Reno Blasts Starr on Bid to Elicit Secret Service Testimony

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno attacks independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr in court papers unsealed Wednesday for “unprecedented . . . efforts to breach the relationship of trust” between President Clinton and his Secret Service detail by demanding that agents protecting the president testify before a grand jury.

In a legal brief asking appellate judges to reverse a lower court’s order that Secret Service personnel must testify in the Monica S. Lewinsky case, Reno declared that “no other prosecutor or court has seen fit even to attempt to invade this protected relationship” between a president and his Secret Service agents.

The language in Reno’s June 1 brief was surprisingly strong for an attorney general who in January asked an appellate court to authorize the expansion of Starr’s Whitewater investigation to include Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky. The brief suggested that the Justice Department believes Starr’s investigative tactics have exceeded the bounds of propriety.

The U.S. Court of Appeals here unsealed Reno’s brief, along with friend-of-the-court papers filed by former Secret Service officials who supported her position. The ex-officials argued that not even in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s did a special prosecutor seek testimony from agents about what they had seen of President Nixon’s conduct.

In the Watergate investigation, which ultimately brought down Nixon, Secret Service agents were called on to testify about the mechanics of the secret taping system that Nixon had ordered them to install but never about “what they saw and heard while guarding the president,” the former officials argued.

A Starr filing, also unsealed Wednesday, said the Secret Service testimony is needed because “the public has a tremendous interest in the prompt resolution of the grand jury’s work.”

The appeals court is considering whether to reverse or uphold a May 22 ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson that Starr may compel Secret Service officers to testify about anything they have seen between Clinton and Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

In Starr’s filing, the independent counsel detailed what prompted prosecutors to seek testimony from a Secret Service lawyer and two uniformed Secret Service officers who are posted inside the White House. The three officials, who cited “protective privilege” against testifying, were not identified.

Shortly after opening the Lewinsky investigation in January, Starr’s office “began receiving numerous and credible reports that Secret Service personnel have evidence relevant to the investigation,” wrote Robert J. Bittman, a deputy independent counsel.

Reno’s court papers declared that she is representing the interests of the Justice Department and the Treasury Department, the parent agency of the Secret Service, but not the president.

Declaring that the lower court’s ruling was “plainly incorrect,” Reno said Johnson “provided no explanation for rejecting the uncontradicted conclusions of the Secret Service directors and [former] President Bush,” who told Johnson that permitting Secret Service testimony would breach the bond of trust between a president and his protectors and could cause him to keep agents too distant to shield him from danger.

“This case involves a public good of the highest order--ensuring the physical safety of the president,” Reno said.

The attorney general disputed Johnson’s finding that when presidents “act within the law, they do not ordinarily push away those they trust or rely upon for fear that their actions will be reported to a grand jury.”

Under Johnson’s ruling, Reno said, “a grand jury may elicit testimony from the Secret Service regarding matters that are in no sense criminal but are highly confidential, intimate or even embarrassing.”

In a related development, Justice Department officials are considering whether to recommend that Reno take action against Starr over allegations that he has leaked information improperly, said one official who asked to remain anonymous.

However, the official would not specify whether the action would take the form of public criticism, such as a censure, or invoke Reno’s power under the federal Independent Counsel Law to fire Starr “for cause.”

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.