[Impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton - The Evidentiary Record Pursuant to S. Res. 16 - Index to Senate Document 106-3, Vols. I-XXIV]
[Volume XI - Transcript of December 10, 1998 presentations by David Schippers and Abbe Lowell. Committee Print Ser. No. 19]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
105th Congress
2d Session COMMITTEE PRINT Ser. No. 19
_______________________________________________________________________
IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY:
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
PRESENTATIONS BY INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
__________
IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PURSUANT TO H. RES. 581:
PRESENTATIONS BY INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
__________
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
Henry J. Hyde, Chairman
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
DECEMBER 10, 1998
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
BILL McCOLLUM, Florida CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
GEORGE W. GEKAS, Pennsylvania HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
LAMAR SMITH, Texas JERROLD NADLER, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
BOB INGLIS, South Carolina ZOE LOFGREN, California
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
STEPHEN E. BUYER, Indiana MAXINE WATERS, California
ED BRYANT, Tennessee MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
BOB BARR, Georgia ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas THOMAS BARRETT, Wisconsin
EDWARD A. PEASE, Indiana
CHRISTOPHER B. CANNON, Utah
JAMES E. ROGAN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
MARY BONO, California
Majority Staff
Thomas E. Mooney, Sr., Chief of Staff-General Counsel
Jon W. Dudas, Deputy General Counsel-Staff Director
Diana L. Schacht, Deputy Staff Director-Chief Counsel
Daniel M. Freeman, Parliamentarian-Counsel
Paul J. McNulty, Director of Communications-Chief Counsel
Joseph H. Gibson, Chief Counsel
Rick Filkins, Counsel
Sharee M. Freeman, Counsel
Peter J. Levinson, Counsel
John F. Mautz, IV, Counsel
William E. Moschella, Counsel
Stephen Pinkos, Counsel
George M. Fishman, Chief Counsel David P. Schippers, Chief
Mitch Glazier, Chief Counsel Investigative Counsel
John H. Ladd, Chief Counsel
Raymond V. Smietanka, Chief Counsel Susan Bogart, Investigative
Laura Ann Baxter, Counsel Counsel
Daniel J. Bryant, Counsel Robert S. Hoover, Counsel
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Counsel John C. Kocoras, Counsel
Vince Garlock, Counsel Berle S. Littmann, Investigator
James W. Harper, Counsel Stephen P. Lynch, Professional
Susan Jensen-Conklin, Counsel Staff Member
Debra K. Laman, Counsel Charles F. Marino, Counsel
Blaine S. Merritt, Counsel Jeffrey J. Pavletic, Investigative
Nicole R. Nason, Counsel Counsel
Glenn R. Schmitt, Counsel Thomas M. Schippers, Investigative
Jim Y. Wilon, Counsel Counsel
Albert F. Tracy, Investigator
Peter J. Wacks, Investigator
Diana L. Woznicki, Investigator
Minority Staff
Julian Epstein, Minority Chief Counsel-Staff Director
Perry H. Apelbaum, Minority General Abbe D. Lowell, Minority Chief
Counsel Investigative Counsel
David G. Lachmann, Counsel Sampak P. Garg, Investigative
Cynthia A. R. Martin, Counsel Counsel
Henry Moniz, Counsel Steven F. Reich, Investigative
Stephanie J. Peters, Counsel Counsel
Samara T. Ryder, Counsel Deborah L. Rhode, Investigative
Brian P. Woolfolk, Counsel Counsel
Kevin M. Simpson, Investigative
Counsel
Lis W. Wiehl, Investigative
Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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COMMITTEE PRINT
Page
December 10, 1998................................................ 1
OPENING STATEMENT
Hyde, Hon. Henry J., a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary.......... 2
STATEMENTS
Lowell, Abbe, Minority Chief Investigative Counsel............... 7
Schippers, David, Chief Investigative Counsel.................... 62
PREPARED STATEMENTS
Lowell, Abbe, Minority Chief Investigative Counsel............... 35
Schippers, David, Chief Investigative Counsel.................... 103
APPENDIX
Appendices to the Presentation by David P. Schippers, Chief
Investigative Counsel:
Appendix A--Charts........................................... 143
A. The President's Contacts Alone With Lewinsky.......... 145
B. The President's Telephone Contacts With Lewinsky...... 148
C. Lewinsky's Gifts to the President..................... 152
D. The President's Gifts to Lewinsky..................... 154
E. 12/5/97 Facsimile Transmission of Witness List in
Jones v. Clinton ...................................... 155
F. The December 19, 1997 Subpoena to Lewinsky in Jones v.
Clinton ............................................... 156
G. December 19, 1997 Activities Following Lewinsky's
Receipt of Subpoena.................................... 157
H. The President's December 23, 1997 Response to
Interrogatory No. 10 in Jones v. Clinton .............. 158
I. The President's December 23, 1997 Response to
Interrogatory No. 11 in Jones v. Clinton .............. 159
J. December 28, 1997, The President's Final Meeting With
Lewinsky and Concealment of Gifts...................... 160
K. Currie's Cell Phone Records for 12/28/97.............. 161
L. The President's Statements About Concealing Gifts..... 162
M. Lewinsky's Draft Affidavit............................ 163
N. Lewinsky Final Affidavit dated January 7, 1998
Paragraph 8, Jones v. Clinton ......................... 166
O. Filing Lewinsky's Affidavit and Motion to Quash (1/14/
98-1/17/98)............................................ 167
P. Mission Accomplished: Lewinsky Signs Her Affidavit and
Is Hired By Revlon in New York (1/5/98-1/19/98)........ 168
Q. The President's Involvement With Lewinsky's Job Search 173
R. Jordan's Testimony About His Pre-Witness List Job
Search Efforts......................................... 174
S. Activity Following The President's Deposition (1/17/
98-1/19/98)............................................ 175
T. The President's Statements to Currie 1/18/98.......... 181
U. The President's Denial of Sexual Relations............ 182
V. The President's 1/21/98 Denial of Sexual Relations to
Blumenthal, Podesta and Morris......................... 182
W. The White House 1/24/98 ``Talking Points''............ 184
X. The President's Claims That He Was Truthful With Aides 185
Y. The Three Options of a Grand Jury Witness............. 186
Z. The President's Grand Jury ``Statement''.............. 187
Appendix B--Exhibits......................................... 188
Telephone records:
1. Summary Chart, 12/19/97........................... 188
2. Currie cell phone records, 12/28/97............... 190
3. Summary chart, 1/6/98............................. 192
4. Summary chart, 1/7/98............................. 193
5. Summary chart, 1/15/98-1/16/98.................... 194
6. Summary chart, 1/17/98............................ 196
7. Summary chart, 1/18/98............................ 197
8. Summary chart, 1/19/98............................ 199
Court documents:
9. Jones v. Clinton, January 29, 1998 District Court
Order regarding discovery.......................... 202
10. President Clinton's Answer to First Amended
Complaint, Jones v. Clinton ....................... 206
11. In re: Sealed Case, Nos. 98-3053 & 3059, U.S.
Court of Appeals, District of Columbia............. 223
12. Jane Doe #6 (Lewinsky) Affidavit filed In Jones
v. Clinton ........................................ 234
13. ``Sexual Relations'' definition.................. 237
Miscellaneous:
14. 1/18/98 Drudge Report............................ 238
15. Jones' attorneys fax cover sheet of witness list
to Bennett......................................... 240
16. White House ``Talking Points,'' January 24, 1998. 242
17. LA Times 1/25/98 Article regarding White House
``Talking Points''................................. 244
18. Response of William J. Clinton to Judiciary
Committee Questions................................ 251
Testimony:
19. President Clinton GJ Tr. 138 L. 16-23 (From GJ
Tape 2)............................................ 275
20. President Clinton GJ Tr. 100 L. 20-25, 105 L. 19-
25, 106 L. 1-2 (From GJ Tape 3).................... 276
21. President Clinton Deposition Tr. 75 L. 2-8, 76 L.
24-25, 77 L. 1-2, 62 L. 6-18 (From Dep. Tape 1).... 279
22. President Clinton Deposition Tr. 52 L. 18-25, 53
L. 1-18, 58 L. 22-25, 59 L. 1-20 (From Dep. Tape 3) 283
23. President Clinton Deposition Tr. 78 L. 4-23 (From
Dep. Tape 4)....................................... 287
24. President Clinton Deposition Tr. 53 L. 22-25, 54
L. 1-25, 55 L. 1-3 (From Dep. Tape 5).............. 288
25. President Clinton Deposition Tr. 204 L. 5-19
(From Dep. Tape 8)................................. 291
26. President Clinton GJ Tr. 9-11.................... 292
PRESENTATIONS BY INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
----------
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Henry J. Hyde, F. James
Sensenbrenner, Jr., Bill McCollum, George W. Gekas, Howard
Coble, Lamar S. Smith, Elton Gallegly, Charles T. Canady, Bob
Inglis, Bob Goodlatte, Stephen E. Buyer, Ed Bryant, Steve
Chabot, Bob Barr, William L. Jenkins, Asa Hutchinson, Edward A.
Pease, Christopher B. Cannon, James E. Rogan, Lindsey O.
Graham, Mary Bono, John Conyers, Jr., Barney Frank, Charles E.
Schumer, Howard L. Berman, Rick Boucher, Jerrold Nadler, Robert
C. Scott, Melvin L. Watt, Zoe Lofgren, Sheila Jackson Lee,
Maxine Waters, Martin T. Meehan, William D. Delahunt, Robert
Wexler, Steven R. Rothman, and Thomas M. Barrett.
Majority Staff Present: Thomas E. Mooney, Sr., general
counsel-chief of staff; Jon W. Dudas, deputy general counsel-
staff director; Diana L. Schacht, deputy staff director-chief
counsel; Daniel M. Freeman, parliamentarian-counsel; Joseph H.
Gibson, chief counsel; Rick Filkins, counsel; Sharee M.
Freeman, counsel; John F. Mautz, IV, counsel; William
Moschella, counsel; Stephen Pinkos, counsel; Judy Wolverton,
professional staff; Peter Levinson, counsel; Sheila F. Klein,
executive assistant to general counsel-chief of staff; Annelie
Weber, executive assistant to deputy general counsel-staff
director; Samuel F. Stratman, press secretary; Rebecca S. Ward,
officer manager; James B. Farr, financial clerk; Lynn Alcock,
calendar clerk; Elizabeth Singleton, legislative correspondent;
Sharon L. Hammersla, computer systems coordinator; Michele
Manon, administrative assistant; Joseph McDonald, publications
clerk; Shawn Friesen, staff assistant/clerk; Robert Jones,
staff assistant; Ann Jemison, receptionist; Michael Connolly,
communications assistant; Michelle Morgan, press secretary; and
Patricia Katyoka, research assistant.
Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law Staff
Present: Ray Smietanka, chief counsel; Jim Harper, counsel;
Susan Jensen-Conklin, counsel; and Audray Clement, staff
assistant.
Subcommittee on the Constitution Staff Present: John H.
Ladd, chief counsel; Cathleen A. Cleaver, counsel; and Suana
Quiterrez; clerk/research assistant.
Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property Staff
Present: Mitch Glazier, chief counsel; Blaine S. Merritt,
counsel; Vince Garlock, counsel; Debra K. Laman, counsel; and
Eunice Goldring, staff assistant.
Subcommittee on Crime Staff Present: Paul J. McNulty,
director of communications-chief counsel; Glenn R. Schmitt,
counsel; Daniel J. Bryant, counsel; Nicole R. Nason, counsel;
and Veronica Eligan, staff assistant.
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims Staff Present:
George M. Fishman, chief counsel; Laura Ann Baxter, counsel;
Jim Y. Wilon, counsel; Cynthia Blackston, clerk; and Judy
Knott, staff assistant.
Majority Investigative Staff Present: David P. Schippers,
chief investigative counsel; Susan Bogart, investigative
counsel; Thomas M. Schippers, investigative counsel; Jeffrey
Pavletic, investigative counsel; Charles F. Marino, counsel;
John C. Kocoras, counsel; Diana L. Woznicki, investigator;
Peter J. Wacks, investigator; Albert F. Tracy, investigator;
Berle S. Littmann, investigator; Stephen P. Lynch, professional
staff member; Nancy Ruggero-Tracy, office manager/coordinator;
and Patrick O'Sullivan, staff assistant.
Minority Staff Present: Julian Epstein, minority chief
counsel-staff director; Perry Apelbaum, minority general
counsel; Samara T. Ryder counsel; Brian P. Woolfolk, counsel;
Henry Moniz, counsel; Robert Raben, minority counsel; Stephanie
Peters, counsel; David Lachmann, counsel; Anita Johnson,
executive assistant to minority chief counsel-staff director,
and Dawn Burton, minority clerk.
Minority Investigative Staff Present: Abbe D. Lowell,
minority chief investigative counsel; Lis W. Wiehl,
investigative counsel; Deborah L. Rhode, investigative counsel;
Kevin M. Simpson, investigative counsel; Stephen F. Reich,
investigative counsel; Sampak P. Garg, investigative counsel;
and Maria Reddick, minority clerk.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HYDE
Chairman Hyde. The committee will come to order. Pursuant
to notice, the committee will come to order to consider
scheduled business.
Today we will hear presentations from Abbe Lowell and David
Schippers, and we will then consider articles of impeachment
and Members will make opening statements. So we have a full,
long day.
Before I recognize the majority and minority counsels for
their presentation, I must make the following unanimous consent
request, which will allow both the chief Democratic
investigative counsel and the chief Republican investigative
counsel to thoroughly brief the committee.
So, without objection, I will make a unanimous consent
request that refers to materials held in executive session. So
without objection, so ordered. I ask unanimous consent----
Ms. Lofgren. I object.
Chairman Hyde. Pardon?
Ms. Lofgren. I object.
Chairman Hyde. Who is speaking? Ms. Lofgren, you object to
the unanimous consent request?
Mr. Sensenbrenner.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to clause 2(g)(1)
of House Rule XI, I move to go into executive session to
consider releasing certain executive session materials deemed
necessary by the Democratic and Republican chief investigative
counsels for their presentation.
Chairman Hyde. The Clerk will call the roll. You have heard
the motion.
The Clerk. Mr. Sensenbrenner.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Sensenbrenner votes aye.
Mr. McCollum.
Mr. McCollum. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. McCollum votes aye.
Mr. Gekas.
Mr. Gekas. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Gekas votes aye.
Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Coble votes aye.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Smith votes aye.
Mr. Gallegly.
Mr. Gallegly. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Gallegly votes aye.
Mr. Canady.
Mr. Canady. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Canady votes aye.
Mr. Inglis.
Mr. Inglis. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Inglis votes aye.
Mr. Goodlatte.
Mr. Goodlatte. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Goodlatte votes aye.
Mr. Buyer.
Mr. Buyer. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Buyer votes aye.
Mr. Bryant.
Mr. Bryant. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Bryant votes aye.
Mr. Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Chabot votes aye.
Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Barr votes aye.
Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Jenkins votes aye.
Mr. Hutchinson.
Mr. Hutchinson. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Hutchinson votes aye.
Mr. Pease.
Mr. Pease. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Pease votes aye.
Mr. Cannon.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Rogan.
Mr. Rogan. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Rogan votes aye.
Mr. Graham.
Mr. Graham. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Graham votes aye.
Mrs. Bono.
Mrs. Bono. Aye.
The Clerk. Mrs. Bono votes aye.
Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. No.
Chairman Hyde. No. He voted no.
The Clerk. Mr. Conyers votes no.
Mr. Frank.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Schumer.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Berman.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Boucher.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Nadler votes no.
Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Scott votes no.
Mr. Watt.
Mr. Watt. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Watt votes aye.
Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Lofgren votes no.
Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Jackson Lee votes no.
Ms. Waters.
Ms. Waters. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Waters votes no.
Mr. Meehan.
Mr. Meehan. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Meehan votes no.
Mr. Delahunt.
Mr. Delahunt. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Delahunt votes aye.
Mr. Wexler.
Mr. Wexler. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Wexler votes aye.
Mr. Rothman.
Mr. Rothman. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Rothman votes aye.
Mr. Barrett.
Mr. Barrett. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Barrett votes aye.
Mr. Hyde.
Chairman Hyde. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Hyde votes aye.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. Frank. Is this a formal vote?
Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Frank votes aye.
Mr. Chairman, there are 26 ayes and 7 noes.
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman from Michigan wishes to change
his vote to aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Conyers is recorded as an aye.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Meehan.
Mr. Meehan. I will change my vote to aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Meehan is recorded as an aye.
Chairman Hyde. Is there anyone else who wishes to change
their vote? Mr. Berman wishes to vote?
Mr. Berman. Aye.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Berman votes aye. The Clerk will report.
The Clerk. Mr. Chairman, there are 29 ayes and 5 noes.
Chairman Hyde. And the motion is agreed to.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. The unauthorized people will have to leave
the room. We will have to pull the plugs on the cameras.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. Yes, Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. I would like to make my usual motion that the
text of the motions and the ayes and nays during executive
session will be----
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman is not recognized for that
purpose.
Mr. Nadler. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I think I was
recognized.
Chairman Hyde. Well, you are unrecognized. The motion has
carried. We now must go into executive session and all
unauthorized people will leave the room and we will pull the
plugs on the lights and the cameras.
Mr. Nadler. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Point of order,
Mr. Chairman.
[Whereupon, at 9:30 a.m., the committee proceeded in
executive session.]
[Whereupon at 10:45 a.m., the committee proceeded in open
session.]
Chairman Hyde. The committee will come to order. I wonder
if we could get the doors closed.
Now, the Chair would like to announce that what we plan to
do today is first hear from Mr. Abbe Lowell, the chief
investigative counsel for the minority. His presentation will
take about 2 hours, I am informed. There is no time limit.
