by Crisis of Character- A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience
Every cop knows how to get away with murder, but cops are supposed to be above being targeted. Even the mere perception of it was frightening. Genny tried reassuring me, “Don’t worry, Homer [our beagle] will protect me.” That didn’t help. I thought, “F—ing great, it’s even on my wife’s mind.” I couldn’t get the words of numerous Arkansas troopers and PPD agents out of my mind. They all looked me right in the eye and used the word ruthless. I kept hearing, “Gary, everything you hear about them is true.”
The only thing I could do was commit to a personal operational security regimen. With the heat increasing, I started making plans for what to do if my brake line were cut or someone tried to run me off the road, or if someone tried sneaking something into a beverage. I started planning in case Genny and I had to disappear and go off-grid. It was my word, and my word only, against the most powerful people in the world. I’d seen them lie and intimidate. It wasn’t a stretch to think that things might escalate.
I knew what I was fighting. I contacted a friend, Richard, who had some rural property in north central Potter County, Pennsylvania, known officially as “God’s country.” He was a doctor in Philadelphia and he’d saved my mother’s life from a dangerous tumor. His family was well known to mine. My mother and father had gratefully promised him and his wife a White House tour—of course, they hadn’t consulted me first. (That happens to everyone working at the White House!) Despite being overworked and exhausted around the holiday season, I begrudgingly gave the doctor’s family the tour. Their little stroller-bound kid—one who’d grow up to be a fine man—threw a small stuffed animal onto the White House lawn. ERT freaked and nearly called in the bomb squad!
It was now 1998, and the weight of the Clinton circus fueled my anger and paranoia. I confided in Richard that I was in a jam and needed to get out of Dodge. I didn’t provide him with any details, and what was great was that he didn’t ask for any, not even when I asked him if Genny and I could use his property if I had to disappear.
“Just go and don’t stop for anything if I tell you to go there,” I told her—something no LEO should have to tell their spouse, particularly a pregnant one.
Around this time the world finally learned about Monica’s blue dress. To this day, I believe that that DNA-soiled dress saved my life. Monica had worn it on February 28, 1997, during one of her many “mentoring” sessions.
After I had recommended to Evelyn that Monica be removed from the White House, Monica became friends with White House employee Linda Tripp. Had I never recommended to Evelyn Lieberman that Monica needed to leave, Monica would have never met Linda. Tripp hated the Clintons for reasons I can only guess. Monica had preserved the stained dress as a souvenir and confided this to Linda.
Linda, who had already contacted reporter Michael Isikoff at Newsweek, manipulated Monica not to dry-clean the dress and to hide it in Linda’s care—for Monica’s protection in case the Clintons ever smeared and demeaned Monica as they had Paula Jones and other victims of Bill’s sexual adventures. Linda then passed the dress on to the FBI. Hook. Line. Sinker. They used that dress to force Monica to sign for an FBI immunity from prosecution from the FBI to testify against Bill Clinton.
Later my lieutenant came up to me. I told him, “I’m doing fine.” He wasn’t buying it and could tell I was at wits’ end. On top of everything else, I was even losing badly needed overtime assignments. I was strapped emotionally—and financially. I really needed to get away.
He gave it some thought and said, “Gary, here’s what I want you to do. I’ll work on the OT—no promises. I want you to leave a number, some number where only I can reach you. Take your wife. Go on vacation somewhere where no one can find you, not your usual hangout spot, but where only I can reach you with that number. Got me?” he said.
Genny, Homer, and I absconded to a nearby yet remote lake in Maryland. I hitched my Jet Ski–laden trailer to the car and peeled out on the highway with pedal to the metal.
One sleepless night, I watched Geraldo Rivera talking about me on national television. I just knew my two weeks of Jet Ski freedom were about to be cut short. Sure enough, the next morning, I got the call: “I’m so sorry, but we’re going to have to bring you back in. How soon can you be at SSHQ?”
It wasn’t an actual question.
If I wasn’t back in twelve hours, I was told, I’d be in jail.
15.
MUD DRAG: PART II
I had been called back to answer a subpoena.
In total I received six subpoenas, all of which compelled me to testify truthfully via videotape before a grand jury. I was questioned in a small, simple room containing a few chairs and a single table. Nothing was ornate. It resembled a nicer version of a standard interrogation room. With the videographer’s setup, plus the court reporter, her little machine, and the prosecution lawyers crowding inside, the room got even smaller. All eyes, especially the dark eye of the video camera, were on me. All I had for comfort was my conscience and a plastic bottle of water.
The court reporter swore me in. Secret Service attorneys stood outside waiting for me to excuse myself and come to them when I had questions regarding what I had to keep secret. “Do the right thing, Gary,” I felt my wife was saying miles away.
A female attorney from Starr’s staff counseled me on my right against self-incrimination.
She reminded me that I couldn’t lie by saying, “I don’t remember.” She reminded me that her team wouldn’t ask about secret or privileged matters of the White House. But they definitely wanted nonprivileged information. The gray areas between privileged and nonprivileged was my not-so-private hell.
