Secret Service Testimony Would Be Deadly, Chief Says

WASHINGTON — The head of the Secret Service has privately warned prosecutors that forcing his agents to testify in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation will have a devastating effect on their ability to do their job and result in the death of a president, sources familiar with the discussions said.

The issue of whether Secret Service agents are covered by a privilege protecting them from questioning will be aired in open court today for the first time, even as a source close to the situation said President Clinton has filed a sealed notice that he will appeal last week’s decision dismissing his claims of executive privilege and attorney-client privilege.

During recent meetings with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and Justice Department officials, Secret Service Director Lewis C. Merletti said an assassination would be inevitable because future presidents would keep agents at a distance out of fear that their privacy would be breached, said the sources privy to the talks.

Merletti’s blunt and sensational prediction did not persuade Starr, who plans to argue today that agents should be ordered to disclose what they know about Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky because their testimony is critical to his investigation into obstruction of justice. But the director’s plea did win over Justice officials, who will appear on his behalf to argue that an unprecedented “protective privilege” should shield agents from subpoenas.

Starr has sought to question a half dozen or more Secret Service officers as he tries to determine whether Clinton lied under oath in the now-dismissed Paula Corbin Jones case about whether he had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky and urged her to lie about it also.

To Starr, the agents are law enforcement officers duty-bound to cooperate with a criminal investigation. The service has agreed its agents are obligated to report criminal activity but balks at discussing events that, by themselves, are not illegal.

The hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson will be the latest in a series over the limits of Starr’s power to question people in his investigation. Just last week, she rebuffed Clinton’s attempt to block Starr from quizzing top aides, ruling that prosecutors had a right to their testimony.

In opting to press forward with that case, the president disregarded the concerns of some political advisors who argued that an appeal would only be a losing battle and prolong unwelcome comparisons to President Nixon and his executive privilege fight during Watergate.