June 19, 2000
Politics & Policy
IGI Comes Under Scrutiny in Attempt To Purchase Lobbying Group's
Trash
By GLENN R. SIMPSON
Staff Reporter
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Last spring, prominent Washington private
investigator Terry Lenzner traveled to Silicon Valley to drum up
business. He was convinced that the technology industry was ripe
for his services, one lawyer who met with him said.
His timing was good: The federal government's landmark antitrust
trial against Microsoft Corp. was just getting under way, and
many technology executives for the first time were starting to
pay attention to Washington. Who better than Mr. Lenzner, a
veteran of often-dirty political fights who had helped President
Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case, to cater to their concerns?
Thanks partly to the Lewinsky case, Mr. Lenzner said last year to
a Dow Jones News Service reporter that he had succeeded in
finding work in the Valley. Some of that work, it is now
apparent, was for a client with an interest in the Microsoft
case. At least four employees of his firm, Investigative Group
International, have been linked to an elaborate, surreptitious
attempt to get internal information about the Association for
Competitive Technology, a Microsoft-backed lobbying group, by
buying their office trash. IGI hasn't said who its client is, and
Mr. Lenzner declined to comment.
IGI has offices in eight U.S. cities and three foreign nations,
and is recognized as one of the country's top security and
investigative groups. Its offices in Los Angeles and Berkeley,
Calif., are increasingly involved with the tech industry, and
according to its Web page, IGI has developed a specialty in
intellectual-property cases.
Fueling Suspicion?
A look at Investigative Group International
Chairman
Terry F. Lenzner
Founded
1984
U.S. Offices
Washington, D.C.; Boston; Chicago; New York;
Atlanta; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Seattle
Former clients
U.S. State Department, United Way of America, GTE,
Gardner Museum (Boston), the state of Alaska
Some services
Asset searches, corporate risk and security consulting,
due diligence, internal corporate investigations and
litigation support
Source: The company
Mr. Lenzner's first big break came when he was hired by Sen. Sam
Ervin in 1973 as an investigator on the Senate Watergate
Committee. It almost ended badly. According to the 1978 book
"Chief Counsel," by former top Ervin aide Sam Dash, he came close
to being fired for allegedly exceeding his authority and leaking
information to the media.
A Harvard Law School graduate who had been dismissed by the Nixon
administration in a dispute over providing legal services to the
poor, Mr. Lenzner quickly gravitated to the "dirty tricks" aspect
of the Watergate investigation. He eventually unearthed crucial
information about the involvement of Nixon confidant Bebe Rebozo
in Nixon fund-raising activities. Mr. Dash writes that initially
he had to save Mr. Lenzner's job after advisers to Mr. Ervin
complained he was a leftist because of his legal-services work
and his subsequent role defending antiwar activists.
'He Needs Watching'
But it was Mr. Dash himself who later wanted to fire Mr. Lenzner
for failing to keep him informed about his work. By that time,
the investigator had won over Mr. Ervin, who said, "Oh no, Sam.
Don't fire Terry. ... Maybe his zeal has led Terry to do some
unorthodox things, but that only means he needs watching."
Zealousness -- and a knack for profiting from political
controversy -- have since become his hallmarks. In 1991, Mr.
Lenzner was called in by Bill Clinton's struggling presidential
campaign for opposition research. Later, he helped defend the
candidate from women claiming to be his former paramours. He
performed a similar role when the president was sued by Paula
Jones in 1994 for sexual misconduct, and also worked for Mr.
Clinton's criminal defense in the Whitewater investigation.
Among several controversies generated by his work were
allegations by congressional Republicans -- never fully
substantiated -- that he investigated the backgrounds of
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and members of his staff.
Pushing the Edge of the Envelope
Other groups allied with Microsoft besides the ACT have charged
that their offices have been broken into, but IGI hasn't been
linked to those incidents. Friends said they don't believe Mr.
Lenzner would take such a risk.
In the trash-buying incident, to get access to the building, IGI
leased office space through a front company, thereby sparing
itself a possible trespassing charge. While sneaky, the
trash-buying attempt probably wasn't criminal. In a 1998 Vanity
Fair magazine profile, Mr. Lenzner himself approvingly labeled
such tactics "very creative."
ACT's Jonathan Zuck said he may hire a lawyer to file a civil
lawsuit, perhaps over invasion of privacy, to find out who IGI
was acting for.
Mark Yeager, a Fairfax, Va., lawyer who teaches a class on the
law for a private-detective training academy, said the attempt to
buy the trash probably wouldn't make much of a criminal case.
"Just using basic common law principles, I think it would be
tough to come up with a crime serious enough to warrant
prosecution," Mr. Yeager said. But he added that the incident
could merit professional sanction.
-- Ted Bridis contributed to this article.
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