PRESIDENT Clinton and the First Lady have been dragged deeper into the mire of current investigations as a former FBI agent in the White House makes accusations of extramarital affairs during this Presidency.
Mrs Clinton, according to the agent, Mr Gary Aldrich, was responsible for the hiring of the now disgraced security director, Mr Craig Livingstone, although both the FBI and a congressional security committee subsequently advised he was unsuitable.
In a further blow to the White House, the former official who played a key role in the search through hundreds of confidential FBI files on Republicans who had left the White House, yesterday refused to appear before a Senate investigating committee. Mr Anthony Marceca's lawyers told the Judiciary Committee that he was pleading the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating himself.
This refusal to co operate with the committee is in defiance of President Clinton's pledge that Congress would be given full co operation by all concerned in what he has insisted was merely a "bureaucratic" error.
From Lyons where he is attending the G7 summit, the President expressed his "disappointment" that someone who had worked at the White House "would not cooperate with a legitimate inquiry asking legitimate questions". Mr Marceca is now back working with the army as a civilian investigator.
Mr Marceca, who with Mr Livingstone had been a political activist in various Democratic campaigns including those of Mr Clinton and the Vice President, Mr Al Gore, had earlier this week testified before a House of Representatives committee. His pleading of the Fifth Amendment indicates that he fears that criminal charges may follow this testimony.
A White House spokesperson, when asked to comment on the allegations in Mr Aldrich's book, Unlimited Access: an FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House dismissed them as "right wing rubbish".
It is also pointed out that the book is published by a "conservative" publishing house and that the more salacious extracts have been highlighted by the right wing Washington Times newspaper, which is a virulent critic of the Clinton administration.
Mr Aldrich had served 26 years with the FBI, three of them in the White House where his job was to provide security clearance for presidential appointees. He took early retirement because his "conscience" compelled him to write this book and the American people "had a right to know".
Among his allegations are that President Clinton was smuggled out of the White House in the back of a car under a blanket to trysts in a Washington hotel. Mr Aldrich did not have direct knowledge of this but obtained it from an experienced investigator who is conducting his own, investigations into the Clintons.
The President is also alleged to have ordered an aide to find a job in the White House for a young woman he found attractive.
Mr Aldrich also claims that the incoming Clinton administration in 1993 obstructed attempts by the FBI to conduct background checks.
FBI agents queried the suitability of Mr Livingstone for such a sensitive post as security director because he had no professional experience and had a number of personal black marks in his own file, such as drugs use. But the agents were told by an assistant legal counsel: "It's a done deal. Hillary wants him."
The FBI files affair came after a congressional inquiry into the dismissal of the White House travel office staff. A memo had showed that Mrs Clinton was behind the dismissal, although she denies it.