Whatever time he wishes, he may have. If it is 2 hours or so,
we will then take a lunch break, and at 2 Mr. Schippers, David
Schippers, the chief investigative counsel for the majority,
will make a similar presentation; that is to say, a summing up
of where we are and what the evidence is and what positions
they believe we should adapt--adopt, rather. That should take 2
hours also; again, without any firm time line.
When that is over, both presentations are made, we will
then go into a markup session on articles of impeachment. Now,
preliminary to the actual markup, we will have opening
statements. Throughout this process, we have been limiting
opening statements to Mr. Conyers and myself simply because of
the crowded agenda that we have. But now that we are reaching
the culmination of this committee's role in this impeachment
issue, I think it is appropriate that the members have an
opportunity to make an opening statement of some duration. So
we have determined that 10 minutes for each member, which could
consume as much as 6 hours or more, but it is appropriate that
the members be able to make a significant opening statement
before we get into the actual markup that is the consideration
of amendments, if any, and the vote on the articles of
impeachment.
So the schedule will be Mr. Abbe Lowell, lunch, Mr.
Schippers, opening statements. If we don't finish those
tonight, and I can't imagine we will, we will come back
tomorrow morning at 9, and we will conclude the opening
statements. Then the articles of impeachment will be open for
amendment at any point as in any markup, and we will continue
with that.
There is a resolution of censure text that has been
circulated, and it is my intention that we will debate and
consider that after we have finished with the resolution of
impeachment and voted on that up or down, and there may be
several votes on that because I believe there are four
articles.
So that is a general outline of where we are and where we
are headed so people who need to make plans can make them.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. Who is seeking recognition? Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. State your inquiry.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, I have had a motion pending for
some time. I was wondering if you could inform me when it might
be in order?
Chairman Hyde. Well, the gentleman was really never
recognized for that motion. It really is out of order now. I
would like to proceed with the hearing as we have noticed it
up, which is with Mr. Lowell.
Mr. Scott. Well, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Hyde. You and I can maybe over the lunch hour talk
some more about it. I would be happy to talk to you.
Mr. Scott. The motion has been pending. Are you ruling it
out of order, or it is not in order totally, or is it not in
order now?
Chairman Hyde. Well, it is not in order now, although if
the gentleman wants to be heard--I will yield to Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Could we meet immediately after this
presentation with the Chairman, Bob----
Mr. Scott. I would be delighted to.
Mr. Conyers [continuing]. On your motion, which I advocated
very strongly yesterday?
Mr. Scott. I thought that the last time this came up, that
it would definitely come up, and I thought that you and the
chairman had agreed.
Mr. Conyers. Yes, sir, we had.
Mr. Scott. I would just like to just note that it is still
pending.
Mr. Conyers. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. And whenever the chairman is willing to take it
up, we can take it up.
Chairman Hyde. All right. What we can do is after luncheon,
I will recognize you for making your motion, and we will get a
vote on it. All right?
Mr. Scott. Very well.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Nadler, yes, Mr. Nadler, what could you
possibly want?
Mr. Nadler. I think it would be appropriate to announce in
opening session what the committee decided in closed session,
before Mr. Lowell starts, that the motion was approved.
Chairman Hyde. Well, I don't know how interested people
are, but we--the motion--my motion was agreed--ultimately
agreed to, and the motion to divide was withdrawn. So that was
the result.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman, there is always a great deal of
suspense as to whether or not motions you make will be approved
by this committee. We didn't want to keep people in that
suspense.
Chairman Hyde. I suppose you are right. I haven't given
that a lot of thought.
In any event, at long last we are at the point where we
will hear from the chief investigative counsel of the
Democratic minority, Mr. Abbe Lowell. Mr. Lowell.
STATEMENT OF ABBE LOWELL, MINORITY CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
Mr. Lowell. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Conyers and members of the
committee, on behalf of the minority staff, all of my
colleagues who are in this room, who have worked so hard over
the last 3 months, I appreciate this chance to present our
work.
Two months ago, on October 5th, you allowed us to address
you on the issue of opening an impeachment inquiry, and we will
be referring to parts of that presentation in order to
demonstrate that this committee does not have constitutional
grounds to put forward the impeachment of the President of the
United States.
This week, Mr. Chairman, you brought the committee's
attention to and quoted historian Arthur Schlesinger from his
1980's book, which dealt with the type offenses that were in
Watergate. Rather than using his quotes about those very
significant excesses of President Nixon, I think it would be
better to cite what Professor Schlesinger said on November 9th,
right here, about the insignificant offenses of President
Clinton. He said, ``Lowering the bar for impeachment creates a
novel, revolutionary theory of impeachment, which would send us
on an adventure with ominous implications for the separation of
powers that the Constitution established as the basis of our
political order. It would permanently weaken the Presidency.''
With the time I have today, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
first set out the framework for an impeachment. In other words,
I would like to address the question of what an impeachment is
and what it is not.
Second, I will take some time, taking you through what you
have designated as the evidence, to demonstrate that there are
no clear facts on which to base such an action.
Third, I would briefly compare the facts against the
constitutional requirements that an impeachment may proceed
only for ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' and only on the basis
of ``clear and convincing evidence.''
And fourth, I would like to further explain how the process
used in this matter should cause this committee to have second
thoughts about proceeding with the third impeachment in
American history.
There has been a lot of confusing talk about what an
impeachment is. The minority staff has now poured over
thousands of pages of constitutional history, legal articles
and testimony, and we can begin this day, Mr. Chairman,
explaining what an impeachment is not. Impeachment is not a
means to punish the President. Impeachment is not a means to
send a message to our children that the President isn't above
the law. There are better ways to do that.
Impeachment is not a vote of confidence for Independent
Counsel Starr. Impeachment is not a penalty for the President
not answering the 81 questions as some of you would have
wished. Impeachment is not a form of rebuke or censure for the
President's conduct. In fact, impeachment is not about the
President's conduct. It is about Congress' conduct.
Just because the President might disgrace his office by his
actions, and just because the Independent Counsel may have
shown partiality and zeal in his investigation, this House can
do better. The road to dishonor in office can end in this
committee, in this room, on this very day. Because what an
impeachment is, of course, is the single device to remove from
the office the Chief Executive who you decide is
constitutionally disqualified to serve, and by doing so
overturn two national elections. As many of you have said, it
is the political equivalent of the death penalty.
Back in October, Mr. Chairman, I think the committee was
listening to one another. Some have said we no longer are. News
reports indicate that a majority of the committee's Republicans
have already stated publicly that they will support at least
one article of impeachment. I hope these reports are not true
and that these debates have some purpose. If the reports are
true, however, I hope your colleagues on the House floor are
still listening.
In what minority and majority staff present to you today,
we wish we could ask each of you to change places so that
Republicans would hear the arguments as Democrats and Democrats
hear them as Republicans.
Others have noted the portraits behind you of the two
Chairs of this committee who have had the terrible burden of
presiding over impeachment inquiries. Interestingly, the
portrait of Chairman Hyde hangs over the Democrats, and that of
Chairman Rodino hangs over the Republicans.
This should be the model for today's events. We should see,
if we can see, the issues through the eyes of the other side .
. . just this once.
With that in mind, Chairman Rodino recently had the
opportunity to reminisce about that day 24 years ago that the
gavel was in his hand. I would like you to listen to what he
said.
[Videotape played.]
Peter Rodino, Former Chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee: We needed Republicans as well. The American people
would not have accepted a vote that would have been purely a
partisan vote voting to impeachment the president of the United
States clearly on partisan grounds.
[The audio transcription follows:]
Mr. Lowell. Mr. Chairman, you echoed the same thoughts
before the heat of the lights and the rhetoric in this room
were turned on. In a January interview, you said that you were
reluctant to begin hearings because committee Democrats would
not be for it, and you also said, `` . . . at the end of the
day the Democrats have to agree. I would be loath to start
something that I didn't think we could finish, and right now I
doubt that Democratic support would be present.''
We are well served to listen to what you and Chairman
Rodino were saying, and we are also well served to listen to
the country.
During our November 19th hearing, Congressman Graham
accurately stated, ``Without public outrage impeachment is a
very difficult thing, and I think it is an essential component
of impeachment. I think that is something that the Founding
Fathers probably envisioned.''
The public has been telling us for months and in every way
they possibly can that they do not want to see a trial in the
Senate where the issues will be about sex, and that they want
there to be a censure or other alternatives to impeachment as
the means to demonstrate that the President is not above the
law. So before this week is out, I hope we listen to the wisdom
of the Nation as well.
As we have participated in every hearing and listened to
all the statements, it appears that many in the majority seem
to be going out of their way to find reasons to impeach, when
our history tells us it should be the other way around. To this
end, the committee has been too willing to dilute the
constitutional standard of what makes up a high crime and
misdemeanor by equating a violation of a statute, even a
criminal statute, to a violation of Article II, Section 4. It
has been too willing to lower the burden of proof to suggest
that the House is nothing more than a grand jury, seeking to
find probable cause. It has been too willing to reverse the
presumption of innocence so that you ask why the President has
not called fact witnesses when that is the obligation of the
committee. It has been too willing to water down these
proceedings to compare an impeachment of our only elected
President to those where one of a thousand appointed Federal
judges is involved, and as Judge Higginbotham said, it has been
too willing to liken the impeachment of a President to a
perjury conviction of a basketball coach.
The lowering of the bar, as Professor Schlesinger has
described it, must not continue.
One of the constitutional scholars from whom you heard,
Professor Jack Rakove, defined it well when he said,
``Impeachment is a remedy to be deployed only in unequivocal
cases where the insult to the constitutional system is grave.''
And in the most important part of what he said, he added,
``There would have to be a high degree of consensus on both
sides of the aisle in Congress and in both Houses to proceed.''
Mr. Chairman, some have asked whether the role of the
minority staff is the same as the President's counsel. It is
not. We are not here to defend the President. He, better than
anyone, has said that his conduct was not defensible, and he
has apologized for it. We are here, however, to strenuously
defend the requirements the Constitution poses on all of us
before we would even consider the word impeachment. Our
obligation is to leave Article II, Section 4 the way we found
it on November 9th.
For the minority staff, to resort to the impeachment
process is like resorting to that fire extinguisher behind the
glass door with a big sign that reads, ``break only in case of
emergency.'' We are asking you not to break the glass unless
there is literally no other choice.
From listening to our constitutional scholars, we learned
that debates about impeachment are like the wall protecting the
fort of the Constitution's separation of powers. The crack you
put in the wall today becomes the gash tomorrow, which
ultimately leads to the wall crumbling down. It is that
serious. It is so serious that the wall was never even
approached when President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas
corpus; nor when President Roosevelt misled the public about
involvement in the Lend-Lease program; nor when President
Reagan misled the country and Congress about involvement with
Iran-Contra.
So, members of the committee, before you stop listening to
each other, consider that a House vote for impeachment, as
Majority Leader Trent Lott said last week, requires the Senate
to begin a trial. Unlike your proceedings, all Senators would
be involved to have to hear the real testimony of all the real
witnesses, not a summary from a prosecutor. This would have to
occur no matter how long it took on the floor of the Senate
with the Chief Judge presiding.
Are the issues of the President's conduct in the case so
grave that you would doom the country to additional months of
this ordeal and government paralysis on the slimmest of votes
on the House floor and no likely conviction in the Senate?
When Mr. Starr testified 2 weeks ago, I began to review his
evidence with him, but I ran out of time. I would like to do
that now. The majority would break that glass and vote four
articles of impeachment, one based on the President's perjury
in the grand jury; the second on perjury in the civil
deposition; the third on obstruction of justice; and the fourth
called ``abuse of power.''
Mr. Scott has pointed out time and time again that this
process has been something of a moving target; first, with Mr.
Starr proposing 11 grounds, then with majority counsel dicing
those charges into 15, and now with the majority putting forth
articles that basically match the three categories the minority
staff summarized for you on October 5th, except that the grand
jury and deposition statements by the President have been
divided into two separate articles.
At the end of this process, we are about where we started.
If you will turn to tab 1 in your exhibit books, it is a chart
of how the articles describe the proposed allegations,
allegations on the articles of impeachment that the President
lied about an improper sexual relationship; the President
obstructed justice by asking others to conceal that improper
relationship; that the President abused his office by taking
other steps to conceal that same improper private relationship.
No matter how they are dressed up, redivided, renamed,
reorganized or duplicated, they all have the same central
point: The President's improper relationship with Ms. Lewinsky,
nothing more.
Well, we are not quite where we are when we started off. It
is a little odd for me to make a presentation about why there
are no grounds for impeachment before the majority has set out
why such articles might exist. Similarly, it is a little odd to
have the President's counsel make a defense when the charges
were given to him afterwards. Mr. Chairman, I ask you and the
committee to note that as we get closer and closer to a day of
great constitutional moment, votes onarticles of impeachment,
we have gotten farther and farther away from one basic constitutional
requirement: Notice of the charges.
These draft articles that we all received last evening have
article 1 alleging that the President committed perjury or lied
at the grand jury; article 2, the same offenses for the civil
deposition; article 3, obstruction of justice; and article 4,
abuse of power.
If you look, as we did last night, we cannot find in these
articles what statements the majority contends were lies.
Instead of precision, there is the phrase in article 1 that the
President gave misleading testimony concerning, ``The nature
and details of his relationship.'' Article II reads no better.
Mr. Chairman, I know you and the staff are trying to be
fair, but how is it fair to make these kinds of unspecified
charges in these halls in the People's House on something as
grave as impeachment? We should be doing better than filing
charges that would be thrown out for vagueness in every
courtroom in the land.
The decision to make these vague charges and to have me
speak first leaves me no choice but to assume, and I hope my
assumption is correct, that the phrases in the proposed
articles match the original allegations made by Mr. Starr.
However, I have to say it would have been better if the
articles had just said so.
On October 5th, I described the process by which
prosecutors pile on charges to make their cases more serious.
With that in mind, Mr. Chairman, I asked how it makes things
clearer for the committee and the House for majority staff to
have taken various charges and to have repeated them over and
over again. For example, majority counsel has adopted the
Independent Counsel's allegation that the President tried to
influence Ms. Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, and they list
it in proposed article 3, clause 1, as an obstruction of
justice. Yet, I see that they have also included the exact same
event, renaming it as perjury, in article 1, clause 4, by
listing it as something the President lied about in his
testimony. Surely, the committee can see through this tactic.
For a week or more, the majority has stated that the
President or the minority did not call fact witnesses. Mr.
Inglis repeated that charge to White House Counsel Ruff
yesterday. But in America it should not have been our burden to
do so. However, if it is fact witnesses you need, then it will
be fact witnesses you get.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the minority, I now call to the
stand Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie, Vernon Jordan, Linda Tripp
and the President of the United States.
You see, their sworn testimony contained in the same boxes
on which majority counsel is relying to put forth articles of
impeachment actually proves the President's case, and this is
what the witnesses have to say.
With respect to the charge that the President lied about
his relationship, even members of the majority such as Mr.
Graham have stated that the President's answers to surprise
questions in his deposition, consisting of gobbledygook
definitions of the phrase ``sexual relations,'' should not be
grounds for impeachment. Yet there apparently was a change of
mind.
The proposed articles of impeachment include two separate
articles for the President's statements. So if you truly want
to go forward on impeachment based on what the President has
admitted were strained and evasive answers to questions at the
civil deposition, I thought you and the public should hear how
this all first started.
Even though majority counsels have told us that they want
parts of President Clinton's deposition in that case released,
I thought you should have the whole picture and hear the
amazing exchange between three lawyers and a judge that went
into the contorted definition of ``sexual relations'' at the
Paula Jones deposition that has gotten us all here today.
Please pay attention to how long all this takes, and listen to
how all of them, and especially Judge Webber Wright, accurately
predicted that the twisted definition would create havoc and
confusion.
But as you watch and listen, remember this: On January
17th, when the deposition was taken, the Paula Jones attorneys
in the room already had Linda Tripp and her tapes. They knew
they were setting up the President. They knew that they were
trying to create havoc and confusion. But the President, his
counsel, the lawyer for Trooper Danny Ferguson, and Federal
Judge Webber Wright had no idea what they and Linda Tripp were
planning. And so when Judge Webber Wright concludes, in the
portion you are about to hear, ``if you want to know the truth,
I am not sure Mr. Clinton knows all of these definitions,'' she
could have not known how correct she was.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
(Unknown): I'd like to hand you what has been marked
deposition Exhibit 1 so that the record is clear today, and
that we know we are communicating. This is a definition of a
term that will be used in the course of my questioning. The
term is sexual relations. I will inform the court that the
wording of this definition is patterned after federal rule of
evidence 413. Would you please take whatever time you need to
read this definition, because when I use the term ``sexual
relations,'' this is what I am meaning today.
Is there a copy for the court?
(Unknown): Could you pass that, please?
Your Honor, as an introductory matter, I think this could
really lead to confusion. And I think it's important that the
record be clear. For example, it says, the last line, ``contact
means intentional touching directly or through clothing.''
Just, for example, one could have a completely innocent
shake of the hand, and I don't want this record to reflect--I
think we're here today for counsel for the plaintiff to ask the
president what he knows about various things: what he did, what
he didn't do. But I--I have a real problem with this
definition, which means all things to all people, in this
particular context.
(Unknown): Your Honor, I think the wording of that is
extremely erroneous. What the (off-mike) should be looking at
is exactly what occurred. And he can ask the witness to
describe as exactly as possible what occurred.
But to use this as an antecedent to a question, it would
put him in a position--and if the president admitted shaking
hands with someone, then under this (off-mike) deposition--or
definition, he could say or somehow construe that to mean that
that involves some sort of sexual relations. And I think it's
very unfair. Frankly, I think it's a political trick, and I
totally (off-mike) how I feel about the political character of
what this lawsuit is about.
(Unknown): Your honor, may I respond?
Judge Susan Webber Wright: You may.
(Unknown): The purpose of this is to avoid everything that
they have expressed concern about. It is to allow us to be
discreet and to make the record crystal clear. There is
absolutely no way that this could ever be construed to include
a shaking of the hand.
