Washington:
A former director of the Secret Service said Friday that the FBI engaged in an "abuse of power" by trying to pressure him to "give us the president" during the investigation of President Bill Clinton's interactions with Monica Lewinsky a decade ago.
The official, Lewis C. Merletti, who headed the former president's protective detail and later became the agency's director, said in an interview that the Federal Bureau of Investigation grilled him just days before Clinton left office in a last-ditch effort to prove that his agents had covered up and even facilitated extramarital flings.
Merletti said that the FBI alleged that he and Clinton had concocted a deal - in exchange for Merletti's stonewalling questions about Lewinsky, Clinton would not only appoint him director of the Secret Service but also would provide him women for sexual encounters.
"They said to me, 'You're the last person who can give us the president, and you're going to give him to us,' " Merletti recalled. He called it "disgraceful" and said of the FBI, "They became involved in a political game, and in the end they tarnished themselves beyond belief."
The sensational accusation surfaced first in a new book on the long battle between Clinton and Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated the Whitewater land deal and the president's involvement with Lewinsky, a young White House aide. Starr's investigation into the Lewinsky matter led the House to impeach Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice but the Senate acquitted him in 1999.
Merletti confirmed the book's account in an interview on Friday and further described his interactions with the bureau. The FBI special agent who interrogated him, Jennifer Gant, could not be reached Friday but was quoted in the book saying she could not recall making the allegations Merletti recounted. Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman, declined to comment.
Reached in California, where he is now dean of the law school at Pepperdine University, Starr said he did not want to talk about interactions between the FBI and the Secret Service during his investigation. Robert W. Ray, who succeeded Starr, did not respond to telephone or e-mail messages late Friday.
The new book, "The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," written by Ken Gormley, a law professor at Duquesne University, and published by Crown, re-examines the scandals and investigations that marked Clinton's presidency and adds new details to the public understanding of them. Gormley secured unusual cooperation from nearly all of the main players, including Clinton, Starr and Lewinsky.
As first reported by Politico, the book quotes Lewinsky saying that she believed Clinton did lie under oath to a grand jury and asserts that the former president did have a romantic affair while governor with Susan McDougal, his former Whitewater partner who went to jail rather than testify against him.
It also reports that Susan Webber Wright, the federal judge who oversaw the Paula Jones sexual harassment case in which Clinton was asked about his relationship with Lewinsky under oath, considered finding Clinton in criminal contempt during the Senate trial, a move that could have changed the outcome.
And the book says that Starr's successor, Robert W. Ray, was prepared to indict Clinton right after he left the White House if he did not agree to admit misconduct. On his last full day in office, Clinton acknowledged that he had given false testimony about Lewinsky and agreed to the suspension of his law license.
Aides to Clinton, who gave the author three interviews, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday, nor did Lewinsky.
In an interview, Starr said he had not read the book yet but expressed faith in the author. "I have the highest regard for Ken Gormley," Starr said. "He's very intelligent, he's very comprehensive and he's very thorough."
The book rejects the image of Starr as a rabid zealot out to get Clinton, but concludes he deferred to his prosecutors and should have followed his instinct to turn the Lewinsky matter over to Congress without summoning the president to testify before a grand jury. Starr said on Friday that "reasonable minds can differ on that" but added, "all things considered, we took the best course."
The battle between investigators and the Secret Service led all the way to the Supreme Court. Starr wanted agents to testify about what they saw to prove that Clinton was lying about his interactions with Lewinsky. The Secret Service, led by Merletti, argued that forcing agents to testify would destroy the trust necessary to protect the president's life, but the Supreme Court rejected the argument.
Merletti, now chief administrative officer for the Cleveland Browns, revealed more details about the fight in the book and the interview. He said he believed the FBI was trying to "set up" the Secret Service or the president.
He recalled that in August 1998, the FBI told him a dress owned by Lewinsky did not have the president's DNA on it, even though it did, apparently to try to catch Merletti in a conspiracy if he passed along the false information to Clinton.
The meeting where he said he was accused of trading silence for a promotion came in January 2001, long after the Senate trial. "They came up with this theory that I entered into a deal with the president where I would keep my mouth shut about Monica Lewinsky - which I had no idea was going on - and in return I would become director of the Secret Service," Merletti said Friday.
"They then went on to say that I went on to tell the president, 'Well, I not only want to be director, but you have to supply me with women.' " Merletti said he was still flabbergasted. "I'm not kidding," he said. "It was like, 'Are you out of your mind?' "