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P.I. firm hired by Clinton defense
team known for political hardball
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
he private-detective agency hired by President Clinton's
defense team to discredit independent counsel Kenneth W.
Starr is a rough-and-tumble collection of political hardball
players with A-list connections to the White House.
Although administration officials suggest Investigative Group
International (IGI) has done little more than disseminate
newspaper articles critical of Mr. Starr and his lieutenants, the
firm has gathered salacious material in its probes of other
high-profile targets, The Washington Times has learned.
One former IGI investigator who now works for the Clinton
administration played a key role in efforts to
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derail the Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and
Clarence Thomas. Another former IGI investigator said the firm
sought evidence of extramarital affairs, homosexuality and
pedophilia against prominent businesses figures.
Other ex-employees said IGI sometimes skirts the law in its
investigative techniques, using undercover operatives to perform
questionable tasks, such as gathering credit information on people
without their permission. One former IGI investigator said the
firm has been known to sift through the trash of those under
scrutiny.
"Garbage is very good --you'd be surprised what people throw
out," the investigator said. "Some clients think picking through
trash is unseemly, but others recognize it as a perfectly legal
technique in most cities. I mean, the FBI uses it without a
warrant."
Another former IGI investigator described the firm as
ruthless, taking its cue from Terry F. Lenzner, its founder and
chairman.
"I'm just afraid of him," said the ex-employee. "He's not a nice
guy all the time. On some things about Terry, I'm a fan. But all
investigators can be aggressive. That's why people hire us. So I'm
just nervous about that."
Mr. Lenzner, who served as assistant chief counsel for the
Senate Watergate Committee from 1973 to 1975, founded IGI in
1984. With offices in London, Frankfurt, Germany, and five
major cities in the United States, the Washington-based firm is
now among the most sophisticated private-investigation companies
in the world, Mr. Lenzner told Senate lawyers last year.
"Many people come to us looking for getting accurate
information in a complex case," he said. "I'd say 90 percent of
our investigations are conducted under requirements or requests
that the targets of the inquiry not know that the investigation is
being conducted."
Such discretion is occasionally compromised. This week, the
White House conceded IGI has been working for Mr. Clinton's
personal attorneys to defend him in the Monica Lewinsky
sex-and-lies case and the Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit.
"There's no investigation going on about the private lives of
the people at issue," said IGI lawyer Howard Shapiro. "The terms
of this retention were very specific -- or were very carefully
circumscribed and defined by the lawyers -- and excluded any
investigating into personal lives."
While insisting IGI's techniques are strictly aboveboard in the
Clinton case, Mr. Shapiro said confidentiality arrangements
preclude him from discussing the techniques that are being
employed.
Former IGI investigator Michael Moroney doubted that the
firm's role is limited to such relatively benign tasks as gathering
negative news clippings on Mr. Starr and his assistants. "Any law
firm can use a computer to pull up newspaper articles in a New
York minute," he said. "You don't need IGI to do that. You need
IGI to do other things."
Mr. Moroney said IGI, like most private-detective firms, often
conducts investigations by "looking for any dirt, anything to
impeach the credibility" of the targets.
"I'm not making any value judgments. That's just the way it's
done," he said.
Mr. Lenzner did not return phone calls. But Mr. Shapiro
echoed the sentiments of several former IGI investigators, who
said Mr. Lenzner's background as a lawyer makes him more leery
of questionable investigative techniques than most private eyes.
"That's one of the selling points of the firm," Mr. Shapiro
said. "And he's not just any lawyer. He's a Harvard-educated
lawyer with a background of being a federal prosecutor in the
Southern District of New York, which many --not just its alumni
-- consider the pre-eminent office in the country.
"He's the sort of person who will ensure that the
private-investigative work that is done at his firm is not only of a
very high quality in terms of its investigations, but ensure that it
in no way crosses any ethical or legal or moral boundaries," said
Mr. Shapiro, who quit his job as FBI general counsel after an
internal probe found he exercised poor judgment in the FBI files
scandal, in which White House aides gathered information about
officials with the Reagan and Bush administrations.
Mr. Lenzner's tenure as head of IGI has not been without its
embarrassing missteps. In early 1996, for example, he did not
respond to many phone calls and e-mail messages from one of his
employees, Susan Swanson, the first investigator to obtain
evidence that the Unabomber was a hitherto unknown hermit
named Theodore Kaczynski.
A skeptical IGI President Raymond W. Kelly reluctantly
agreed to review Miss Swanson's evidence. But by the time Mr.
Kelly responded, Miss Swanson had resorted to turning over the
case to an outside lawyer. IGI had missed out on the Unabomber
case.
Last year, IGI's proposal to dig up dirt on Sen. Don Nickles
and his wife resulted in an angry confrontation when Mr. Lenzner
appeared before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
"I don't mind you messing with me," the Oklahoma
Republican told him. "But I sure mind you messing with my
family."
Mr. Lenzner's proposal was designed to help
Cheyenne-Arapaho Indians reclaim tribal lands from the Interior
Department. |