(Unknown): Well, Mr. Fisher, let me refer to you paragraph
two. It says, ``contact between any part of the person's body
or an object and the genitals or anus of another person.''
What--if the president patted me and said I had lost 10 pounds
off my bottom, you could be arguing that I had sexual relations
with him.
Your Honor, if this is going to lead to confusion, why
don't they ask the president what he did, what he didn't do?
And then we can argue in court later about what it means.
Wright: All right. Let me make a ruling on this. It appears
that not the definition of contact under rule 413, because rule
413 deals with nonconsensual contact. This definition would
encompass contact that is consensual. And the court has ruled
that consenting consensual contact in this case.
So let the record reflect that the court disagrees with
counsel that this is--about being the definition under rule
413; it's not. It is more in keeping with, however, the court's
previous rule. But I certainly agree with the president's
counsel that this--the definition No. 2 is too--is too broad,
and so the definition No. 3.
Definition No. 1, it encompass intent. And so that would
be--Nos. 2 and 3 are just too broad.
(Unknown): All right, Your Honor.
Wright: And No. 1 is not too broad, however. So I'll let
you use that definition as long as we understand that that's
not rule 413. It's just a rule that would apply in this case to
intentional sexual contact.
(Unknown): Yes, Your Honor. And had I been allowed to
develop this further, everyone would have seen that deposition
Exhibit 2 is actually the definition of sexual assault or (off-
mike) of sexual assault, which is the term in rule 413.
(Unknown): Your Honor, I object to this record being filled
with these kinds of things, which is going to--why don't they
ask--they have got the president of the United States in this
room for several hours. Why don't they ask him questions about
what happened or didn't happen?
Wright: I will permit him to refer to definition No. 1,
which encompass consensual sexual contact for the purpose of
arousing or gratifying sexual desire.
Wright: I'll permit that. Go ahead.
(Unknown): Mr. President, in light of the court's ruling,
you may consider subparts two and three of deposition exhibit
one to be stricken. And so when in my questions I use the term
``sexual relations,'' sir, I'm talking only about part one in
the definition of the body. Do you understand that, sir?
William J. Clinton, President of the United States: I do.
(Unknown): I'm now handing you what has been marked
deposition exhibit two. Please take whatever time you need to
read deposition exhibit two.
(Unknown): Your Honor, again, what I am very worried about,
your honor, is first of all, this--this--this appears to be--I
mean what I don't want to do is (off-mike) be asked questions
and then we don't--we're all--we're ships passing in the night.
They're thinking of one thing. He's thinking another. Are
talking criminal assault? Are we--I mean, this is not what a
deposition is for, your honor. He can ask the president: What
did you do? He can ask him specifically in certain instances
what he did. And isn't that what this deposition is for? It's
not to sort of lay a trap for him.
And I'm going to object to the president answering and
having to remember what's on this whole sheet of paper; and I
just don't think it's fair. It's going to render conclusions.
Wright: Do you agree with Mr. Bennett?
(Unknown): I wanted to point (off-mike), your honor. This
is almost like in a typical automobile accident, where the
plaintiff's counsel wants to ask the defendant: Were you
negligent? That's not factual.
Wright: Mr. Fisher, do you have a response?
Fisher: Yes, Your Honor. What I'm trying to do is avoid
having to ask the president a number of very salacious
questions and to make this as discreet as possible. This
definition, I think the court will find is taken directly from
rule 413, which I believe President Clinton signed into law,
with the exception that I have narrowed subpart one to a
particular section which would be covered by rule 413.
And I have that section here to give the president so that
there is no question what his intent is. This will eliminate
confusion, not cause it.
(Unknown): Your honor, I have no objection where the
appropriate predicates are made for them to ask the president:
Did you know X? Yes or no? what happened? What did you do? What
didn't you do? We acknowledge that some embarrassing questions
will be asked, but then we all will know what we are talking
about. But I do not want my client answering questions not
understanding exactly what these folks are talking about.
Now your honor, I've told you that the president has a
meeting at four o'clock and we've already wasted 20 minutes,
and Mr. Fisher has yet to ask his first factual questions.
Wright: I'm prepared to rule, and I will not permit this
definition to be understood--quite frankly, there are several
reasons. One is that the court heretofore has not proceeded
using these definitions. We have used--we've made numerous
rulings, or the court has made numerous rulings in this case
without specific reference to these definitions.
And so if you want to know the truth, I don't know them
very well. I would find it difficult to make a ruling, and Mr.
Bennett has made clear that he acknowledges that embarrassing
questions will be asked. And if this is in fact an effort on
the part of plaintiff's counsel to avoid using sexual terms and
avoid going into great detail about what might or might not
have occurred, then there is no need to worry about that. You
may go into the details.
(Unknown): If the predicates are met, we have no objection
to the details.
Wright: It's just going to make it very difficult for me to
rule, if you want to know the truth. And I'm not sure Mr.
Clinton knows all these definitions, anyway.
Mr. Lowell. Mr. Chairman, I think it is worth repeating
that in this, and I am sorry for the length, 10 or 15 minutes
of lawyers and judges trying to come up with the definition
that has now brought us to this constitutional moment, does
anybody in this room, does anybody in the United States, have a
clear conception of what the definition of sexual relations, if
those three people and that judge in that context had to spend
that much time getting to the point?
Let me end by reminding you what the judge just ended by
saying: ``It is just going to make it very difficult. If you
want to know the truth, I am not sure Mr. Clinton knows all
these definitions anyway.''
To those who would impeach the President and condemn him
for not being more forthcoming in that deposition, put yourself
in his position on that day. He was being set up by the Paula
Jones attorneys and Linda Tripp, who had met with the Office of
Independent Counsel just the day before. He knew that there was
some collusion going on to embarrass him not about sexual
harassment, but about a consensual affair. So his responses
were an attempt to answer the questions evasively.
In the 20/20 hindsight of almost a year, we know he could
have, should have, acted better. But are his responses to all
those questions you put to White House Counsel Ruff yesterday
so hard to understand that you would impeach him for acting as
anyone would in that circumstance?
In his grand jury appearance, the President explained his
situation on that very day, and when you listen to what he is
saying and put it in the context of what you now know was
happening behind the scenes with Paula Jones and Linda Tripp
and the attorneys, any fair-minded person would see that these
were not impeachable reactions to that setup predicament.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Clinton: No, sir. In the face of their--the Jones lawyers,
the people that were questioning me--in the face of their
illegal leaks, their constant, unrelenting illegal leaks, in a
lawsuit that I knew, and that by the time this deposition and
this discovery started, they knew was a bogus suit on the law
and a bogus suit on the facts, in the face of that, I knew that
in the face of their illegal activity I still had to behave
lawfully. But I wanted to be legal without being particularly
helpful. I thought that was--that was what I was trying to do.
And this is the--you're the first persons who ever
suggested to me that I should have been doing their lawyers'
work for them, when they were perfectly free to ask follow-up
questions. On one or two occasions, Mr. Bennett invited them to
ask follow-up questions.
It now appears to me they didn't because they were afraid I
would give them a truthful answer, and that there had been some
communication between you and Ms. Tripp and them, and they were
trying to set me up and trick me. And now you seem to be
complaining that they didn't do a good enough job.
I did my best, sir, at this time. I did not know what I now
know about this.
A lot of other things were going on in my life. Did I want
this to come out? No. Was I embarrassed about it? Yes. Did I
ask her to lie about it? No. Did I believe there could be a
truthful affidavit? Absolutely.
Now that's all I know to say about this. I will continue to
answer your questions as best I can.
(Unknown): You're not going back on your earlier statement
that you understood you were sworn to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the whole truth to the folks at that
deposition, are you, Mr. President?
Clinton: No, sir. But I think we might as well put this out
on the table.
Mr. Lowell. Despite this context, the Majority staff has
decided to include the civil deposition as a separate article
for impeachment, perhaps to add the appearance of more
wrongdoing. But without this committee demeaning the
impeachment process by exalting one answer like, ``we were not
alone,'' and then try to figure out whether it was all right to
mean ``alone'' in the Oval Office, or ``alone'' in the pantry,
or ``alone'' in the hallway, the context of the material we
have just presented to the committee and to the public should
put that attempt to rest and dispose of this article once and
for all.
This would leave as the core of the perjury allegations the
charge that the President lied under oath at his August 17th
grand jury appearance. These are vaguely described in article
1.
Mr. Chairman, how did we get to perjury, which is what
article 1 suggests? Independent Counsel Starr's referral goes
out of its way not to make a perjury charge, because that
offense, as many of you on the committee who have been lawyers
in the courtroom know, is one of the hardest to prove.
On October 5th, majority counsel chopped and diced Mr.
Starr's grounds into four others, but he, too, did not include
one called perjury. While the majority convened a ``perjury''
hearing a few weeks ago, many of the witnesses were, in fact,
talking about other crimes. And as all the Federal prosecutors
who testified here said, this would never be a real case in a
real court. So if lawyers can conclude that this would not be
charged as a crime, how do you as lawmakers allow it to be
charged as a high crime?
On October 5th, minority staff also suggested that the
committee did not have to delve into the ``he said, she said''
salacious facts about this charge. Then, as now, the better
approach would be to take the Independent Counsel at its
charge. If it was President Clinton's lying about Ms. Lewinsky
in the Paula Jones case that creates all of these impeachable
offenses, then the committee and the House can resolve this
issue by deciding the importance or impact of that statement in
that specific case.
I see in article 2 the majority has put in the phrase,
``deemed relevant,'' when talking about the President's
statements, and I certainly understand why they would want to
have that phrase in the article. But they are obviously wrong.
When Judge Webber Wright--if you look in your books to tab 2,
and I will put up the chart--ruled on January 29th that the
evidence about Ms. Lewinsky was, ``not essential to the core
issues of the case'' and ``might even be inadmissible,'' when
she made that same ruling on March 9, 1998, and when she ruled
on April 1st that no matter what President Clinton did with Ms.
Lewinsky, Paula Jones herself had not proven that she had been
harmed, she gave this committee the ability to determine that
the President's statements, whether truthful or not, were not
of the grave constitutional significance to support an
impeachment in any courtroom in America. So certainly in the
halls of Congress, the President's misstatements about a
consensual relationship made during a case alleging
nonconsensual harassment was not material then and are not
grounds for impeachment now.
But if reviewing the testimony in its proper context is not
enough for the committee, and if it wants instead to go ahead
with this article of impeachment, let us make sure that the
committee, House Members who will be voting on this on the
floor, and the American people understand what will be the
subject of a Senate trial.
Again, putting aside the majority's attempt to list as
perjury, charges that it makes in other places, there were
three allegations of grand jury lies that I have to guess fit
into the article's phrase about, ``the nature and details of
the relationship.'' They are, first, as they were in the Starr
referral, the date when the relationship began; second, whether
the President really believed that the term ``sexual
relations'' did not include one type of sex; and, third,
whether the President touched Monica Lewinsky.
As to the date when the relationship began, the actual
charge is that Monica Lewinsky testified that the affair began
in November 1995, but the President said it started in February
1996. How can you in good faith ask this Nation to endure a
Senate trial to determine the difference between 3 months? How
much more trivial could an impeachment charge and a trial, let
alone one paralyzing the Senate and the Supreme Court, possibly
be?
Mr. Chairman, you said during the perjury hearing that this
article, this charge, ``did not strike you as a serious
count,'' and yet that is exactly what the Independent Counsel
has charged and that which majority counsel has now hidden in
the vagueness of article 1.
The second allegation is that the President lied when he
said his belief was that the phrase ``sexual relations,'' as
used in the Paula Jones deposition, did not include oral sex.
When many in the majority asked how we can condone perjury in
our society, this is the lie about which they are talking. How
would you have a trial in the Senate to conclude whether the
President was right about what he thought the phrase ``sexual
relations'' meant? You heard and saw the gyrations that it took
three lawyers and a judge to deal with this silly expression.
So who would you call to determine that the President did not
believe the interpretation? The answer is that you don't have
to call anyone. You have enough information right now to
conclude that such a trial is unnecessary.
The video you saw proved that the term ``sexual relations''
was defined by Paula Jones' attorneys for Paula Jones' case.
With that in mind, let me read what one of Ms. Jones' attorneys
has said about that phrase when he appeared on MSNBC and was
asked. Joseph Cammarata said, ``it is out of my definition of
sexual relationships on a personal basis, and I think you have
to understand the definition he was operating on when
questioned.'' If Mr. Cammarata, one of her lawyers, can
understand that the phrase ``sexual relations'' can exclude
certain types of sex, how does this committee, in good faith,
base an article of impeachment on the President interpreting it
in the exact same way?
But there is more. Listen to the witnesses, Monica Lewinsky
and Linda Tripp, before the Independent Counsel confronted her,
before she went back and forth over an immunity agreement, and
before this became so important that the definition of sex will
sink us into a constitutional quagmire. Listen to the woman who
you would have the United States Senate call as a witness as
she defines the term in the exact same way you now accuse the
President of lying about.
[Linda Tripp tape 018 played, transcript page 49.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Ms. Lewinsky: We didn't have sex Linda. Not--we didn't have
sex.
Ms. Tripp: Well, what do you call it?
Ms. Lewinsky: We fooled around.
Ms. Tripp: Oh.
Ms. Lewinsky: Not sex.
Ms. Tripp: Oh, I don't know. I think if you go to--if you
get a orgasm, that's having sex.
Ms. Lewinsky: No, it's not.
Ms. Tripp: Yes, it is.
Ms. Lewinsky: No, it's not. It's----
Ms. Tripp: It's not having----
Ms. Lewinsky: Having sex is having intercourse.
Mr. Lowell. Where is the impeachable offense when the
President's testimony and Ms. Lewinsky's are the same? Is this
what you are going to bring to the floor of the Senate?
So the perjury that some in the majority have said tears at
the fabric of our political system comes down to whether the
President lied about whether he touched Ms. Lewinsky. I suspect
that that must be the nature and details allegation in article
1.
Mr. Chairman, no one, no one, certainly not Congress and
certainly not Ms. Lewinsky and her family, wants to cause
further embarrassment or loss of privacy to her. In short, no
one wants to have to have her testify. Members of the
committee, Members of the House, before you force that terrible
result, before you necessitate her testimony in the Senate,
before you put the country through that unseemly spectacle of a
trial requiring Ms. Lewinsky to describe what part of him
touched what part of her, you must accept that such a trial to
defend the charge that you are putting forth about something
called the nature and details of their relationship necessarily
would have to elicit prurient and salacious information. Such a
he said, she said drama, if you really want it, would also have
to include questions into the inconsistencies in Ms. Lewinsky's
testimony that the Independent Counsel seemed to ignore in his
referral.
Mr. Goodlatte yesterday asked White House Counsel Ruff
about all the corroborating evidence, but I am not sure what he
meant. By way of example, do you want the Senate to be required
to determine what Ms. Lewinsky meant when she said this about
herself?
[Linda Tripp tape 006 played, transcript page 8.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Ms. Lewinsky: And I'm--and I was brought up with lies all
the time, so that--that was how--that was how you got along in
life--was by lying.
Ms. Tripp: I don't believe that. Is that true?
Ms. Lewinsky: Yes, that's true. I wanted something from my
dad--well, once my parents were divorced, if I wanted money
from my dad, I had to make up a story. When my parents were
married, my mom was always lying to my dad for everything.
Everything. My mom helped me a sneak out of the house. I mean
that's just how I was raised.
Mr. Lowell. As another example, do you want the Senate to
have to examine various statements that Ms. Lewinsky made, as
you now want to charge it, about the ``nature and details of
her relationship that are clearly erroneous?''
What do I mean? I mean statements like the one she made to
her friend Kathleen Estep that the Secret Service took the
President to a rendezvous at her apartment; or statements she
made to friends Ashley Raines and Neysa Erbland that she had
relations with the President in the Oval Office without any
clothes; or statements she made to the White House steward
Bayani Nelvis that the President invited her to go to Martha's
Vineyard with him when the First Lady was out of the country;
or statements she made to New York job interviewers that she
had lunched with the First Lady, who then offered to help find
her a place to live in New York?
Members of the committee, we know that none of those things
happened because not even the Independent Counsel claims that
they did, but that type of embellishment would require scrutiny
in a Senate trial, if you really want to send that body that
event, and if you really want to charge the President lied
about the, ``nature and details'' of Ms. Lewinsky's and his
private relationship.
Is that what you want to put the country through? How do we
justify an inquiry into these matters, and how do you justify
to Ms. Lewinsky and to her family that after all they have gone
through, you will subject her to the ordeal to resolve those
issues? You can avoid this result by recognizing that the same
inconsistencies which a Senate trial would have to explore also
mean that the evidence available for you today to have to
resolve, this he said, she said conflict, do not amount to the
threshold of evidence required in the House to send charges to
its sister body about something called the nature and details
of the relationship.
When he was here, look, for example, on page 58 of his
testimony, Ken Starr said over and over, when he was asked
questions concerning the events at the Ritz-Carlton or about
Ms. Lewinsky being asked to wire the President, that sometimes
perceptions can be different without someone being called a
liar. I think you can use Mr. Starr's admission in foregoing
that spectacle that I have just explained would have to occur
in a Senate trial.
Finally, as to the article of perjury, some of the majority
have now confused the three very precise allegations of lying
in the referral with some general criticism of the President
for stating that he didn't recall something or that he didn't
remember the details of something. In fact, the majority staff
has now included in article 4 the charge that the President
abused his power by such statements in his answers to the 81
questions that were posed to him.
This allegation, however, was not what the Independent
Counsel charged on September 9th. It was not what majority
counsel alleged on October 5th, and it is a dangerous
precedent. Given statements from President Roosevelt's failure
to remember that he promised military support for Panama in its
conflict with Colombia over the canal, to President Reagan's
failures to remember how funds flowed to the Contras, this
committee should not make Presidential lapses of memory into
impeachable offenses or the office could go vacant forever.
