Clinton Tried To Derail Troopers'
Sex Allegations

President Clinton and other administration officials engaged in an extensive effort in recent months to prevent publication of allegations that Clinton as governor of Arkansas used his security detail to facilitate extramarital affairs, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

White House aides said Clinton had personally spoken with several Arkansas state troopers. But they denied that Clinton sought improperly to pressure the troopers not to talk to reporters and said that Clinton was merely seeking information about what false stories were being spread about him.

In a statement released last night, presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey said that Clinton spoke with the troopers after a longtime member of his security detail in Arkansas contacted him several months ago "with information that the prospects of large sums of money were being dangled before several members of his former security details for stories – regardless of whether they were true or not – to discredit the president and his family."

Two members of Clinton's former security detail, Roger Perry and Larry Patterson, have alleged in television interviews and in a lengthy article in the American Spectator magazine that they and other troopers helped Clinton meet women, booked hotel rooms for liaisons and brought a woman into the Arkansas Governor's Mansion after Clinton was elected president. The men have acknowledged that they are interested in writing a book about their time with the Clintons, and are represented by one of Clinton's Arkansas political enemies, lawyer Cliff Jackson.

The allegations forced the White House to address again an issue that has periodically plagued Clinton since last year's campaign, when a former nightclub singer, Gennifer Flowers, alleged that she had conducted a 12-year affair with the Arkansas governor and was provided a state job to remain silent about it.

In interviews with Cable News Network and the American Spectator, Perry alleged that another trooper, Danny Ferguson, had told him that Clinton promised him a federal job in return for his help in thwarting publication of the potentially damaging story.

Lindsey said that "at no time did the president offer a job to any trooper in exchange for silence or the shaping of any stories." Lindsey said in a later interview yesterday that Clinton did not offer either Ferguson or Perry a job, as alleged in the magazine article.

Lindsey said in the statement that after "receiving . . . information" about Arkansas troopers being offered money for their stories, Clinton called members of the security detail. "President Clinton expressed disbelief and asked why they would do something like this. The trooper with whom he spoke said that at least one trooper, Perry, was unhappy because he had written to the president asking for a federal position and had received no response. The president had subsequent conversations with other troopers who were also concerned about this matter."

A senior White House official said Clinton called the other troopers to find out "who was saying what. The true stories he's not worried about. It's the false stories." Clinton, the official said, wanted to determine "what was going on, whether these guys had gone through with it, whether there was money being offered, how much – the normal things that anyone would be interested in finding out. Who's doing it? Why are they doing it?"

In the magazine article, written by conservative journalist David Brock, the two troopers are quoted as providing highly detailed accounts of Clinton's alleged affairs with numerous women. They also make allegations about a strained relationship between Clinton and his wife, including accounts of extensive vulgarity.

Lawyers representing the two troopers said the new allegations differ significantly from those leveled by Flowers because they come from two law enforcement officers and concern issues of misuse of state resources. "The issue was not his sexual proclivities," said Lynn A. Davis, a former chief of the Arkansas state police who is helping to represent the troopers. "It was the abuse of power – the abuse of office that concerned them and concerned me."

{In today's editions, the Los Angeles Times reports that it too has affidavits from Perry, Patterson and two unidentified state troopers who name women with whom they believe Clinton had been involved while governor. The Times interviewed several of the women, who were not identified, and all denied an improper relationship.

{One woman, who an unidentified trooper said was smuggled into the governor's mansion after the 1992 election, told the Times there was "nothing improper" in her relationship with Clinton, which troopers said went on for years. The Times examined Clinton's incomplete car phone records and hotel telephone records and found 59 phone calls to her home and business phone between 1989 and 1991. Asked about the phone calls, White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum told the Times, "this president calls lots of people."}

Before the Times story was published early today, Lindsey yesterday denied that any troopers helped Clinton arrange sexual liaisons.

One episode related in the magazine article quotes one of the officers as saying Hillary Rodham Clinton berated a trooper for bringing a particular woman to a rally on the day the Clintons left Arkansas for Washington. A top administration official denied the allegation and said Secret Service agents guarding the president – who would have been there when the alleged incident occurred – witnessed nothing of the sort.

"They have neither seen anything nor heard anything whatsoever that would lend any credence to any of the allegations that have been reported," said Assistant Treasury Secretary Ronald K. Noble, who oversees the Secret Service. Noble said the Secret Service director had contacted agents on the then-president-elect's detail at the time.

As an example of the sensitivity with which the White House views the issue, Lindsey has had repeated discussions about the charges in recent weeks with R.L. "Buddy" Young, the former chief of Clinton's security detail, who was appointed by Clinton last summer to a $92,000-a-year post as head of a Southwest regional office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"They were concerned that somebody was going to tell some things that weren't true and cause problems," Young said. Aside from briefly raising the matter in a conversation with the president, Young said yesterday he has also talked to Lindsey "several times in the last two weeks" about the matter.

Young confirmed that he had called Perry last summer when Young first heard that Perry had retained a lawyer and said, "Why are you doing this? . . . you're using bad judgment." But Young denied Perry's version, recounted in the magazine article, that he said "I represent the President of the United States" and that "your own actions could bring about dire consequences."

Young also confirmed that "a few months ago" he provided Ferguson with part-time employment as a "subcontractor" to a company he owns. He said this was unrelated to discussions he was having at the same time with Ferguson about the allegations that Perry and Patterson were making about Clinton.

Davis and Jackson said they were initially contacted by four troopers, including Ferguson, about arranging a book deal and publicizing allegations about Clinton.

But Ferguson and the fourth trooper, Ronnie Anderson, decided not to speak out after the White House pressured them, Jackson said. Perry, who is president of the Arkansas State Troopers Association, and Patterson have "been intimidated and threatened" over their decision to go public, Jackson said.

Staff writer Howard Schneider in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.