C-SPAN later broadcast the video of my interrogation. But viewers didn’t get the whole picture. The Secret Service blacked out details regarding my postings, official names, and details or accounts of the president’s movements. (I could finally provide those after Chief Justice William Rehnquist essentially voided the concept of “protective privilege.”) Then all the marking, noting, and initialing of exhibits started—just to keep things straight.
My plastic water bottle was my crinkly comfort blanket. I really wanted to feel the reassurance of my firearm against my hip, but that was not to be. They made me hand over my gun before my questioning commenced.
They wanted to know every little detail. I testified to the numerous times I had discovered Monica where she clearly didn’t belong, what I thought of her, how she manipulated friendships, how distraught Nel was, and how I’d thrown away those lipstick-smeared towels. I couldn’t legally mention semen—because that was the president’s.
I wanted to curl up and die.
I made it clear that I never thought I was committing any crimes. I thought I was protecting the president from more rumors—particularly the true ones. They asked if I connected the lipstick to Monica. Surprisingly, no one had ever asked me that before, so I never revealed my thoughts. But Presidential Protective Function Privilege prevented my honest answer. I was on thin ice any which way I moved.
“You thought it could be anyone?” a lawyer asked.
I responded with a heavy fear upon my chest. “Without revealing any privileged information, on the advice of my counsel, yes, I did.”
I wasn’t lying. Or was I? I was up a legal shit’s creek without a paddle. The only one who could un-f—my situation was the president!
“I did not connect the lipstick to Monica at that time.”
“At all?” he said surprised.
“No.”
“Did you connect the lipstick to anyone?”
“Without revealing any privileged information on the advice of my counsel…” I paused before saying, “Yes, I did.”
“You connected it with someone but didn’t connect it with Monica?” he said with some surprise, his voice betraying eager anticipation of what I might say.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Did you connect it with a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me whethe
r it is a White House employee?”
“It is.”
It wasn’t past tense. She still worked there.
“Well, I’ll just ask the straightforward question, who did you connect it with?”
“I connected it with [the Service blacked out her name]. She was the West Wing receptionist at the time.”
“What made you connect it with [blacked out her name]?”
“Without revealing any privileged information…” and I trailed off.
I tried insinuating that there were other women, what a womanizer and an unabashed cheater the president was, and how crazy things really were at the White House. But that was risky. I had no attorney-client privileges to save me from my own bosses. The Justice Department swore they would never release these tapes to the public. But who trusted them?
They asked me about the towel incident and if Monica was an employee, a blue pass holder, at the time. I told them the truth: yes. She had been an intern-mistress who was fired. She returned as an employee-mistress despite the intention of many others, including myself. I told them about the West Wing receptionist, and how I believed for reasons that I couldn’t reveal that it was her lipstick. The woman had been a flight attendant turned organizer (with her husband) of private flights for people like rock stars or, in this case, for a presidential candidate. ABC News broadcast video of 1992 presidential candidate Clinton with his hand between this future receptionist’s leg on one of those flights. Another flight attendant from that series of charter flights later accused President Clinton of sexual harassment and tried peddling that story.
Hailing from Texas, the receptionist had that special Lone Star twang and flair. Actually, she was very charming and a good person. I did not want to reveal her name. But neither she nor I fell under the “Presidential Protective Function Privilege.”
When she became a White House receptionist she worked closely with Hernreich and Currie. She’d even fill in for them if they stepped out of their offices. I never doubted her character because I never knew how the First Lady factored into it. The rumors were that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned everything like a grand puppet master, so I never had a problem with that receptionist. I did have problems with Monica, who manipulated us into allowing her into unauthorized areas ultimately to get to the president.
I knew about that receptionist (I even once witnessed her giving the president what looked like a back massage), about Eleanor, and about Monica. Discussing Clinton’s behavior (however, tangentially) during my deposition made 1600 Pennsylvania seemed more like a late-night red-light district than a national institution. I never discussed such matters with any coworkers outside of work. The information we shared was always a whispered heads-up, a professional courtesy, but not gossip. I felt like I was gossiping here. In the deposition videotape you can see me slump farther into my chair, not exactly my proudest moment. I felt trapped. I couldn’t reveal what I knew about the semen! I couldn’t say a word; it was the most “privileged” of information.
I corroborated what I (among many others) had heard of how an officer or a staff person had walked in on Eleanor and the president in the White House movie theater. I also corroborated how Monica had tried to gain entrance to the White House during a congressional visit by befriending some other higher-up. She had her ways. An officer she had once befriended was used to her being “off book” (not officially logged in, as per protocol) when he screened her, and he escorted her through to the White House. Another officer barked at him, “Either you walk her off the grounds and back to the gold rope section immediately—or I will.”