But now that the majority staff has included this as a
charge, let me show you why this tactic and this charge is
unfair for impeachment. Remember that despite being prepared
for weeks for his appearance before this committee, and having
practice sessions with his assistants, and knowing the
criticisms about which he was going to be asked, this is how
the prosecutor, whose material you have chosen to rely on,
answered many of your questions.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Independent Counsel Starr I don't know.
Mr. Lowell. Before this committee starts making the phrase,
``I don't recall,'' ``I don't remember,'' ``I'd have to think
about it'' something that you would bring to the floor of the
Senate, see what an unfair tactic that really is.
As to article 2 alleging obstruction of justice, on October
5, we recognized that the charge, reminiscent to Watergate, was
the most egregious of the four grounds alleged in the Starr
referral. And in majority counsel's dividing those into eight
total charges, as they were presented by the referral--and
again I can only assume that that is what the majority means in
article 3 of the proposed articles of impeachment--the charges
are:
First, the President tried to have Ms. Lewinsky submit a
false affidavit;
Second, the President initiated a return of gifts he had
sent Ms. Lewinsky so they would not be discovered in the Paula
Jones case;
Third, the President sought to keep Ms. Lewinsky quiet with
a job; and
Fourth, the President sought to tamper with the testimony
of Ms. Currie.
Let me turn to each in order, and rather than relying on
conclusions and inferences from the Starr referral, let's
listen to the actual witnesses.
If you turn to tab 3 in your exhibits, we will put up the
chart. As to the claim the President did not seek to have
Monica Lewinsky file a false affidavit with respect to this
issue, both Ms. Lewinsky and the President agreed with the very
obvious point that she could have filed a completely truthful
affidavit denying any sexual harassment and therefore avoided
being called as a witness in the Paula Jones case. This is how
completely the President explained this basic point.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Clinton: I didn't know that Ms. Lewinsky's deposition
wasn't going to be sufficient for her to avoid testifying. I
didn't--you know, so all these details--excuse me, I'm sorry--
her affidavit. Thank you. So I don't necessarily remember all
the details of all these questions you're asking me because
there were a lot of other things going on, and at the time they
were going on, until all this came out, this was not the most
important thing in my life. This was just another thing in my
life.
(Unknown): But Vernon Jorden met with you, sir, and he
reported that he had met with Monica Lewinsky, and the
discussion was about the lawsuit. And you didn't inform, under
oath, the court of that in you deposition.
Clinton: I gave the best answer I could based on the best
memory I had at the time they asked me the question. That's the
only answer I can give you, sir.
Mr. Lowell. What the President said was that Monica
Lewinsky could file a completely honest and truthful affidavit
in a suit about sexual harassment, saying she was not sexually
harassed, and by doing so, hopefully avoid having to be
deposed.
Consider that Monica Lewinsky in January 1998 in a
conversation, when Linda Tripp was wired, when speaking about
her affidavit, Ms. Lewinsky, a sworn witness for this committee
to consider said, ``No matter how [she] was wronged, It was
my,'' meaning Ms. Lewinsky's choice, ``about the affidavit.''
Then, members of the committee, read what Ms. Lewinsky said
the first time she ever came in to see the Independent Counsel,
not after the sessions where they went over and over her
testimony. She wrote in what the law calls a ``proffer'' the
following statement, ``Neither the President nor Mr. Jordan,
nor anyone on their behalf, asked or encouraged me to lie.''
You can find that in her February 1, 1998, proffer statement
that she gave to the Office of Independent Counsel contained in
the first appendix the committee issued in this matter.
Add to your consideration Ms. Lewinsky's grand jury
testimony about the affidavit when she stated that it could
range between just somehow mentioning innocuous things to
actually denying ``sexual relations'' as that term was defined.
If you want or if you need more evidence, you can find it.
In her August 6 grand jury appearance when she was the one who
admitted that she ``would strongly resist,'' any attempt by
President Clinton to make her reveal their relationship.
Do you want more evidence? Then consider that on this all-
important issue of the President apparently, supposedly telling
Ms. Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, she testified that when
she asked the President if he wanted to see the affidavit, the
President ``told Ms. Lewinsky not to worry about the
affidavit.''
And, finally, listen to Ms. Lewinsky on December 22, 1997,
give you the most important statement, again before she was
confronted by the Office of Independent Counsel, made their
witness and given their immunity. As to the President wanting
or knowing about her lie, this is what she told Linda Tripp.
[Audiotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Ms. Tripp: Mmm-hmm. He knows you're gonna lie. You've told
him, haven't you?
Ms. Lewinsky: No.
Mr. Lowell. Linda Tripp asked: ``You told him you were
going to lie, haven't you?'' Ms. Lewinsky said: ``No.''
By the way, the witness, Ms. Lewinsky, also was
uncontradicted in the 17 boxes of information that it was she,
not President Clinton, who undertook each and every one of
these steps that went beyond merely trying to deny their
improper relationship, she invented the code names with Betty
Currie, she, and no one else, was responsible for the talking
points; she, with the prodding of Linda Tripp, not the
President, decided to hide her dress; and it was her idea to
delete e-mails and files from her computer.
For these acts, Ms. Lewinsky was given immunity, and the
Independent Counsel and majority staff would have you vote that
it was the President who obstructed justice. Before you do
that, let me have you listen to another witness. I would like
to recall Independent Counsel Starr to the stand so you can
hear that the proof actually contradicts this article of
impeachment.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Lowell: And as to the issue of the which you state was
something the president was complicate in, tho the extent that
if was a ground for impeachment, your evidence also includes,
does it not, Mr. Starr, that Ms. Lewinsky gave you a statement
in which she said, quote, neither the President nor Mr. Jordan
or anyone on their behalf asked or encouraged her to lie, and
you can find that in tab 35.
Starr: Tab?
Lowell: Thirty-five.
Starr: Thirty-five, thank you.
Lowell: You are aware that she has made the statement that
way by now I assume, right?
Starr: Yes, yes
Lowell: You also must be aware that she also said that she
offered to show her affidavit to the President, but he didn't
even want to see it. You are aware that that's the testimony
she has given as well, correct?
Starr: Yes.
Lowell: You must also be aware that she explained to you
that the President and she had obviously used cover stories
from the beginning of their relationship long before she was
ever listed as a Paula Jones witness. You are aware of that as
well, aren't you?
Starr: Yes.
Mr. Lowell. He went on to say ``yes,'' and our referral
includes that. You have to look in the boxes.
Certainly the majority cannot claim to need a trial in the
Senate for the issue of the gifts exchanged between the
President and Ms. Lewinsky. If you turn to tab 4, there is a
chart of the charge, and what we do in these charts, members of
the committee, is that we list all the contradictory evidence
which undermines the charge.
As to this one, rather than the President trying to hide or
care about gifts, the witness, Ms. Lewinsky, admitted that she
raised the issue with the President, not vice versa. She
offered sworn testimony describing this conversation on at
least 10 occasions. In seven of these, including the very first
time she saw the Independent Counsel and the last time she saw
the Independent Counsel, she indicated that the President never
responded to this issue. In only two of all of her statements
does she even state the outrageous lines, leading to this
article of impeachment, that all the President ever said on the
subject of gifts, when she raised it, about hiding them, giving
them back, was, ``I don't know, let me think about it.'' And
then Ms. Lewinsky said, ``He left that topic.''
This is hardly the stuff of obstruction. The Independent
Counsel chose to state the President's response without
bothering to tell you and the American people about the other
nine times they asked Ms. Lewinsky the same question.
Well, let's call Betty Currie to the stand; let her be the
witness you want to hear from. She stated repeatedly that Ms.
Lewinsky called her and raised picking up the gifts and that
the President never asked her to call Ms. Lewinsky. Here is her
testimony.
She was asked, and she said, ``My recollection, the best I
remember, is Monica calling me and asking me if I would hold
some of the gifts for her. I said I would.'' The question was,
``And did the President know you were holding these things?''
Ms. Currie answered, ``I don't know.'' Independent Counsel
asked, ``Didn't he say to you that Monica had something for you
to hold?'' Ms. Currie answered, ``I don't remember that. I
don't.''
That is in her grand jury testimony on May 6.
She was also asked by the Independent Counsel, ``Exactly
how did that box of gifts come into your possession?'' Ms.
Currie swore under oath, ``I do not recall the President asking
me to call about a box of gifts.''
Let me recall to the stand the President so that you can
recall that it was he, not Linda Tripp, not Lucianne Goldberg,
who gave Ms. Lewinsky the proper advice.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Clinton: . . . things that have happened. I'm amazed. There
are lots of times when I literally can't remember last week.
The reason I'm not sure it happened on the 28th is that my
recollection is that Ms. Lewinsky said something to me like
``What if they ask me about the gifts you've given me?''
That's the memory I have. That's why I question whether it
happened on the 28th, because she had a subpoena with her--
request for production.
And I told her that if they ask her for gifts, she'd have
to give them whatever she had; that that's what the law was.
Mr. Lowell. He said, ``If they asked you about the gifts,
you'd have to give them up. That's what the law is.''
Finally, the evidence is as uncontradicted as evidence
could possibly be that on December 28, 1997, the President gave
Ms. Lewinsky the most gifts he had ever given her on one day,
because of Christmas and Ms. Lewinsky moving to New York. He
did this after Ms. Lewinsky had been subpoenaed for gifts. And
yet this charge, your article of impeachment, would have you
believe that on December 28 he gave Ms. Lewinsky the gifts and
a few hours later hatched some scheme and some conspiracy by
asking Ms. Currie to go and retrieve the very gifts he had just
given.
The Independent Counsel's charge and that clause in the
article of impeachment defies logic so let me ask this: Where
does the majority expect to find the clear and convincing
evidence that this obstruction concerning gifts occurred if it
does not exist in the nine grand jury and other appearances by
Betty Currie, the 22 by Monica Lewinsky, and the 20 by Linda
Tripp? What will you give a Senate trial to do?
A damning allegation reminiscent of the worst of Watergate
is when a President suborns perjury in another witness. That is
what majority's proposed article 3 suggests when it alleges
that the President sought to influence the testimony of Betty
Currie. But the actual evidence is not that the President was
talking to Ms. Currie as any potential witness, but that he was
talking to his secretary about a media storm that was about to
erupt. It is not surprising, improper or impeachable for the
President to want to hide his improper relationship and even
hope that in conversations he might test what others knew about
it. Yet this proposed article of impeachment alleges that which
does not exist, and is literally impossible to prove, no matter
whether a Senate trial would take a day or a year.
On January 18, 1998, when the President called Ms. Currie
for a meeting, there were days left in the schedule for taking
any evidence in the Paula Jones case. And again the majority
staff couches their charge as the President trying to influence
``a potential witness.'' But the plain, uncontradicted and
dispositive fact is simply this: Betty Currie was not listed as
either a deposition or a trial witness in that case and the
article of impeachment is wrong to state the opposite.
Some of you have asked, did it matter if the President said
during his deposition, ``You will have to ask Betty Currie.''
But even after he said that, Ms. Currie was never added to any
witness list, never contacted by the Paula Jones attorneys. And
although the Independent Counsel interviewed the Paula Jones
attorneys, they never asked them a question about Betty Currie
becoming a witness.
Do you want to know why? Because the answer that she was
never contacted, never deposed and never added to the witness
list in any way, even after the President suggested that they
talk to Betty Currie, destroys this subornation charge.
Members of the committee, most of you--I think almost all
of you--are lawyers. Your colleagues on the floor are going to
be looking to you to give them guidance about the law.
Certainly for something as grave as an impeachment, do not
rewrite 100 years of law. You know as well as I that there
cannot be subornation of a witness unless the person involved
is a witness. Ms. Currie was not, and this article of
impeachment has no legal grounds on which to stand.
Equally important, there is no need to waste the Senate's
time with a trial, because President Clinton and Betty Currie,
the only people involved in this event, both agree that the
conversation on January 18 was not about testimony, was not
intended to pressure her and was caused by inquiries from the
press, not any litigation.
There has been so much misinformation about what was said
between the President and Ms. Currie, including Mr. Graham's
attempt to make this short conversation into some wild
conspiracy to get Ms. Lewinsky, that perhaps it is best to let
their own words speak for themselves. Let's recall the
President to the stand first.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
(Unknown). How did you making this statement ``I was never
alone with her, right?'' refresh your recollection?
Clinton. Well, first of all, let's remember the context
here. I did not, at that time, know of your involvement in this
case. I just new that obviously someone had given them a lot of
information, some of which struck me as accurate, some of which
struck me as dead wrong, but it led them to ask me a whole
series of questions about Monica Lewinsky.
Then on Sunday morning, ``The Drudge Report'' came out,
which used Betty's name, and I though that we were going to be
deluged by press comments, and I was trying to refresh my
memory about what the facts were.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Lowell. You want corroboration? I will give you
corroboration. Let's call Ms. Currie to the stand and see what
she would say.
She was asked the following question: ``You testified that
he wanted you to say `right' at the end of those four
statements, I was never alone'' --you know the four statements.
This is what Ms. Currie said: ``I do not remember that he
wanted me to say `right.' I could have said `wrong.'''
Independent Counsel didn't like that answer, so asked:
``Did you feel any pressure to agree with your boss?'' She
answered, ``None.'' You can find that in her July 22, 1998,
grand jury appearance.
Finally, I would like to call one more witness. When Mr.
Starr was here, this is how he resolved the issue completely
for you in response to questions Senator-elect Schumer put to
him.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Starr. With respect to Betty Currie, I would simply guide
the Congress again, the House again, to the substance of the
president's testimony and how she was injected into the matter
by the president in his testimony. And we think that does have
significant----
Schumer: With all due respect, sir, that doesn't answer my
question which was not how she was injected or what the
substance was.
Please, Mr. Chairman, he didn't answer my question
directly.
But how did you come to realize that the president knew
that she would be called as a witness when there was no mention
of it at that time? Is this just surmise, or do you have any
factual evidence that the president knew that she would be
called as a witness?
We understand he wanted her not to tell truth, but we don't
know to whom. Where is your evidence?
Starr. The evidence is not that she was on a witness list.
You're quite right. She was not on a witness list, and we've
never said that she was. What we did say is that the transcript
of the president--president's January 17th deposition shows
that he was injecting Betty currie into the matter and say--May
I finish?
(Unknown): Sure.
Starr: . . . and saying specifically, you will have to ask
Betty.
Mr. Lowell. This committee does not have to go any further
than the admission of witness Independent Counsel Starr to see
that this charge too and this article may not go forward on the
record. If there is no proof that the President had the wildest
idea, even in spite of the invitation to do so, that Betty
Currie would ever be contacted, would ever become a witness,
would ever be deposed, then you have no choice on the record
but to see the obvious conclusion, that it was the Drudge
report, the media inquiries and the President knowing that his
deposition testimony was about to be leaked that caused all the
events that you would impeach him over on a charge that does
not exist.
As to the fourth allegation about the job search, how can
the majority cause the crisis a Senate trial would incur based
on an article of impeachment alleging obstruction of justice by
trying to get Ms. Lewinsky a job? Each and every one of you
knows that there is no contradiction by any witness--not Linda
Tripp, not Monica Lewinsky, not the President, not Betty
Currie, not the White House staff, not Ambassador Bill
Richardson and his staff, not even the New York interviewers--
that the job search began long before Ms. Lewinsky was even a
dream to the Paula Jones attorneys and had nothing to do with
that case.
How ironic is it that Linda Tripp went to see Ken Starr
with a great tale about obstruction of justice, which you have
now decided to adopt in your proposed article, and that this
obstruction of justice was by Vernon Jordan who, she said, was
keeping Monica Lewinsky quiet by offering to help get her a
job, when it was Linda Tripp herself and not the President who
suggested that they get Vernon Jordan involved. We know now
that Ms. Tripp owes Vernon Jordan an apology for that false
charge, and she owes him one as well for this.
[Audiotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:
Ms. Tripp: (Sigh.) No. It'll be--if it goes to the civilian
sector, it'll be Vernon being told this has to happen, him
picking one of the names that he can--that he has a buddy, and
he'll call and say, ``She must be hired immediately.'' That's
just how it works. And it's been known to work that way, so--
(sigh). It's just that right now, I don't think he's aware of
the whole situation.
Ms. Lewinsky: No, he's not.
Mr. Lowell. ``Right now, I don't think he's aware of the
whole situation.''
``No, he's not.''
Boy, Ms. Tripp, I couldn't have said it any better myself.
And finally, while it has been pointed out to the committee
many times, it cannot be pointed out too often, because this
statement by your witness, Monica Lewinsky, answers this charge
about obstruction of justice and leaves this committee and the
House with no proof.
Ms. Lewinsky, even though never asked by the Independent
Counsel, made sure she did not finish her grand jury testimony
before stating, ``No one asked me to lie, and I was never
promised a job for my silence.'' And you know where that one is
all too well by now.
Members of the committee, in light of the statement where
will you find the evidence of obstruction to send to the
Senate, let's listen to Independent Counsel Starr, who agrees.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:
Lowell: As to the issue of whether or not she was given a
job in some way to keep her happy, you know that the evidence
that you sent Congress includes the fact that the job search
for her began long before she was listed as a Paula Jones
witness, correct?
Starr: Yes, absolutely, We make that clear in the referral.
Lowell: And you are also aware that she told the President
in July, months before the Paula Jones----
Starr: In July of?
Lowell: 1997.
Starr: Yes, thank you.
Lowell: Months before the Paula Jones case was an issue
that she was going to look for a job in New York.
Starr: Yes, she did.
Lowell: And you are aware as well that it was Ms. Tripp,
not the President, Ms. Tripp, who suggested to Ms. Lewinsky
that she bring Vernon Jordan into the process. You know the
evidence says that, don't you?
Starr: I am aware of the evidence with respect to that, but
yes, go right ahead. I am sorry.
Lowell: You are aware as well that the evidence you sent
Congress indicates that on that crucial issue, as others have
stated and I have doubt will state again, Ms. Lewinsky,
unequivocally, even though never asked the question, stated to
you that no one ever asked her to lie, no one promised her a
job for her silence. You understand that she swore to that as
well?
