BY: Mary Mostert, News Analyst
July 8, 1998
"In a major victory for independent counsel Kenneth Starr," Reuters reports today, "a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that President Clinton's Secret Service guards must testify in the Monica Lewinsky investigation."
That decision is more than just a victory of Kenneth Starr. It is a victory for Constitutional Government based on check and balances in our federal system and a balance of powers. Clinton's SS corps traditionally has been an elite group of guards hand-picked for the job of protecting the president from harm. It was never intended to be turned into another kind of SS corps, the kind created by Heinrich Himmler - a secret group which was loyal to Hitler and trusted to do his dirty work.
In 1929, Hitler appointed Himmler the leader of the SS, which was then still a small elite defense organization, not radically different from the Secret Service that protects American presidents. However, after Hitler's accession to power, Himmler began to expand the SS into a vast empire within the Nazi state. In 1933-1934 he took over the political police, converting it into a totalitarian secret police known as the Gestapo. He was also a leader in the subjugation of the SA (Storm Troopers), his major competitors within the Nazi party, in June 1934. Simultaneously, he started to build a system of concentration camps and created the nucleus of a military SS (Waffen SS). His appointment as chief of the entire German police system followed in June 1936.
How did that happen? There were no checks and balances by which the judiciary or the legislature could nip a secret police power in the bud in Germany 1929-34. It changed from a normal protective function to an organization doing the bidding, and keeping the secrets of the executive.
Would the White House Secret Service ever grow into some kind of truly sinister police group? Who would have thought that the police power of the German nation would have been turned into the monster it did during World War II? Himmler, who headed the SS and the Gestapo and masterminded much of the slaughter prided himself on his "decency" and love of animals. He wrote: "One basic principal must be the absolute rule for the SS man: we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interest me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and heartless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals."
Would the generation that fought World War II have ever dreamed they would live to see partial birth abortion in America and see it defended on the floor of Congress? Not on your life! It would have been labeled another Nazi horror tale. Himmler elevated kidnapping children to a "good" and slaughtering Jews, Gypsies, handicapped people and homosexuals to a necessary state policy to save the nation.
So the unanimous and firm decision of the three-judge panel appeals court ruling that Secret Service officers may be compelled to testify to a federal grand jury in search of executive law-breaking is necessary in a nation of law, not of men. Starr wants them to disclose what they know about Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Lewinsky and the court flatly dismissed the Secret Service's arguments that requiring the testimony of its officers will jeopardize its ability to effectively protect the president.
The judges said it would be up to the Congress to decide whether such a privilege was appropriate to ensure the safety of the president and to define the contours of such a privilege. The Secret Service has claimed that requiring its officers to testify would damage its "confidential relationship with the president, impairing its ability to protect the president from assassination."
Think about that for a minute. Somehow the Secret Service being required to testify in the event of presidential law-breaking would "impair its ability?" How? Are they saying that the president must have an unfettered "right" to break laws without anyone around him testifying about his behavior?
Kenneth Starr recognized the importance of the decision, saying: "The Court of Appeals today reaffirmed ... that the rule of law is not incompatible with the profound national interest in protecting the life of the president. We trust that the Secret Service will now join us in helping the grand jury gather information that is relevant to this investigation."
The appeals court Judges, Stephen Williams, Douglas Ginsburg and A. Raymond Randolph, agreed with Starr, raising questions about the need and wisdom of the proposed privilege. "As for need, the greatest danger to the president arises when he is in public, yet the privilege presumably would have its greatest effect when he is in the White House or in private meetings."
Secret Service agents in the past have given testimony about the functioning of the Oval Office tape recording system and some agents have disclosed their observations in books, apparently without causing presidents to distance themselves from their protectors. However, the judges noted, even with the new privilege in place, the court suspected that a president would "distance himself from the agents when engaging in wrongful conduct."
The judges also commented on the fact that the Secret Service does not require its agents to sign confidentiality agreements as a condition of employment and questioned why the so-called "privilege" had been asserted by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, rather than the president, whose conduct the proposed privilege is supposed to influence.
Starr has issued a subpoena for two Secret Service guards, and a Secret Service lawyer who questioned the guards. The ruling said it was believed to be the first effort in U.S. history to compel testimony by agents guarding the president.
A Justice Department statement said that the department was disappointed by the ruling and "concerned" that it might lead the Secret Service guards to "distance themselves" from the president and thus increase "the danger to his life and that of future presidents."
The Justice Department has never explained just why a guard would "distance" himself from the president when the president was doing his job and obeying the law. This "distancing" problem is almost an admission that the guards have observed something that makes them worry about having to testify.
The people, in a free country, need to know just what is going on in the White House that causes the president to fear the testimony of officer of the law who are assigned to protect him. If Germany in 1934 had a court and decision which had stopped Himmler's SS group, the history of the 20th century would have been radically different.
You've probably complained about a few court decisions. Today we can be truly grateful for three good men, Judges Stephen Williams, Douglas Ginsburg and A. Raymond Randolph, the Appeals Court judges who ruled unanimously to uphold the rule of law.
To comment:mmostert@waveshift.com