Clinton Confidant Thomason Testifies Before Grand Jury

WASHINGTON —  Quipping that “it’s always good to meet with another group of citizens,” presidential friend Harry Thomason went before a grand jury Tuesday for questioning about what he learned from President Clinton and what advice he gave him while living at the White House for 34 days after the Monica S. Lewinsky allegations broke in January.

Thomason, a Hollywood producer, has stage-managed some of Clinton’s more crucial public appearances--including his finger-pointing televised denial of having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

After testifying for about 90 minutes before the grand jury, Thomason emerged saying: “I’ve always believed the president was telling the truth.” Lewinsky reportedly challenged the president’s denial in her own grand jury appearance last week. Clinton has agreed to give closed-circuit televised testimony to the grand jurors Monday. Thomason is expected to help Clinton prepare for that questioning.

“He’s one of the president’s oldest chums from their Arkansas days,” another friend of Clinton’s remarked. “He came here to testify but he’s expected to stay through Monday to lend moral support to the president during this crisis and probably play cards with him late into the night.”

Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills testified before the grand jury after Thomason as prosecutors for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr focused on what took place between the president and his advisors in January and February when Clinton seemed most distracted by the budding controversy.

Starr appears to be trying to learn whether Clinton and his advisors attempted to obstruct the independent counsel’s efforts to investigate the Lewinsky situation.

Unlike Thomason, Mills would not comment after her testimony.

Mills is at least the third member of the White House counsel’s office to appear before the grand jury. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here recently ruled that attorney-client privilege against answering questions does not apply to government lawyers in the face of a criminal subpoena.

Thomason is among those Clinton advisors urging him not to abandon his denial. The Hollywood producer told a New Yorker magazine writer last month that he had provided advice and moral support to Clinton during the early days of the controversy, when he moved into a bedroom in the White House.

At the time, after conferring with Thomason, Clinton seemed to issue a much firmer denial than during an interview with Jim Lehrer on the Public Broadcasting System, which Thomason said he found upsetting.

But in his stronger, less halting denial Clinton said: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” a phrase that Thomason said in his July 6 New Yorker interview bothered him.

“I don’t believe he meant to call her ‘that woman.’ But with all the hullabaloo going on, her name just escaped him. I think he just blanked.

“It wasn’t like he was saying something bad about her. From everything I heard, she showed some promise. I think she’s probably a good human being, perhaps searching for a father figure.”

White House officials and Clinton associates have gone out of their way not to criticize the 25-year-old Brentwood woman, who testified last week under a grant of immunity from prosecution.

Sources familiar with her testimony said that Lewinsky told of sharing sexual intimacies with the president at the White House over a period of 18 months and that she had an “implicit understanding” with Clinton that their affair was not to be revealed.

However, she insisted to grand jurors that the president never instructed her to lie about it under oath, the sources said.

Thomason and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, have produced several successful television comedies, including “Designing Women,” and Bloodworth-Thomason produced “The Man from Hope,” the Clinton film shown at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York, which Thomason had a major role in staging.

The appearance of Thomason and Mills suggested that Starr--just days before Clinton’s own testimony--is trying to delve into what he might have told confidants and lawyers immediately after the crisis broke.

Mills’ testimony followed that of Lanny Breuer, another member of the White House counsel’s office, who appeared before the grand jury for about five hours last week before raising objections to specific questions. Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey was called before the grand jury earlier this year but declined to answer some questions based on attorney-client privilege.

Last month, after an appellate court ruling that government lawyers are not shielded from such testimony in a criminal proceeding, Lindsey was subpoenaed again.

Times staff writer Erin Trodden contributed to this story.

To join a continuing discussion on the Monica S. Lewinsky matter on The Times’ Web site, go to: http://161.35.110.226/scandal

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