Starr: Yes. Mr. Chairman, may I respond? I am trying to be
brief, but Mr. Lowell, as you also know at page 174 of our
referral we specifically say, Ms. Lewinsky has stated that the
President never explicitly told her to lie.
Mr. Lowell. Do you find trial material and any
contradiction in the evidence on this? Speak to your colleagues
in law firms and in law courtrooms all over the world. They
won't.
I need to address on this final part of article 3 something
that is new. Not content with Independent Counsel Starr's 11
charges, the majority seems to have decided it needed one more
and somehow they have added as an obstruction of justice the
President allowing his private attorney to make a statement
about the definition of sexual relations in the deposition,
that they say the President knew to be false.
Well, we have dealt twice with the issue of whether this
definition makes enough sense for anyone to understand, and we
have dealt with the issue of how it helps this process be fair
for the majority to add charges over and over about the same
basic issue, the President lying about sex. But there is one
new point to make.
When the majority was on one of its frolics to expand this
inquiry into new matters, there was a ruckus raised to take the
deposition of Robert Bennett, the attorney apparently involved
in this article's charge. But just as fast as the majority
scheduled that deposition, it canceled it. That was more than a
little bit unfair, when it was planning to make a charge never
before known, based on testimony it then conveniently
engineered never took place.
Mr. Chairman, article 4 raises the specter of abuse of
power. We saw this charge back on September 9 in the
Independent Counsel's referral, but then we never saw it again
until this week. The term ``abuse of power'' does evoke the
memory of President Nixon's offenses in 1974. Yet those who
have appeared here as witnesses with Watergate knowledge--
former Attorney General Eliot Richardson, Judge Charles
Wiggins, Father Robert Drinan, former Member Elizabeth
Holtzman, former Member Wayne Owens, Watergate Prosecutor
Richard Ben-Veniste, House Judiciary Committee staff member
William Weld--all could tell you that the acts you are
considering today are not the same.
In Watergate, abuse of power was proved with tapes of
President Nixon telling his aides to get the CIA to stop an FBI
investigation, to create a slush fund to keep people quiet,
with tapes that you can hear in directing the break-in of
people's offices, or to get the IRS involved in going after
political enemies. Here, the charge stands on tapes of Monica
Lewinsky and Linda Tripp talking about going shopping.
As it is presented to you in 1998 and as originally
contained in Mr. Starr's grounds 10 and 11, abuse of power
means that the President lied to his staff or to the people
around him about the same inappropriate relationship with Ms.
Lewinsky, knowing that they might repeat those lies and that
the President then violated his oath of office because he and
his attorneys tried to protect his constitutional rights by
asserting privileges of law.
Members of the committee, I know you have had only one
night to review the proposed articles of impeachment. We on the
Democratic side did too. But as you did, I hope you saw how the
majority proposes to dress up this almost frivolous charge.
Look on page 7 of the draft articles. You will see the
impeachable offense is that by denying his affair to the
Cabinet and to his staff, who then also made public denials,
believing that to be the case, the President ``was utilizing
public resources for the purposes of deceiving the public.'' If
this were not so serious a proceeding, I would have thought
that this was included for the humor.
As to the substantive charge that misstatements to the
staff might be repeated in the grand jury or even to the
public, this article of impeachment merely repeats in another
form the same charge, that the President wanted to conceal his
private sexual relationship from anyone and everyone he could.
As my daughter would say, ``Duh.''
As the committee takes up this proposal, keep focused that
this was not an attempt by a President to organize his staff to
spread misinformation about the progress of the war in Vietnam
or about a break-in in Democratic headquarters at the
Watergate, or even about how funds from arm sales in Iran were
diverted to aid the Contras. This was a President repeating to
his staff the same denial of an inappropriate and extremely
embarrassing relationship, the same denial that he had already
made to the public.
Does this article of impeachment envision that the
President, having already made public denials, would have then
gone inside the White House and told his staff something else?
However wrong the relationship or however misleading the denial
was, it is not nearly the same as those other examples I have
just given you.
I heard Mr. Sensenbrenner say 2 days ago that there was no
difference between a President lying about illegal bombing in
Southeast Asia and about a private sexual affair. But, members
of the committee, let us not lose sight of the fact that unlike
the case in 1974, Bill Clinton's alleged crimes are not those
of an errant President, but are those of an unfaithful husband.
Mr. Chairman, I hope you can agree with me in 1998 that
these statements by the President are not proper grounds for an
impeachment. Your words in 1987 explaining the untruths told by
government officials in the Iran-Contra matter--something far
more important to America than the President's private sex
life, I think--answer completely the article of impeachment
today. Speaking not about testimony under oath but about
statements made in public, you said then,
It seems too simplistic to condemn all lying. In the
murkier grayness of the real world, choices often have to be
made. All of us at some time confront conflicts between rights
and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil. And
one hardly exhausts moral imagination by labeling every untruth
and every deception an outrage.
Mr. Chairman, the President's trying to hide his totally
inappropriate relationship to his aides and to the American
public seems to be exactly the ``murkier grayness of the real
world,'' about which you were eloquently speaking.
As to the ground for impeachment that the President had the
audacity to assert privileges in litigation, White House
Counsel Ruff did a complete job of disproving any possible
issue the committee could have. Let me only add one note: that
it still remains shocking to me, as I hope it does to all the
lawyers on this committee, that you would even consider as an
article of impeachment an assertion of an evidentiary privilege
by the President on the advice of his lawyers and the White
House counsel that was found to exist by a judge, that that
could ever be grounds for an impeachment.
I have heard the Majority state that a President should not
be above the law. And yet this proposed article would place him
below the law that gives every American the right to assert
legally-accepted privileges without fearing being thrown out of
his job.
Members of the committee, in light of the high threshold
and the need for clear and convincing evidence, what can you
make from the fact that the Minority staff is demonstrating
that the evidence is so slight that it does not even exist on
many of the charges? After all, you have 18 boxes from the
Independent Counsel and 450 pages of a referral. But that is
exactly the point. Members, you now know that all you have
before you is the material that was sent by the Independent
Counsel. The committee has gathered no information on its own.
On November 19, this committee heard an entire day from
Independent Counsel Starr, who sent you the material. Many
Majority members criticized Democrats for asking Mr. Starr and
his deputies about their conduct instead of about the facts.
Mr. Chairman, it would have been totally inappropriate to
ask Mr. Starr about the so-called facts of the case. He
admitted on that day that he was not a fact witness and was not
even the person who asked any question in any deposition or in
any grand jury appearance. What Mr. Starr admitted he was,
however, was the man who made the decisions concerning whether
a referral should be sent to Congress, when it should be sent,
what it should include, and what it should omit, how it should
be written and what it should charge. In fact, this is how Mr.
Starr described his responsibility.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Starr: In the end we tried to adhere to the principle
Congressman Graham discussed on October 5. Thirty years from
now, not 30 days from now, we want to be able to say that we
did the right thing. At the end of the day, I and no one else
was responsible for our key decisions.
(Unidentified): Did the (off-mike) members of the grand
jury sign off on this referral?
Starr: No, we did not ask the grand jury to review the
referral.
(Unidentified): Given that they didn't sign off on it, did
they--did they vote on or review the allegations, the
credibility determinations or the inferences that the referral
draws?
Starr: No. We did not ask the grand jury to make specific
judgments on specific witnesses. These were our assessments,
these are our evaluations.
(Unidentified): Thank you very much.
Mr. Lowell. It is precisely because there is such a large
gap between what Mr. Starr's charges state and what the
evidence actually shows that we asked those questions, because
as Mr. Starr told you when he sent you his letter on September
25, his conduct and that of his office ``bears on the
substantiality and the credibility of the evidence.'' And his
letter you may find in tab 5 of your exhibits, and on the chart
that we have put before the room.
As this committee has chosen to receive Mr. Starr's
referral and its conclusions and the material he decided to
send in determining whether there is clear and convincing
evidence to support impeachment and, as we claim, indeed I
think as the minority staff has proven, that such large gaps
exist in the evidence, it was essential on November 19, as it
is now, to determine whether his material can be trusted,
whether it is accurate, whether it is complete, and whether it
is biased.
Let me give you one example. If Mr. Starr concluded, as he
did, that President Clinton tried to influence the testimony of
Betty Currie but the facts are that there was no testimony to
influence because she was not a witness at the time, and if the
facts from Betty Currie's own mouth were that she was not being
directed or pressured as to what to say, then you have to
question how Mr. Starr could make that bald assertion. This is
why questions to his conduct were so important.
Members of the committee, the danger of accepting one-sided
facts solely from prosecutors was most recently and vividly
demonstrated by the acquittal of former Secretary of
Agriculture Mike Espy. The Independent Counsel in that case
brought 38 felony counts against Mr. Espy over the receipt of
$33,000 in gifts. That Independent Counsel stated that the
conduct he was charging corrupted the workings of government
and were heinous crimes. But the judge dismissed eight counts
when the Government rested, and the jury made short order of
the rest.
Ordinarily cross-examination of witnesses and motions made
to trial judges are the devices to make sure evidence is
reliable. However, in our proceedings before this committee,
these tried and true methods of getting at the truth have not
occurred. Given the results of the Espy case, you can readily
see that relying on the charges of one-sided presentations by
prosecutors in general and Independent Counsels in specific,
can lead to fairly completely erroneous conclusions. So
questions asked of Mr. Starr about whether his office and he
had a conflict of interest, whether they pushed Monica Lewinsky
too hard to become their witness, whether they violated
Department of Justice rules--and if you look at tab 7 and the
chart we have put up, we list the rules that were involved in
their conduct that day and in their investigation--if they
violated those rules on their way to Congress, or whether they
were leaking material to the press, are not to suggest that Ken
Starr is a bad man. They are to suggest that he was operating
under a bad law. And if you accept the findings from that bad
law without asking tough questions about how the evidence was
gathered, you run the risk of giving the material he sent far
more weight than it deserves.
When you now resolve the enormous differences between what
the referral concludes and what the evidence we have
demonstrated shows, in order to determine whether the material
he sent is clear and convincing enough for something as
important as an impeachment, please recall that you have every
reason to question the strength of that evidence when it is
presented with such opinion as Mr. Starr chose to do.
As we often use Watergate as a precedent in this room, I
pointed out that day that special prosecutor Leon Jaworski said
in his report that, ``Facts would have to stand on their own,
contain no comments, no interpretations, and not a word or
phrase of accusatory nature.'' You can see that at tab 8 of
your exhibit book. I did that so that you could see that Mr.
Starr's referral, which was described as having ``an
attitude,'' must be viewed more skeptically. Mr. Starr shouting
in his testimony phrases like ``concocted false alibis,''
``engaging in a scheme,'' ``premeditated pattern of
obstruction,'' does not make the evidence clear and convincing.
And the fact that Mr. Starr's own ethics adviser believed that
Mr. Starr crossed the line, ``to serve as an aggressive
advocate that the President committed impeachable offenses,''--
you may find that resignation letter on tab 9--that should
serve as a red flag to you not to accept everything written in
that report and every decision that Mr. Starr admitted he was
responsible for as gospel.
Moreover, and more importantly, this entire referral
results from charges made by Linda Tripp, who is responsible
for the Office of Independent Counsel--for getting the Office
of Independent Counsel in the case just a few days before she
gave the fruits of her illegal tapes to the Paula Jones
attorneys so they could set up the President and create the
events that are now before the committee.
If some of you are not comfortable with the relationship
that existed between Linda Tripp, the Paula Jones attorneys,
and the Office of Independent Counsel, you are not alone.
Compare how Mr. Starr answered questions about whether he had
the ability and the motive to have stopped Linda Tripp here
when he was testifying to his prime time television statements
on the news show 20/20. This is what he said when he was
testifying before you.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Starr: * * * the truth of that--so the decision made
initially was what we call an act of production immunity.
(Unknown): I'm understanding you, but I'm also
understanding that you said that you're not contesting that on
that day, she came in, she had the conversation, she showed you
tapes or told you about the tapes.
Starr: She did not have----
(Unknown): You had both the authority to give her immunity
and the authority to tell her not to talk. You did the first.
You didn't do the second, did you?
Starr: Well, I'm not--I would have to double-check to see
exactly what we did tell her.
Mr. Lowell. And this, giving the TV a chance to recover, is
what he told Diane Sawyer.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Sawyer: Exactly. So why did Starr's office let Tripp run
straight from them to lawyers for Paula Jones?
(Voice-over) Linda Tripp--Linda Tripp, leaving your office
and going home and talking to Paula Jones's attorneys that
night. I mean, at the very least, is this control of your
witness?
Starr: I think we could have been had better control of
her.
Sawyer: Should have?
Starr: Yeah.
Mr. Lowell. He didn't make that admission in here. He did
make it a few days later. Yesterday Mr. Canady agreed with
White House Counsel Ruff that members needed to go beyond the
referral into the actual material sent to Congress. When there
is any ambiguity in that material or anyplace where it is not
clear, and any leap that it makes, look at this list that you
can find on tab 10 of your exhibit book calling into question
the objectivity of the Office of Independent Counsel, and you
will see that you cannot simply assume or adopt the conclusions
that that office has made. And so, Mr. Chairman, I hope this
time, I was better able to explain why we asked those questions
of Mr. Starr and the significance of those questions to your
evaluation of the evidence.
Now that we have shown the very little evidence that
actually exists, let me turn to the constitutional law that
applies to the facts. When I appeared on October 5, the
majority was resisting the minority's request to begin an
inquiry with a full and fair hearing to discuss the
constitutional threshold for impeachment. We have now heard
from a number of witnesses, and I think we all agree that these
were important witnesses to hear from, and we learned a lot
from those witnesses.
We learned, for example, that over 400 historians all took
the time to write the committee, and you can find their letter
on tab 11, and here is their letter. And they wrote: ``The
theory of impeachment'' that is now contained, as it turns out,
in your proposed articles, ``underlying these efforts is
unprecedented in our history and are extremely ominous for the
future of our political institutions. If carried forward,''
they warned us, ``they will leave the presidency permanently
disfigured and diminished, at the mercy, as never before, of
the caprices of Congress.''
We learned that over 200 constitutional legal scholars
wrote the committee and said that even if the offenses that you
are considering were true, they did not rise to an impeachable
level. We even learned from the majority's witnesses called
before the committee, such as joint witness Professor Michael
Gerhardt who said that the offenses had to be ``great or
dangerous, causing some serious injury to the Republic; the
framers emphasized that the ultimate purpose of impeachment was
not to punish but to protect and to preserve the public
trust.''
And we learned from Professor William Van Alstyne who
eloquently concluded his testimony and said: ``If the President
did that which the special counsel report has declared are
crimes of such a low order that it would unduly flatter the
President by submitting him to a trial in the Senate, I would
not bother to do it.''
With that high standard in mind, members of the committee,
the majority must not further dilute the Constitution by
arguing phrases like the House is a grand jury that simply
votes out an article of impeachment and lets the Senate worry
about it, or when it states that the House does not have to
hear evidence or make decisions about who is telling the truth,
because that is the Senate's job.
Former Watergate-era Attorney General Elliot Richardson
said it best when he warned: ``A vote to impeach is a vote to
remove. If Members believe that should be the outcome, they
should vote to impeach. If they think that it is an excessive
sentence, they should not vote to impeach because if they do,
the matter is out of your hands.''
If you try to rewrite history by contending that the House
is merely the body that accuses and the Senate is the body that
tries, you forfeit the double protection that the founders
intended to exist. Contrary to having the House be a mere
rubber stamp for sending allegations of wrongdoing to the
Senate, the Constitution actually requires that the House as
well as the Senate look to the same evidence with the same
standard. One constitutional writer, Professor John Labovitz,
examined the history and how it applied to Watergate and
concluded with words that seem as if they were written for
today's events.
He said:
There were undesirable consequences if the House voted
impeachment on the basis of one-sided or incomplete information
or insufficiently persuasive evidence. Subjecting the Senate,
the President and the Nation to the uncertainty and potential
divisiveness of a presidential impeachment trial is not a step
to be lightly undertaken. While the formal consequences of an
ill-advised impeachment would merely be acquittal after trial,
the political ramifications could be much more severe.
Accordingly, the House, and this needs to be noted, the House
should not vote impeachments that are unlikely to succeed in
the Senate. The standards of proof applied in the House should
reflect the standards of proof in the Senate.
Professor Labovitz then meticulously documented that in the
Nixon inquiry, everyone agreed, the majority, the minority and
the President's lawyer, that the standard of proof for the
committee and the House was clear and convincing evidence.
Former member of this committee Elizabeth Holtzman said it
shorter and perhaps more simply when she was here on Tuesday
and she said: ``We voted as if we were the Senate.''
Again speaking to 1974, there is one more introductory
thought I would like to make on this subject of burden and the
requirement that you find proof by clear and convincing
evidence. On October 5 when we appeared before you, we
suggested, as a frame of reference, that which is even more
compelling today. That was the bipartisan vote against an
article of impeachment for President Nixon's lying to the IRS
about his taxes. Please be clear that the article proposed in
1974 included allegations that President Nixon's tax returns,
like all filings with government agencies, had the import of an
oath. Please also be clear that allegations included the fact
that the lies in that matter were purposeful, included
backdated documents and were about something important, the
means by which our government is funded. Please also keep in
mind, in light of Mr. Canady's questions to Mr. Ruff, that
while some Members did justify their no votes because they felt
the evidence was insufficient, that others, including the key
Democrats which made this a bipartisan rejection of the article
of impeachment, did so because they said that it was not an
impeachable offense.
With all of that in mind, let us ask what we asked you 3
months ago. If President Nixon's alleged lies to the Internal
Revenue Service about his taxes were not grounds for
impeachment in 1974, how then are the alleged lies by President
Clinton about his private sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky
grounds in 1998?
