In a new setback for President Clinton, the Chief Justice of the US has ruled that the President's Secret Service guards can testify in the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist yesterday rejected an appeal by the Clinton administration to bar testimony by Secret Service agents on duty in the White House. The judge supported the Washington appeals court which had earlier ruled that the agents must testify. But the chief justice said that the full court could review the dispute later this year.
This left the way clear for the independent counsel, Mr Ken Starr, to question Mr Larry Cockell, the plain-clothes head of the President's security detail and six uniformed officers who had been ordered to be present for questioning. Mr Cockell has been taken off the President's security detail as he would be "distracted" by the court proceedings.
President Clinton insisted that he has not been personally involved in the attempt to bar the testimony of the agents. But he defended the legal efforts of the Secret Service and his attorney general to do so. He said yesterday that the agents "feel very strongly" about this. They "risk their lives to protect me and other presidents in a professional way, not a political way".
Suggestions on NBC news that Mr Starr suspected that some Secret Service agents were "facilitating" Mr Clinton to meet women for trysts were angrily rejected by the White House press secretary, Mr Mike McCurry.
It is not clear to observers what Mr Starr is hoping to learn from the agents. Mr Cockell is the agent closest to the President at public functions and when he travels from the White House. He accompanied the President and his lawyer, Mr Bob Bennett, on the day last January when Mr Clinton was questioned about his relationship with Ms Lewinsky by lawyers for Ms Paula Jones.
The uniformed officers are not as close physically to the President but they guard the access to the Oval Office and keep logs of all entries and departures of visitors. Mr Starr has demanded logs of the President's whereabouts on nights in 1995 and 1996 when Ms Lewinsky was known to have visited the White House.