I also testified regarding an incident that occurred during the 1996 Christmas season—a black-tie, who’s-who event. We were clearing guests in tuxedos and ball gowns when I saw Monica. I stormed over to her, saying indignantly, “You know you’re not supposed to be here.” But when I checked the list, sure as shit, there she was—as a guest of an invited guest (how strange was that?).
Minutes later, a Social Office higher-up approached my sergeant and me as we screened more visitors. She barked: “You guys screwed up—you let Monica in!”
I just laughed. She stomped off. I got my buddy “Henry” to cover my post for a second while the sergeant and I chased another Social Office employee, whom I’ll call Kim. Kim was with her assistant and was also fuming about how “you guys screwed up” by letting in Monica. Kim pointed at me specifically, getting a tad too personal. I knew I couldn’t let Kim get away with that.
At this point in the deposition, the Secret Service blacked out a huge chunk of my testimony. I still can’t discuss it. Honest.
Back to the action. I interrupted Kim. “Is this Monica’s name on the list?” I asked her like a smart-ass. I couldn’t help my bitter undertone. I pointed to “Monica Lewinsky” on the guest list. Flipping to the first page, I pointed to something else. “Is that your signature? Then you let her in, not us. You signed off on it, not us. That was your job.”
Ironically, the Social Office was under the First Lady. Technically it was FLOTUS’s job to extend the invitations, but the idea that Mrs. Clinton would take responsibility for someone under her command? Laughable. I surely never saw it.
At this point in the deposition, I realized I had roped myself into a bit of a snare. The investigators start asking why Kim would be angry that Monica made it into the White House and why everyone from the Social Office to the UD knew that Monica was unofficially blacklisted. If it wasn’t official, yet everyone knew, what did they know? What were the terms by which people, including Kim and I, knew why Monica was transferred and blacklisted? They kept asking. I told them how Kim knew that Monica had been transferred to the Pentagon even after being a pass holder, an employee. I couldn’t really say what we knew.
Why would Kim be so adamant that “you guys had screwed up?” asked the one lawyer.
“Well, she would blame anything on us, to be honest with you,” I responded.
I explained to them how Kim and others from the Social Office disdained us, which was absolutely truthful. I didn’t dare explain the reason for their animosity: Their boss, Mrs. Clinton, hated us.
The previous administration’s Social Office had been very kind and professional to us even if they suspected that we had screwed up.
I ducked the lawyer’s queries about Monica’s exile because I couldn’t give him the real answer: that the president had dropped her like a bad habit—which, come to think of it, she was.
I did relate a story of how the president one night had directly ordered a sergeant to rush the Control Center to expedite Monica’s screening so she could meet him for a completely off-the-books, late-night session. He had never before called the CQ to expedite screenings for anyone.
I explained to the lawyers, “Whenever I had heard about any of these rumors, I tried to get the hell out of the room. I was just so fed up with the rumors. With the things at the White House, I was tired, so aggravated, that I had to just get the hell out of there. And I still do.”
The manpower costs involved in this investigation were massive. I was paid for weeks to do nothing more than answer (or not answer) questions. The Justice Department allocated all its legal heavyweights to the fray. The Service lost dozens of men for days on end to the legal battle of protecting the president. Who could tally the cost of all the men and women who felt compelled to leave their jobs, or those like Linda Tripp who were compelled to work against their boss, the president? Morale descended to an all-time low. The president could have let all these resources return to their normal jobs with a few simple words, but he—they—possessed too great a store of Machiavellian pride for that.
The New York Times published a drawing that was spot-on, albeit demoralizing. It nailed the issue of our credibility. It portrayed three cartoon Secret Service agents with their aviator glasses and earpieces. They separately gestured “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” but the sightless agent had slightly lifted his dark glasses. He was peeking. He saw the evil. W
hile I wasn’t an agent, I knew I was among this trio. I wasn’t happy about being in the New York Times, although with each subpoena, I did request legal counsel to mail me more presentable copies. I wanted something to frame on my wall when everything was said and done. They laughed in disbelief.
My final testimony concerned Monica’s arrival at the Northwest Gate on her way to meet with Betty Currie. I revealed Betty’s name but once again, not the president’s. I related how gate officers phoned Betty to confirm Monica’s appointment and how Betty ordered them to delay her since the president was busy.
I testified that Monica called the Oval Office via a checkpoint pay phone (she couldn’t have used the president’s secret military line as I testified she had inside the White House). If only Nancy Hernreich, the director of Oval Office operations, had put Monica on the “E-6 access list” (that granted The First Daughter, Lady, or Chief of Staff anytime access) as other E-6 UD and I had futilely asked, but there were so many what-if’s. With Monica giving the president an earful, and the president fuming to Betty, Betty called me to see how we could sort out the issue of a UD gate officer leaking whom the president was with—and what he was doing. What the president didn’t know—and I didn’t mention it because nobody asked—was that the gate officer told Monica that the president was with another piece of a– and that she would have to wait her turn. With his cats out of the bag, the president was incensed.