Just last week, you heard from someone who could help with
the answer to that question, and I know we were listening when
Majority witness former Watergate-era committee member and now
Federal Judge Charles Wiggins said: ``I confess to you that I
would recommend that you not vote to impeach the President. I
find it troubling that this matter has grown to the
consequences that it now occupies on the public screen.''
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, one of the
articles that you propose uses the phrase ``abuse of power.''
That phrase does have a Watergate ring, and I am sure it is why
it has been resuscitated even without evidence. But in a way,
it is a good thing that the Majority has made that attempt. You
see, the committee is right to be on the lookout for Watergate
similarities, because that sad chapter of American history
really does describe that which are truly impeachable offenses.
But calling something a Watergate offense does not make it so.
The more you look at Watergate, the more you will see just how
different these proceedings are. In the end, Watergate was a
congressional event which both sides could identify as serious
and substantial enough to call for truly bipartisan action,
just as both you, Mr. Chairman, and Chairman Rodino understood
needed to be the case.
But that is not the situation today. Both Watergate and
today's inquiry started with a referral from a special
prosecutor sending grand jury material to the Congress. But
that is where the similarity ends. The Office of Independent
Counsel today certainly hasn't acted like Mr. Jaworski's office
did back then, and the two Judiciary Committees have not acted
the same either. The Judiciary Committee in Watergate kept the
evidence to itself, until it could be sure what was relevant
and what was not. It did not dump the material into the public.
The Judiciary Committee in Watergate had agreements on what
witnesses to call and what evidence to gather. It did not go on
unilateral excursions from one matter to the next, like the
Paula Jones case to campaign finance reform, in hopes of
finding something more. The Judiciary Committee in Watergate
heard from actual witnesses whose credibility could be
assessed. It did not rely on the conclusions of a prosecutor.
The Judiciary Committee in Watergate agreed that the House
needed clear and convincing evidence. It did not state that it
was a mere rubber stamp to send prosecutor's material to the
Senate for a trial. And finally, the Judiciary Committee in
Watergate took its actions, including the most important
actions of voting articles of impeachment, with bipartisan
votes.
I raise all of these comparisons, because the more we all
try to dress ourselves up in the clothes of Watergate, the more
we see they simply do not fit. But it does not have to be so.
This does not have to be the case. In this last moment, in
these last sessions when it really finally counts, this
committee can reach back in its history to rise as did our
Watergate counterparts. It can, in the end, merge the portrait
behind you on the right and the one on the left. It can, in
effect, create another chapter of congressional history for
which we can be as proud as we are proud about our counterparts
24 years ago.
When you gave us the high honor and privilege of addressing
you on October 5, we ended the presentation by reading what we
thought was the most important part of the history of how the
impeachment clause was ratified in the Constitutional
Conventions. If you recall, we described Alexander Hamilton's
explanations and his warnings, when he was seeking to assure
the fears of the country, that the impeachment clause would not
be misused, and what he said then seems so, so germane today.
Hamilton stated that prosecutions of impeachment,
* * * will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole
community and to divide it into parties more or less friendly
or inimical to the accused. In many cases, it will connect
itself with the pre-existing factions, and in such cases there
will always be the danger that the decision will be regulated
more by the comparative strength of the parties than by real
demonstrations of innocence and guilt.
And you all have Federalist Paper 65 probably on your
desks.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Members of the
House, beyond this committee's walls, we truly are at a moment
where we can avoid ``connecting this important debate to pre-
existing factions.'' We are at a place where if we slip, the
decision ``can be regulated more by the strength of the parties
than by real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.''
Even though the Majority has all the votes it needs to do
as it pleases, we conclude today the way we began in October,
by urging that we all listen to Hamilton's plea, by urging that
we listen to each other, and by urging that we especially
listen to the American people who are asking you to find a
truly bipartisan way to avoid the course on which you are now
embarked.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member Conyers, members of the
committee, thank you for your attention, and I thank my staff
as well.
[The statement of Mr. Lowell follows:]
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Chairman Hyde. I want to thank you, Mr. Lowell, for a
really first-rate presentation, very instructive, very helpful.
I am going to yield to Mr. Conyers and then we will recess
until 2 o'clock this afternoon for Mr. Schippers. But Mr.
Conyers is recognized.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman and members, on behalf of not
just the Democrats on the Committee on Judiciary but on behalf
of all members of the committee who recognize that Abbe Lowell,
our chief minority investigative counsel, has delivered a
highly professional and exceptionally well-crafted and
exceedingly moving statement in terms of his obligation as the
chief minority counsel, I want to thank him from the bottom of
my heart.
Chairman Hyde. The committee stands in recess until 2 p.m.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the committee recessed, to
reconvene at 2:00 p.m., this same day.]
Chairman Hyde. The committee will come to order.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to ask
unanimous consent that a statement from a former Member,
Congressman Ray Thornton, be submitted for the record.
Chairman Hyde. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information was not available at presstime.]
Mr. Scott. Second, I have a motion that has been
distributed that I would like considered.
Chairman Hyde. Please. The gentleman is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion is as
follows: That I move that the committee establish a specific
scope of inquiry prior to the White House's rebuttal of still
undefined allegations. If it shall be necessary to expand the
scope of the inquiry, then such expansion shall be permitted by
majority vote of the committee. And, in addition, once the
specific allegations of inquiry have been designated, the
committee shall hear from witnesses with direct knowledge of
these allegations before it considers any article of
impeachment.
Mr. Chairman, this motion was presented before the White
House counsel came, and I think it is still timely. It was
somewhat unseemly to watch the counsel leave and then have
distributed--well, actually, while he was here, have taken from
him the allegations, because he wasn't supposed to get them,
before he knew what the actual charges are.
And, Mr. Chairman, I think I owe some of the Republicans an
apology, because I have been making a mockery out of the
suggestion that, not knowing what the charges were, some might
even conclude that legalistic answers to 81 questions might be
impeachable offenses. But I shouldn't have said that, because,
of course, when we got the specifics, 81 questions, in fact,
became articles of impeachment.
Mr. Chairman, the unseemly part was that before the counsel
got the actual charges, Roll Call newspaper has a headline,
Defense Rests, and then he learns the charges. Well, we had our
counsel similarly disadvantaged when he had to guess as to what
the charges were. He indicated he was guessing that it might be
this and it might be that. Now, we will find out after his
presentation what he was responding to.
Since most of us, in terms of the witnesses, believe that--
some of us anyway--believe that the allegations, even if they
are true, are not impeachable offenses, before we know what the
allegations are, we are not able to entertain calling of
witnesses. But once we have with specificity what the
allegations are, I would hope that we would hear from fact
witnesses who have direct knowledge so that we are not
depending on one counsel's interpretation of documents that
cannot be cross-examined compared to another counsel's
interpretation of documents which cannot be cross-examined.
So that before we go forward with any articles of
impeachment, we ought to hear from fact witnesses. And if there
are no witnesses presented, zero to zero, then, of course,
unless there is a presumption of guilt, we certainly cannot go
forward.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
Chairman Hyde. I thank the gentleman. In response, briefly,
you have asked that a specific scope of inquiry be established.
That was established in Resolution 581. You have said if it
shall be necessary to expand the scope of the inquiry. The
inquiry hasn't been expanded. The articles of impeachment are
no surprise to anybody. They are based on the referral from the
Independent Counsel.
And as to wanting more witnesses, that has been overtaken
by events. We had time yesterday to call witnesses for the
White House. Any witnesses you have ever wanted, you have been
permitted to offer them. So this has really been overtaken by
events.
So if there is no further discussion, I will call for a
vote.
Mr. Watt. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the
last word.
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I rise in support of Mr. Scott's motion. This is really not
different from what Mr. Scott and I and several members of this
committee have been requesting throughout this process.
For those of us who come from a legal background, many of
whom got to this committee by virtue of long interest in and
involvement with the practice of law and the procedures that
protect individual citizens from abuse by the government, this
process has been a very grueling and disconcerting one. We
would never think of calling into court, commencing a legal
process against any citizen in the United States of America
without specifying the charges against that individual. It is a
basic precept of our democracy and our judicial system, and the
members of this committee know that. The American people know
that. The only way that individual citizens can be protected
from the abuses of the legal process, especially the criminal
process in this country, is to have that important protection
provided to them.
We have given lip service throughout this process to the
notion that no person, including the President of the United
States, should be above the law or below the law. And yet this
process that this committee has followed throughout this
investigation and ordeal has consistently treated the President
of the United States below any procedural due process that we
would ever think of providing any citizen of the United States
of America.
My sense is that although I hear quite often from my
constituents that they perceive that this is unfair, thatthere
are a number of people out there who, because this is an impeachment
proceeding, feel like we can just slide around that basic protection
that we provide to American citizens. I sense that there are people out
there who believe that somehow, because we are members of the Judiciary
Committee of the House of Representatives, because they have seen us
time after time after time do things that we wouldn't do in a civilized
democracy, in a court setting, in a judicial setting, in a
constitutional setting to any citizen of the country, believe that we
think we are above the law. We make this stuff up as we go along. And
that is the feeling that I have had throughout this process; that the
rules are just being made as we go along.
This is about protection of the citizens of this country,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. Thank you. The gentleman's time----
Mr. Watt. I think if we don't provide it in this committee,
we have an obligation to tell the American people why we are
not.
Chairman Hyde. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. Just a moment, please. The Chair would like
to inform the gentleman who just spoke and the gentleman who
spoke before him that we did call Charles Ruff.
Mr. Watt. Mr. Chairman, what are we doing here? What's the
regular order?
Chairman Hyde. Well, I am just trying to inform you, but if
you don't want to be informed, I won't.
Mr. Watt. I am just trying to find out, Mr. Chairman. The
light has not started over.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Chairman, I move the previous
question.
Chairman Hyde. The previous question has been moved. All
those in favor say aye.
Opposed; nay.
The ayes have it. The previous question is moved. The
question now occurs on the motion by Mr. Scott.
All those in favor will say aye.
All those opposed, no.
In the opinion of the Chair the noes have it.
Mr. Scott. Roll call vote.
Chairman Hyde. The motion is not agreed to. And now we go
to Mr. Schippers.
Mr. Scott. May I have a roll call, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Hyde. You want a roll call? Why absolutely. We
will have a roll call. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Clerk. Mr. Sensenbrenner.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Sensenbrenner votes no.
Mr. McCollum.
Mr. McCollum. No.
The Clerk. Mr. McCollum votes no.
Mr. Gekas.
Mr. Gekas. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Gekas votes no.
Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Coble votes no.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Smith votes no.
Mr. Gallegly.
Mr. Gallegly. No.
Mr. Canady.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Inglis.
Mr. Inglis. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Inglis votes no.
Mr. Goodlatte.
Mr. Goodlatte. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Goodlatte votes no.
Mr. Buyer.
Mr. Buyer. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Buyer votes no.
Mr. Bryant.
Mr. Bryant. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Bryant votes no.
Mr. Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Chabot votes no.
Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Barr votes no.
Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Jenkins votes no.
Mr. Hutchinson.
Mr. Hutchinson. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Hutchinson votes no.
Mr. Pease.
Mr. Pease. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Pease votes no.
Mr. Cannon.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Rogan.
Mr. Rogan. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Rogan votes no.
Mr. Graham.
Mr. Graham. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Graham votes no.
Mrs. Bono.
Mrs. Bono. No.
The Clerk. Mrs. Bono votes no.
Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Conyers votes aye.
Mr. Frank.
Mr. Frank. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Frank votes aye.
Mr. Schumer.
Mr. Schumer. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Schumer votes aye.
Mr. Berman.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Boucher.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Nadler votes aye.
Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Scott votes aye.
Mr. Watt.
Mr. Watt. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Watt votes aye.
Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Lofgren votes aye.
Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Jackson Lee votes aye.
Ms. Waters.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Meehan.
Mr. Meehan. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Meehan votes aye.
Mr. Delahunt.
Mr. Delahunt. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Delahunt votes aye.
Mr. Wexler.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Rothman.
Mr. Rothman. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Rothman votes aye.
Mr. Barrett.
Mr. Barrett. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Barrett votes aye.
Mr. Hyde.
Chairman Hyde. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Hyde votes no.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Canady.
Mr. Canady. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Canady votes no.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Aye.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Berman votes aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Berman votes aye.
Chairman Hyde. Mr. Cannon.
The Clerk. Mr. Cannon is not recorded, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cannon. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Cannon votes no.
Mr. Chairman, there are 13 ayes and 21 noes.
Chairman Hyde. And the motion is not agreed to.
We will now proceed as we had scheduled by introducing
David P. Schippers, the chief investigative counsel for the
majority, who will make a presentation, which I assume will
take some time, as did Mr. Lowell's this morning.
Before Mr. Schippers begins, I would like to notify those
members of the committee who care to listen that over the noon
hour we called the White House counsel, Mr. Ruff, to invite him
back if he wanted to, and he declined to come back, with
thanks. And that was done in conjunction with Mr. Epstein, as
well as our staff.
So, Mr. Schippers.
STATEMENT OF DAVID SCHIPPERS, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
Mr. Schippers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On October 5th,
1998, I came before this committee to advise you of the results
of our analysis----
Mr. Watt. Mr. Chairman, could the witness move the
microphone in front of him so we could hear him on this?
Mr. Schippers. Is that a little better?
Mr. Watt. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Schippers. I came before you to advise you of the
results of our analysis and review of the referral from the
Office of the Independent Counsel. We concluded at that time
that there existed substantial and credible evidence of several
separate events directly involving the President that could
constitute grounds for impeachment. At that time I specifically
limited my review and report to evidence of possible felonies.
In addition, I asserted that the report and analysis was merely
a litany of crimes that might have been committed.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hyde. For what purpose does the gentleman seek
recognition?
Mr. Scott. Do we have copies of his statement?
Chairman Hyde. I have no idea. Have you got a blue book
down there? Everyone else has one.
Mr. Schippers. Copies are being made, Mr. Chairman, as we
speak.
Chairman Hyde. Copies are being made?
Mr. Schippers. As we speak.
Chairman Hyde. Okay, fine. You will get a copy as soon as
it's ready.
Please proceed.
Mr. Schippers. On October 7th, the House of Representatives
passed Resolution 581 calling for an inquiry to determine
whether the House should exercise its constitutional duty to
impeach President William Jefferson Clinton. Thereafter, this
committee heard testimony from several experts and other
witnesses, including the Independent Counsel himself, Kenneth
Starr.
Since that time my staff and I, as requested, have
conducted ongoing investigations and inquiries. We have
received and reviewed additional information and evidence from
the Independent Counsel and have developed additional
information from diverse other sources. Unfortunately, because
of the extremely strict time limits placed upon us, a number of
very promising leads had to be abandoned. We just ran out of
time.
In addition, other allegations of possible serious
wrongdoing cannot be presented publicly at this time by virtue
of circumstances totally beyond our control. For example, we
uncovered more incidents involving probable direct and
deliberate obstructions of justice, witness tampering, perjury
and abuse of power. We were, however, informed both by the
Department of Justice and by the Office of the Independent
Counsel that to bring forth publicly that evidence at this time
would seriously compromise pending criminal investigations.
Most of those investigations, I understand, are nearing
completion. We have, accordingly, bowed to their suggestion.
If I may digress very briefly from my prepared text, I want
to tell you, the members of the committee, that I have been
privileged to work with some of the finest human beings that I
have ever met in my life. The staff of the committee and my
personal staff that have worked with me constitute some of the
finest lawyers, the best investigators and just generally good
people. They have worked till midnight, 1, 2 o'clock in the
morning. They have worked through the weekends. They have done
whatever had to be done. I owe them everything for what you are
going to hear today, and I really believe that they are
entitled to the gratitude of this committee and the gratitude
of the people of the United States.
Now I will go on.
Before I proceed, allow me to assert my profound and
unqualified respect for the office of President of the United
States. It represents to the American people and, actually, to
the entire world the strength, the philosophy and, most of all,
the honor and integrity that makes us a great Nation and an
example for developing peoples. Because all eyes are focused
upon that high office, the character and credibility of any
temporary occupant is vital to the domestic and foreign welfare
of the citizens. Consequently, serious breaches of integrity
and duty, of necessity, adversely influence the reputation of
the entire United States.
When I appeared in this committee room a little over 2
months ago, it was merely to analyze the referral and to report
to you. Today, after our investigation, I have come to a point
that, frankly, I prayed I would never reach. It is my sorrowful
duty now to accuse President William Jefferson Clinton of
obstruction of justice, false and deliberately misleading
statements under oath, witness tampering, abuse of power, and
false statements to and obstruction of the Congress of the
United States in the course of this very impeachment inquiry.
These are what Mr. Lowell referred to as the insignificant
offenses of President Clinton.
Whether these charges are high crimes and misdemeanors and
whether the President should be impeached or not is not for me
to say or even to give an opinion. That is your decision. I am
merely going to set forth the evidence and the testimony so
that you can judge.
As I stated earlier, this is not about sex or private
conduct. It is about multiple obstructions of justice; perjury;
false and misleading statements; witness tampering; abuses of
power, all committed or orchestrated by the President of the
United States.
Before we get into the President's lies and obstructions,
it is important to place the events in their proper context. We
have acknowledged all along that if this were only about sex,
then you would not be engaged in this debate. But the manner in
which the Lewinsky relationship arose and continued is
important. It is illustrative of the character of the President
and of the decisions that he made.
Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old intern, was working at the
White House during the government shutdown in 1995. Prior to
their first intimate encounter, she had never even spoken to
the President. Sometime on November 15th, 1995, Ms. Lewinsky
made an improper gesture to the President. What did he do in
response? Did the President immediately confront her or report
her to her supervisors, as you would expect? Did he make it
clear that such conduct would not be tolerated in the White
House? No. That would have been an appropriate reaction, but it
is not the one the President chose. Instead, the President of
the United States invited this unknown young intern into a
private area off the Oval Office where he kissed her. He then
invited her back later, and when she returned, the two engaged
in the first of many acts of inappropriate conduct.
