The Investigation That Knows No End

Transcript of proceedings of the grand jury, morning session, Aug. 14, 2009

Mr. Starr: Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we are looking into what my office terms the “domino theory” of the conduct of the Secret Service--turning a blind eye to criminal conduct in the White House, not only during the Clinton administration--

which I believe was from 1993 until 2001--but throughout many administrations. We will resume hearing testimony from Agent Lewis.

Now Agent Lewis, I was asking about President Eisenhower. Other witnesses have led us to suspect that his golf scores, particularly in his second term, were doctored. We are awaiting FBI lab tests on his scorecards, but you could clear this matter up right now: Did the president himself alter the scores, or did members of his protective detail?

Lewis: Look, it was harmless. An old duffer playing golf.

Starr: Yet by recording his bogeys as eagles, for example, someone duped the nation into thinking the president was a better golfer and thus in better health than he really was. I put it to you that this is the classic definition of cover-up.

Lewis: Mr. Starr, the man won World War II. What does a round of golf matter?

Starr: Well, sir, other witnesses testified that President Eisenhower wagered and won sums as large as $5. If these payoffs were based on bogus golf scores, not only was the public deceived, but this was done for gain.

Lewis: My hearing aid battery is dying. I gotta go change it.

Starr: Learn that little trick from President Reagan, did you? You’re excused.

*

Swear in the next witness, please.

Agent Tompkins enters slowly, on a walker.

Starr: Agent Tompkins, you served as deputy agent in command for President Kennedy, who, as you may know, was the first president in memory not to wear a top hat to his inauguration. That snub to tradition gutted a thriving market in men’s head wear, sending several companies into bankruptcy as millions of American men followed Mr. Kennedy’s example.

Now there are indications that in December 1960 the president-elect met with his father, and two days later, the senior Kennedy dumped his entire holdings of 1,000 shares of stock in a men’s hat maker. The timing is suggestive of insider trading. Now, did you or any member of your detail ever hear President Kennedy planning with his father not to wear a hat?

Tompkins: I did hear him say he hated wearing ‘em. That he’d pay money not to have to wear ‘em.

Starr (to the jurors): He’d . . . pay . . . money. Is that correct?

Tompkins: Yeah. And that morning, before the inauguration? I heard Mamie--the first lady, I mean--tell President Eisenhower that if he had a head of hair like Jack Kennedy’s, he wouldn’t need to wear any damn top hat either.

*

Starr: Please call the next witness.

Clerk: Agent Taylor.

(He enters, and is sworn in.)

Starr: Agent Taylor, I’d like to ask you about a book, a 1991 bestseller titled “Millie’s Book.” Now Millie was a dog belonging to President and Mrs. Bush, is that right?

Taylor: Millie, yeah, we used to call her a--well, rhymes with rich, as Mrs. Bush would say.

Starr: Your files describe her as a black and white spaniel. Do you have any knowledge that Millie was descended from Checkers, likewise a black and white spaniel, owned by President Nixon and given to him as an attempted bribe?

Taylor: Why, no. I figured that everything about Checkers was fixed.

Starr: Agent Taylor, according to the IRS, “Millie’s Book” earned more than $1 million in royalties for Mrs. Bush’s charitable literacy foundation. My investigators found that ironic: Did you ever see Millie writing this book?

Taylor: No.

Starr: Not longhand? Not on a computer?

Taylor: Nope.

Starr: Dictating?

Taylor: No sir.

Starr: Can you in fact state that Millie could read or write at all?

Taylor: I’m sure she couldn’t.

Starr: And yet the Service stood by as a fraud, a million-dollar fraud, was perpetrated on the American people?

Taylor: Uh, Mr. Starr--everybody knows that Mrs. Bush wrote that book.

Starr: So it was Mrs. Bush who foisted a fraud on the public, to your silent and official acquiescence? Agent Taylor, does--Yes? What is it?

(A uniformed nurse pokes her head into the grand jury room.)

Nurse: Mr. Starr, it’s time for your medication.

Patt Morrison’s column appears Wednesdays. Her e-mail address: patt.morrison@latimes.com