flirting. She was a kid. She was just kind of behaving in an immature manner,” the official said.

Other sources, however, indicated there was indeed concern that Lewinsky was being flirtatious and that aides sought to move her out in part to protect Clinton from himself.

A former presidential aide said, “There was chitchat in the hallways that this young woman was a bit too flirtatious in the presence of the president.”

There was a sensitivity to this issue among senior White House aides regarding Clinton, the former aide said.

“He certainly had an eye for the ladies. Given the history of his alleged relationships with women, people in the White House at a senior level were very careful and guarded, and if they saw potential sticky situations they took steps to guard against them.”

He described Lewinsky as “very impressionable, a young 21” when she began work in the White House.

Panetta Unaware of Ties to Clinton

Former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said in a statement Thursday that hundreds of interns have worked at the White House “at any given time.”

But, he added, “I am not aware of any improper relationship, sexual or otherwise, between the president and any of these interns.”

On the question of his various statements about his relationship with Flowers, during the 1992 campaign when a supermarket tabloid, the Star, printed the allegations, Clinton told reporters: “I read the article. It’s not true.”

Soon afterward, Clinton was asked on national television whether he had had a 12-year affair with Flowers as she alleged. “That allegation is false,” he said, adding, “I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage” and suggesting that viewers would understand what he meant.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton supported him during the potentially disastrous episode, and Clinton went on to win the Democratic nomination and the White House, narrowly defeating incumbent President Bush.

McCurry said Thursday that Clinton’s statements then and statements he made about the Flowers matter in his deposition last week in the Jones case “are not at odds.”

The question of why Tripp began taping her friend’s telephone conversations and then went to Starr remained unclear.

Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow, David Willman, Elizabeth Shogren, Jonathan Peterson, Paul Richter, Doyle McManus, John J. Goldman, Josh Getlin, Mark Z. Barabak, Ann W. O’Neill, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Mattea Gold, Carla Hall, Alan C. Miller and Times researchers Edith Stanley, Lianne Hart and Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.

INSIDE

* LIFE IMITATES ART: Movies mirror controversy. A19

* THE INQUIRY: Starr has gone too far, some say. A19

* SEX AND SIN: Is harassment ‘unforgivable’? A23

* MEDIA: Howard Rosenberg says TV is no picture of integrity. F1