Thereafter, the two concocted a cover story. If Ms.
Lewinsky was seen, she was just bringing papers to the
President. That story was totally false. The only papers she
brought were personal messages having nothing to do with her
duties or those of the President.
After Ms. Lewinsky moved from the White House to the
Pentagon, her frequent visits to the President were disguised
as visits to Betty Currie. Now, those cover stories are
important because they play a vital role in the later perjuries
and obstructions.
Over the term of their relationship, the following
significant matters occurred. Monica Lewinsky and the President
were alone on at least 21 occasions. They had at least 11
personal sexual encounters, excluding phone sex; three in 1995,
five in 1996, and at least three in 1997. They had at least 55
telephone conversations, some of which, at least 17, involved
phone sex. The President gave Ms. Lewinsky 24 presents, and Ms.
Lewinsky gave the President 40 presents.
Now, these are the essential facts which form the backdrop
for all of the events which followed. During the fall of 1997,
things were relatively quiet. Monica Lewinsky was working at
the Pentagon and looking for a high-paying job in New York. The
President's attempt to stall the Paula Jones case was still
pending in the Supreme Court, and nobody seemed to care one way
or another what the outcome would be. Then, in the first week
of December, 1997, things began to unravel.
Now, I do not intend to discuss the sexual details of the
President's encounters with Ms. Lewinsky. However, I do not
want to give this committee the impression that those
encounters are irrelevant. In fact, they are highly relevant,
because the President repeatedly lied about that sexual
relationship in his deposition, before the grand jury, and in
his responses to this committee's questions.
He has consistently maintained that Ms. Lewinsky performed
acts on him while he never touched her in a sexual manner. This
characterization not only directly contradicts Ms. Lewinsky's
testimony, it also contradicts the sworn grand jury testimony
of three of her friends and the statements by two professional
counselors with whom she contemporaneously shared the details
of that relationship.
While his treatment of Ms. Lewinsky may be offensive, it is
much more offensive for the President to expect this committee
to believe that in 1996 and 1997, his intimate contact with her
was so narrowly tailored that it conveniently escaped his
strained interpretation of a definition of sexual relations
which he did not even conceive until 1998.
A few words of caution, if I may. The evidence and
testimony must be viewed as a whole. It cannot be
compartmentalized. Please do not be cajoled into considering
each event in isolation and then treating it separately. That
is a tactic employed by defense lawyers in every conspiracy
trial that I have ever seen. Remember, events and words that
may seem innocent or even exculpatory in a vacuum may well take
on a sinister or even criminal connotation when observed in the
context of the whole plot.
For example, everyone agrees that Monica Lewinsky
testified, no one ever told me to lie, no one ever promised me
a job. When considered alone, as it has been consistently, this
would seem exculpatory. In the context of the other evidence,
we see that this is, again, technically parsing words to give a
misleading inference.
Of course no one said, Monica, go in there and lie. They
didn't have to. Monica knew what was expected of her.
Similarly, nobody promised her a job. But once she signed that
false affidavit, she got one, didn't she?
Likewise, please don't permit the obfuscations and
legalistic pyrotechnics of the President's defenders to
distract you from the real issue here. A friend of mine flew
bombers over Europe in the Second World War. And, yes, I'm old
enough to have friends who flew bombers in the Second World
War. He once told me that the planes would carry packages of
lead-based tin foil strips. And when the planes flew into the
perimeter of the enemy's radar coverage, the crews would
release that tin foil. It was intended to confuse and distract
the radar operators from the real target. Now, the treatment
Monica Lewinsky received from the Independent Counsel, the
motives of some of the witnesses and those who helped finance
Paula Jones' case, that's tin foil.
The real issues are whether the President of the United
States testified falsely under oath, whether he engaged in a
continuing plot to obstruct justice, to hide evidence, to
tamper with witnesses, and to abuse the power of his office in
furtherance of that plot.
The ultimate issue is whether the President's course of
conduct is such as to affect adversely the office of the
Presidency by bringing scandal and disrespect upon it and also
upon the administration of justice, and whether he has acted in
a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive to
the rule of law and to constitutional government.
Finally, the truth is not decided by the number of scholars
with different opinions, the outcome of polls or by the
shifting winds of public opinion. Moreover, you often possess
more information than is generally available to the public. As
representatives of the citizens, you must honestly and
thoroughly examine all the evidence, apply the applicable
constitutional precepts and vote your conscience, independently
and without fear or favor.
As Andrew Jackson said, one man with courage makes a
majority.
The offense that formed the basis of these charges actually
began in late 1995. They reached a critical stage in the winter
of 1997 and the first month of 1998, and the final act in this
sordid drama took place on August 17, 1998, when the President
of the United States appeared before a Federal grand jury,
raised his right hand to God and swore to tell the truth.
Did he? We shall see.
This committee has been asked by the President's counsel to
keep an open heart and mind and to focus on the record. I
completely agree. So in the words of Al Smith, a good Democrat,
let's look at the record.
On Friday, December 5, 1997, Monica Lewinsky asked Betty
Currie if the President could see her the next day, Saturday,
but Ms. Currie said that the President was scheduled to meet
with his lawyers all day. Later that Friday, Ms. Lewinsky spoke
briefly to the President at a Christmas party (See Appendix A,
Chart E). That evening, Paula Jones' attorneys faxed a list of
potential witnesses to the President's attorney. The list
included the name of Monica Lewinsky; however, Ms. Lewinsky did
not find out that her name was on the list until the President
told her 10 days later on December 17th. That delay is
significant (See Appendix A, Chart E).
After a conversation with Ms. Currie and after seeing the
President at the Christmas party, Ms. Lewinsky drafted a letter
to the President terminating their relationship. The next
morning, Saturday, December 6th, Ms. Lewinsky went to the White
House to deliver that letter and some gifts for the President.
She intended to deliver them to Ms. Currie.
When she arrived at the White House, Ms. Lewinsky spoke to
several Secret Service officers, and one of them told her that
the President was not, as she thought, with his lawyers, but
rather he was meeting with Eleanor Mondale.
Ms. Lewinsky left in a huff, called Ms. Currie from a pay
phone, angrily exchanged words with her and went home. After
that phone call, after that phone call, Ms. Currie told the
Secret Service watch commander that the President was so upset
about the disclosure of his meeting with Ms. Mondale that he
wanted somebody fired.
At 12:05 p.m., records demonstrate that Ms. Currie paged
Bruce Lindsey with a message, call Betty ASAP. Around that same
time, according to Ms. Lewinsky, while she was back at her
apartment, she and the President spoke on the telephone, and
the President was very angry. He told Ms. Lewinsky that no one
had ever treated him as poorly as she had.
The President acknowledged to the grand jury that he was
upset about Ms. Lewinsky's behavior and considered it
inappropriate.
Nevertheless, in a sudden change of mode, he invited her to
visit him at the White House that afternoon. Monica arrived at
the White House for the second time that day and was cleared to
enter at about 12:52 p.m. Although, in her words, the President
had been very angry with her during her recent telephone
conversation, he was sweet and very affectionate during this
visit. He also told her that he would talk to Vernon Jordan
about getting her a job.
The President also suddenly changed his attitude toward the
Secret Service. Ms. Currie informed some officers that if they
kept quiet about the Lewinsky incident, there would be no
disciplinary action sought. According to the Secret Service
watch commander again, captain Jeffrey Purdie, the President
personally told him, ``I hope you use your discretion,'' or,
``I hope I can count on your discretion.''
Deputy Chief Charles O'Malley, Captain Purdie's supervisor,
testified that he knew of no other time in his 14 years of
service at the White House where the President raised a
performance issue with a member of the Secret Service Uniformed
Division.
After his conversation with the President, Captain Purdie
told a number of officers that they should not discuss the
Lewinsky incident.
When the President was before the grand jury and questioned
about his statement to the Secret Service regarding this
incident, the President testified, I don't remember. ``I don't
remember what I said, and I don't remember to whom I said it.''
When confronted with Captain Purdie's testimony, the President
again testified, ``I don't remember anything I said to him in
that regard. I have no recollection of that whatever.''
President Clinton testified before the grand jury that he
learned that Ms. Lewinsky was on the Jones witness list that
evening, that is, Saturday, December 6th, during a meeting that
took place with his lawyers. He stood by this answer in the
response to our request, or your request number 16, and the
meeting occurred about 5 p.m. So that was true. It was after
Ms. Lewinsky had left the White House.
According to Bruce Lindsey, at the meeting Bob Bennett had
a copy of the Jones witness list that had been faxed to him the
previous night (See Appendix B, Exhibit 15). However, during
his deposition the President testified that he had heard about
the witness list before he saw it. In other words, if the
President testified truthfully during the course of his
deposition, then he knew about the witness list before the 5
p.m. meeting.
It is valid to infer that hearing Ms. Lewinsky's name on
the witness list prompted the President's sudden and otherwise
unexplained change from very angry to very affectionate. It is
also reasonable to infer that it prompted him to give the
unique instruction to a Secret Service watch commander to use
discretion regarding Ms. Lewinsky's visit to the White House,
which the watchcommander interpreted as instructions to keep
the matter under wraps.
Now, to go back a little, Monica Lewinsky had been looking
for a good-paying and high-profile job in New York since the
previous July. She wasn't having much success despite the
President's promise to help. In early November, Betty Currie
arranged a meeting with Vernon Jordan, who was supposed to
help. On November 5th, Monica met for 20 minutes with Mr.
Jordan. No action followed, no job interviews were arranged,
and there were no further contacts with Mr. Jordan. It was
obvious that he made no effort to find a job for Ms. Lewinsky.
Indeed, it was so unimportant to him that he actually had no
recollection of an early November meeting, and he testified
that finding a job for Ms. Lewinsky was really not a priority
(See Appendix A, Chart R). Nothing happened throughout the
month of November because Mr. Jordan was either gone or would
not return Monica's calls.
During the December 6th meeting with the President, she
mentioned that she had not been able to get in touch with Mr.
Jordan and that it didn't seem that he had done anything to
help her. The President responded by saying, oh, I'll take care
of that. I will get on it, or something to that effect. There
was obviously still no urgency to help Monica. Mr. Jordan met
the President the next day, December 7th, but the meeting had
nothing to do with Ms. Lewinsky.
The first activity calculated to help Monica actually
procure employment took place on December 11th. Mr. Jordan met
with Ms. Lewinsky and gave her a list of contact names. The two
also discussed the President.
By the way, that meeting Mr. Jordan remembered.
Vernon Jordan immediately placed calls to two prospective
employers. Later in the afternoon he even called the President
to give him a report of his job search efforts. Clearly, Mr.
Jordan and the President were now very interested in helping
Monica find a good job in New York.
But why the sudden interest? Why the total change in focus?
Nobody but Betty Currie really cared about helping Ms. Lewinsky
throughout November. Even after the President learned that her
name was on the prospective witness list, it didn't really
escalate into any great urgency. Did something happen to remove
the job search from a low to a high priority on that day?
Oh, yes, something happened. On the morning of December 11,
1997, Judge Susan Webber Wright ordered that Paula Jones was
entitled to information regarding any State or Federal employee
with whom the President had sexual relations or proposed or
sought to have sexual relations. To keep Monica on the team was
now of critical importance.
Remember, they already knew that she was on the witness
list, although nobody had bothered to tell her yet. That was
remedied on December 17, 1997, between 2 and 2:30 in the
morning. Monica Lewinsky's phone rang unexpectedly in the wee
hours of that morning, and it was the President of the United
States. The President said that he wanted to tell Ms. Lewinsky
two things: One, that Betty Currie's brother had been killed in
a car accident; and second, he said that ``he had some more bad
news;'' that he had seen the witness list for the Paula Jones
case, and her name was on it. The President told Ms. Lewinsky
that seeing her name on the list broke his heart. I imagine it
did.
He then told her that if she were to be subpoenaed, she
should contact Betty and let Betty know that she had received a
subpoena. Ms. Lewinsky asked what she should do if she were
subpoenaed? The President responded, well, maybe you can sign
an affidavit.
Now, both parties knew that the affidavit would need to be
false and misleading in order to accomplish the desired result.
Then the President had a very pointed suggestion for Monica
Lewinsky, a suggestion that left little room for compromise.
No, he did not say, go in and lie. What he did say is, you
know, you can always say you were coming to see Betty or that
you were bringing me papers.
Now, in order to understand the significance of that
statement, it is necessary to remember the cover stories that
the President and Ms. Lewinsky had previously structured in
order to deceive those who protected and worked with the
President. Ms. Lewinsky, if you will recall, testified that she
would carry papers; that when she visited the President, when
she saw him, she would say, oh, gee, here are your letters,
wink, wink, wink; and he would answer, okay, that's good.
After Ms. Lewinsky left White House employment, she would
return to the Oval Office under the guise of visiting Betty
Currie, not the President who was the real person she was
visiting.
Moreover, Monica promised him that she would always deny
that sexual relationship and would always protect him, and the
President would respond, that's good, or similar language of
encouragement.
So when the President called Monica at 2 a.m. on December
17th to tell her she was on the witness list, he made sure to
remind her of those prior cover stories. Ms. Lewinsky testified
that when the President brought up the misleading story, she
understood that the two would continue their preexisting
pattern of deception. It became clear that the President had no
intention of making his sexual relationship with Monica
Lewinsky public, and he would use lies, deceit and deception to
ensure that the truth would never be known.
It is interesting to note that when the President was asked
by the grand jury whether he remembered calling Monica Lewinsky
at 2 a.m., he said, ``No, sir, I don't but it would--it is
quite possible that that happened.''
And when he was asked whether he encouraged Monica Lewinsky
to continue the cover stories of coming to see Betty or
bringing the letters, he answered, ``I don't remember exactly
what I told her that night.'' That was the answer to a direct
question: ``I don't remember exactly what I told her that
night.''
Six days earlier, he had become aware that Paula Jones'
lawyers were now able to inquire about other women. Monica
could file a false affidavit, but it might not work. It was
absolutely essential that both parties told the same story. The
President knew that he would lie if asked about Ms. Lewinsky,
and he wanted to make certain that she would lie also. Why else
would the President of the United States call a 24-year-old
woman at 2:00 in the morning?
But the President had an additional problem. It was not
enough that he and Ms. Lewinsky simply deny the relationship.
You see, the evidence was beginning to accumulate, and it was
the evidence that was driving the President to reevaluate his
defense.
By this time, the evidence was establishing, through
records and through eyewitness accounts, that the President and
Monica Lewinsky were indeed spending a significant amount of
time together in the Oval Office complex. It was no longer
expedient simply to refer to Ms. Lewinsky as a groupie, a
stalker, a clutch or a homewrecker, as the White House first
attempted to do. The unassailable facts were forcing the
President to acknowledge the relationship, but at this point he
still had the opportunity to establish a nonsexual explanation
for their meetings.
You see, he still had that opportunity because his DNA
hadn't yet turned up on Monica Lewinsky's blue dress.
Therefore, the President needed Monica Lewinsky to go along
with the cover story in order to provide an innocent, intimate-
free explanation for their frequent meetings. And that innocent
explanation came in the form of documents delivered and
friendly chats with Monica--with Betty Currie.
It is also interesting to note that when the President was
deposed on January 17th, 1998, he used the exact same cover
stories that had been utilized by Ms. Lewinsky. In doing so, he
stayed consistent with any future Lewinsky testimony while
still maintaining his defense in the Jones case.
In the President's deposition, he was asked whether he was
ever alone with Monica Lewinsky. He responded, ``I don't
recall. She--it seems to me she brought things to me once or
twice on the weekends.'' In that case, whatever time she would
be in there, drop it off, exchange a few words and go. She was
there.
Additionally, you will notice that whenever questions were
posed regarding Ms. Lewinsky's frequent visits to the Oval
Office, the President never hesitated to bring Betty Currie's
name into his answers. ``And my recollection is that on a
couple of occasions after [the pizza party meeting], she was
there,'' there being in the Oval Office, ``but my secretary,
Betty Currie, was there with her.
Question: ``When was the last time you spoke with Monica
Lewinsky?''
Now, remember, this is January 17.
Answer: ``I'm trying to remember. Probably sometime before
Christmas. She came by to see Betty sometime before Christmas.
And she was there talking to her, and I stuck my head out, said
hello to her.''
Now, I am going to ask you, please, to pay attention to the
screens up here, and I would like you to listen to the
President's deceptions for yourself.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Question: Mr. President, before the break, we were talking about
Monica Lewinsky. At any time were you and Monica Lewinsky together
alone in the Oval Office?
Answer: I don't recall, but as I said, when she worked at the
legislative affairs office, they always had somebody there on the
weekends. I typically worked some on the weekends. Sometimes they'd
bring me things on the weekends. She--it seems to me she brought things
to me once or twice on the weekends. In that case, whatever time she
would be in there, drop it off, exchange a few words and go, she was
there. I don't have any specific recollections of what the issues were,
what was going on, but when the Congress is there, we're working all
the time, and typically I would do some work on one of the days of the
weekends in the afternoon.
Question: So I understand, your testimony is that it was possible,
then, that you were alone with her, but you have no specific
recollection of that ever happening?
Answer: Yes, that's correct. It's possible that she, in, while she
was working there, brought something to me and that at the time she
brought it to me, she was the only person there. That's possible.
Question: At any time were you and Monica Lewinsky alone in the
hallway between the Oval Office and this kitchen area?
Answer: I don't believe so, unless we were walking back to the back
dining room with the pizza. I just I don't remember. I don't believe we
were alone in the hallway, no.
Question: At any time have you and Monica Lewinsky ever been alone
together in any room in the White House?
Answer: I think I testified to that earlier. I think that there is
a, it is--I have no specific recollection, but it seems to me that she
was on duty on a couple of occasions working for the legislative
affairs office and brought me some things to sign, something on the
weekend. That's I--have a general memory of that.
Question: Do you remember anything that was said in any of those
meetings?
Answer: No. You know, we just have conversation, I don't remember.
Mr. Schippers. Life was so much simpler before they found
that dress, wasn't it?
The President said Ms. Lewinsky's greatest fears were
realized on December 19th, when Monica was subpoenaed to
testify in a deposition to take place on January 23, 1998, in
the Jones case.
(See Appendix A, Charts F and G). Extremely distraught,
she immediately called the President's best friend, Vernon
Jordan. Now, you will recall that Ms. Lewinsky testified that
the President had previously told her to call Betty Currie if
she was subpoenaed. She called Mr. Jordan instead because Ms.
Currie's brother had just recently died, and she didn't want to
bother her with this.
Mr. Jordan invited Ms. Lewinsky to his office and she
arrived shortly before 5 p.m., still extremely distraught.
Sometime around this time, Jordan called the President and told
him that Monica had been subpoenaed (see Appendix B, Exhibit
1). Jordan called the President at about 5 p.m. on the 19th and
told the President that Monica had been subpoenaed.
During the meeting, Ms. Lewinsky, which Jordan
characterized as a disturbing meeting, she talked about her
infatuation with the President. Mr. Jordan also decided that he
would call a lawyer for her and get her someone to represent
her. That evening, Mr. Jordan met with the President and
relayed his conversation with Ms. Lewinsky. The details are
extremely important because the President, in his deposition,
didn't recall that meeting.
Mr. Jordan told the President again that Ms. Lewinsky had
been subpoenaed--that is the second time he told the
President--that he was concerned about her fascination with the
President, and that Ms. Lewinsky had even asked Mr. Jordan if
he thought the President would leave the First Lady after he
left office. He also asked President Clinton if he had any
sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky.
Now, wouldn't a reasonable person conclude that this type
of conversation would be locked in the President's memory?
The President was asked,
Question: Did anyone other than your attorneys ever tell
you that Monica Lewinsky had been served with a subpoena in
this case?
Answer: I don't think so.
Question: Did you ever talk with Monica Lewinsky about the
possibility that she might be asked to testify in the case?
Answer: Bruce Lindsey. I think Bruce Lindsey told me that
she was. I think maybe that's the first person told me she was.
I want to be as accurate as I can.
In the grand jury, the President first repeated his denial
that Mr. Jordan told him about Ms. Lewinsky being subpoenaed.
Then, when given more specific facts, he admitted that he knows
now that he spoke with Jordan about the subpoena on the night
of December 19th, but his memory was still not clear.
In an attempt to explain away his false deposition
testimony, the President testified in the grand jury that he
was trying to remember who told him first, but that was not the
question. So his answer was, again, false and misleading.
When one considers the subject matter and the nature of the
conversation between the President and Mr. Jordan, the
suggestion that it would be forgotten defies common sense.
December 28, 1997, is a crucial date. The evidence shows
that the President made false and misleading statements to the
Federal court, the Federal grand jury and to the Congress of
the United States about the events that took place on that date
(see Appendix A, Chart J). It also is critical evidence that he
obstructed justice.
Now, the President testified that it was possible, that is
his word, that he invited Ms. Lewinsky to the White House for
this visit. He admitted that he probably gave Ms. Lewinsky the
most gifts he had ever given her on that date and that he had
given her gifts on other occasions (see Appendix A, Chart D).
Among the many gifts the President gave Ms. Lewinsky on
December 28th was a bear that he said was a symbol of strength.
The President forgot that he had given any gifts to Monica.
Watch this from the deposition.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Question: Well, have you ever given any gifts to Monica
Lewinsky?
Answer: I don't recall. Do you know what they were?
Question: A hat pin?
Answer: I don't, I don't remember. But I certainly, I could
have.
Mr. Schippers. Now, as an attorney, the President knew that
the law will not tolerate someone who says, I don't recall,
when the answer is unreasonable under the circumstances. He
also knew that under the circumstances his answer in the
deposition could not be believed. When asked in the grand jury
why he was unable to remember, though he had given Ms. Lewinsky
so many gifts only 2\1/2\ weeks earlier, the President put
forth a lame and obviously contrived explanation. ``I think
what I meant there was I don't recall what they were, not that
I don't recall whether I had given them.''
The President adopted that same answer in his response
number 42 to the committee's request to admit or deny (see
Appendix B, Exhibit 18). He was not asked in the deposition to
identify the gifts. He was simply asked, have you ever given
gifts to Ms. Lewinsky?
The answer--the law does not allow a witness to insert an
unstated premise or a mental reservation into a simple question
so as to make his answer technically true, if factually false.
The essence of lying is in the deception, not in the words.
The President's answer was false. He knew it then. He knows it
now. The evidence also proves that his explanation to the grand
jury and to this committee is also false. The President would
have us believe that he was able to analyze questions as they
were being asked and pick up such things as verb tense in an
attempt to make his statements at least literally true, but
when he is asked a simple straightforward question, suddenly he
wants us to believe that he couldn't understand it.
Neither his answer in the deposition nor his attempted
explanation is reasonable or true.
While we are on gifts, the President was asked in the
deposition if Monica ever gave him gifts. He responded, ``Once
or twice.''
Once again, watch the tape.
[Videotape played.]
[The information follows:]
Question: Has Monica Lewinsky ever given you any gifts?
Answer: Once or twice. I think she's given me a book or
two.
Mr. Schippers. That is also false testimony. He answered
this question in response to the committee by saying that he
receives numerous gifts, and he really didn't focus on the
precise number (see Appendix B, Exhibit 18). The law, again,
does not support the President's position. An answer that
baldly understates a numerical fact in response to a specific
quantitative inquiry can be deemed technically true but
actually false.
For example, a witness is testifying falsely if he says he
went to the store five times when, in fact, he went 50 times.
Of course, he also went five times, and that is literally true,
but it is actually false. So, too, when the President answered,
once or twice, in the face of the evidence that Ms. Lewinsky
was always bringing gifts, 40 of them, he was lying (see
Appendix A, Chart C).
On December 28th, one of the most blatant efforts to
obstruct justice and conceal evidence occurred. Ms. Lewinsky
testified that she discussed with the President the facts that
she had been subpoenaed and that the subpoena called for her to
produce the gifts. She recalled telling the President that the
subpoena requested a hat pin, and that caused her concern. The
President told her that it bothered him, too.
Ms. Lewinsky then suggested that she take the gifts
somewhere or give them to someone, maybe to Betty. The
President responded, ``I don't know,'' or, let me think about
that (see Appendix A, Chart L).
Later that day, Ms. Lewinsky got a call from Ms. Currie,
who said, ``I understand you have something to give me,'' or,
``The President said you have something to give me.''
Ms. Currie has an amazingly fuzzy memory about this
incident, but says that the best that she can remember Ms.
Lewinsky called her. There is key evidence that Ms. Currie's
fuzzy recollection is wrong. Monica said that she thought Betty
called from her cell phone (see Appendix A, Chart K; Appendix
B, Exhibit 2).
Is that chart up?
Take a look at the record. Chart K, that is Betty Currie's
cell phone record, and that telephone call at 3:21 on the
afternoon of December 28th, 1997, is to Monica Lewinsky's home.
Monica Lewinsky is now corroborated, and it proves conclusively
that it was Ms. Currie who called Monica from her cell phone
several hours after Monica had left the White House.
Why did Betty Currie pick up the gifts from Ms. Lewinsky?
The facts speak for themselves. The President told her to. That
conclusion is buttressed by Ms. Currie's actions. If it was Ms.
Lewinsky that called her, did Currie ask, like anyone would,
why in the world do you want to give me a box of gifts from the
President?
Did she tell the President of this strange request? No. Ms.
Currie's position was not to ask the reason why. She simply
took the gifts and put them under her bed without asking a
single question.
Another note about this: The President stated in his
response to questions number 24 and 25 from this committee that
he was not concerned about these gifts (see Appendix B, Exhibit
18). In fact, he said he recalled telling Monica that if the
Jones lawyers requested gifts, she should turn them over. The
President testified that he is ``not sure'' if he knew the
subpoena asked for gifts.
Why would Monica and the President discuss turning over
gifts to the Jones lawyers if Ms. Lewinsky hadn't told the
President that the subpoena called for gifts? On the other hand
if President Clinton knew the subpoena requested gifts, why
would he give more gifts to Monica on December 28th? This does
seem odd.
Ms. Lewinsky's testimony, though, provides the answer. She
said that she never questioned ``that we were ever going to do
anything but keep this private.'' That meant to, and this is a
quote, take ``whatever appropriate steps needed to be taken''
to keep it quiet.
The only inference is that the gifts, including the bear,
symbolizing strength, were a tacit reminder to Ms. Lewinsky
that they would deny that relationship even in the face of a
Federal court subpoena.
Furthermore, the President at various times in his
deposition seriously misrepresented the nature of his
meetingwith Ms. Lewinsky on December 28th. First he was asked, ``Did
she tell you she had been served with a subpoena in this case?'' The
President answered, flatly, ``No. I don't know she had been.''
He was also asked if he ever talked to Monica Lewinsky
about the possibility of her testifying. His answer: ``I'm not
sure.'' He then added that he may have joked to her that the
Jones lawyers might subpoena every woman he had ever spoken to,
and that, ``I don't think we ever had more of a conversation
than that about it.''
Not only does Monica Lewinsky directly contradict this
testimony, but the President himself also directly contradicted
it when he testified before the grand jury.
Speaking of his December 28th meeting, he said that he,
``knew by then, of course, that she had gotten a subpoena'' and
that they had a, ``conversation about the possibility of her
testifying.''
Remember, he had this conversation about her testimony only
2\1/2\ weeks before the deposition. Again, his version is not
reasonable.
The President knew that Monica Lewinsky was going to make a
false affidavit. He was so certain of the content that when
Monica asked if he wanted to see it, he told her, no, he had
seen 15 of them. He got his information in part from his
attorneys and from discussions with Ms. Lewinsky and Vernon
Jordan generally about the content of the affidavit. Besides,
he had suggested the affidavit himself, remember, and he
trusted Mr. Jordan to be certain the mission would be
accomplished.
In the afternoon of January 5, Ms. Lewinsky met with her
lawyer Mr. Carter. The purpose was to discuss the affidavit.
The lawyer asked her some very hard questions about how she had
gotten her job at the Pentagon. After the meeting, Monica
called Betty and said that she wanted to speak to the President
before she signed anything.
Lewinsky and the President met and discussed the issue of
how she would answer under oath if asked about how she did get
her job at the Pentagon. The President told her, ``Well, you
could always say that the people in Legislative Affairs got it
for you or helped you get it.''
That, by the way, is another lie.
The President was also kept advised as to the contents of
the affidavit by Vernon Jordan. On January 6th, Ms. Lewinsky
picked up a draft of the affidavit from Mr. Carter's office.
She delivered a copy to Mr. Jordan because she wanted Mr.
Jordan to look at the affidavit, in the belief that if Vernon
Jordan gave his imprimatur, the President would also approve of
the language (see Appendix A, Chart M). Ms. Lewinsky and Mr.
Jordan conferred about the contents and agreed to delete a
paragraph inserted by Mr. Carter which Ms. Lewinsky felt might
open a line of questions concerning whether she had actually
been alone with the President (see Appendix B, Exhibit 3).
Contrast this to the testimony of Mr. Jordan who said he
had nothing to do with the details of the affidavit. He admits,
though, that he spoke with the President after conferring with
Ms. Lewinsky about the changes that had been made in that
affidavit.
The next day, January 7th, Monica Lewinsky signed the false
affidavit (see Appendix A, Chart N; Appendix B, Exhibit 12).
She showed the executed copy to Mr. Jordan that same day (see
Appendix B, Exhibit 4). Why? So that Mr. Jordan could report to
the President that the false affidavit had been signed, and
another mission had been accomplished.
On January 8th, the next day, Ms. Lewinsky had an interview
arranged by Mr. Jordan with MacAndrews & Forbes in Illinois--in
New York. The interview went quite poorly, so Ms. Lewinsky was
upset, called Mr. Jordan and told him. Vernon Jordan, who, by
the way, had done nothing from early November to mid-December,
then called the CEO of MacAndrews & Forbes, Mr. Perelman, to
``make things happen, if they could happen.''
Mr. Jordan called Monica back and told her not to worry.
That evening, Ms. Lewinsky was called by MacAndrews & Forbes
and told that she would be given more interviews the next
morning. Well, what do you know. The next morning, Monica
received her reward for signing the false affidavit. After a
series of new interviews with MacAndrews & Forbes personnel,
she was informally offered a job. When Monica called Mr. Jordan
to tell him, he passed the good news on to Betty Currie. Tell
the President, mission accomplished.
Later, Mr. Jordan called the President and told him
personally (see Appendix A, Chart P). After months of looking
for a job, since July, according to the President's lawyers,
Vernon Jordan just so happens to make the call to the CEO the
day after the false affidavit was signed.
If you think it is mere coincidence, consider this. Mr.
Perelman testified that Mr. Jordan had never called him before
about a job recommendation. Jordan, on the other hand, said
that he had called Mr. Perelman to recommend people for hiring.
Who did he recommend? The former Mayor Dinkins of New York, a
very talented attorney from Akin Gump, a Harvard business
school graduate, and Monica Lewinsky. Even if Mr. Perelman's
testimony was mistaken, Monica Lewinsky does not fit within the
caliber of persons that would merit Mr. Jordan's direct
recommendation to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Mr. Jordan was well aware that people with whom Ms.
Lewinsky worked at the White House didn't like her and that she
was very unhappy with her Pentagon job. Vernon Jordan was asked
if at ``any point during this process you wondered about her
qualifications for employment?'' He answered: ``No, because
that was not my judgment to make.'' Yet when he called Mr.
Perelman the day after the signing of the false affidavit, he
referred to Monica as a bright young girl who is ``terrific.''
Mr. Jordan said that she had been hounding him for a job and
voicing unrealistic expectations concerning positions and
concerning salary. Moreover, she had narrateda very disturbing
story about the President leaving the First Lady, and how the President
wasn't spending enough time with her. Yet none of that gave Mr. Jordan
pause in making the recommendation. Do people like Vernon Jordan go to
the wall for marginal employees? They do not, unless there is a
compelling reason. The compelling reason was that the President told
him this was top priority, especially after Monica was subpoenaed.
Just how important was Monica Lewinsky's false affidavit to
the President's deposition? Well, it enabled President Clinton,
through his attorneys, to assert at his January 17, 1998
deposition that there is nothing, ``there is absolutely no sex
of any kind, shape or form with President Clinton.'' You will
see this later.
When questioned by his own attorney in the deposition, the
President stated specifically that the infamous paragraph 8 of
Monica's affidavit, the infamous false paragraph, was,
``absolutely true.'' The President later affirmed the truth of
that statement when testifying before the grand jury.
Now I am going to read paragraph 8 of Ms. Lewinsky's
affidavit (see Appendix A, Chart N). Here is what it says: ``I
have never had a sexual relationship with the President. He did
not propose that we have a sexual relationship. He did not
offer me employment or other benefits in exchange for a sexual
relationship. He did not deny me employment or other benefits
for rejecting a sexual relationship.''
Recall that Monica Lewinsky reviewed the draft affidavit on
January 6 and signed it on January 7 after deleting that
reference to being alone with the President. She showed a copy
of the signed affidavit to Vernon Jordan who called the
President and told him.
Getting the affidavit signed, though, was only half the
battle. To have its full effect, it had to be filed with the
court and provided to the President's attorneys in time for his
deposition that was scheduled for January 17. On January 14,
the President's lawyers called Monica's lawyer and left a
message, presumably to find out if he had filed the affidavit
with the court (see Appendix A, Chart O). On January 15, the
President's attorneys called her attorney twice; it is starting
to get close. When they finally reached him, they requested a
copy of the affidavit and asked him, ``Are we still on time?''
Ms. Lewinsky's lawyer faxed a copy on January 15. The
President's counsel was aware of its contents, and as we will
see a little later, used it powerfully in the deposition.
Monica's lawyer called the court in Arkansas twice on
January 15 to be certain that the affidavit could be filed on
Saturday, the 16th--the 17th, I am sorry (see Appendix B,
Exhibit 5). He completed the motion to quash Monica's
deposition in the early morning hours of January 16 and mailed
it to the court with the false affidavit attached. It was sent
for Saturday delivery. The President's lawyers called him again
on the 16th telling him, ``You'll know what it's about.''
Obviously, the President needed that affidavit to be filed with
the court to support his plans to mislead Ms. Jones' attorneys
in the deposition.
On January 15, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek called Betty
Currie and asked her about Monica sending gifts to her by
courier. Ms. Currie then called Monica and told her about it.
The President was out of town, so Betty Currie called Monica
back and asked for a ride to Mr. Jordan's office. When they got
there, Mr. Jordan advised her to speak with Bruce Lindsey and
Mike McCurry. Ms. Currie testified that she spoke immediately
to Mr. Lindsey about Mr. Isikoff's call.
The President also provided false and misleading testimony
in the grand jury when he was asked about Mr. Bennett's
representation in the Jones deposition that the President is,
``fully aware,'' that Lewinsky filed an affidavit saying that,
``There is absolutely no sex of any kind, in any manner shape
or form with President Clinton.''
President Clinton was asked about this representation made
by his lawyer in his presence and whether he felt obligated to
inform the Federal judge who was sitting there of the true
facts. The President answered that he was, ``not even sure I
paid much attention to what Mr. Bennett was saying.'' And when
pressed further, he said he didn't believe he ``even focused on
what Mr. Bennett said in the exact words he did until I started
reading this transcript carefully for this hearing. That
moment,'' that moment being in the deposition, ``the whole
argument just passed me by.''
This last statement by the President is critical. First, he
had planned his answers to the grand jurors. Of course he did.
He spent literally days with his attorney going over that
deposition with a fine tooth comb and crafting answers in his
own mind that wouldn't be too obviously false. Second, he knew
that he could only avoid that admission that he allowed a false
affidavit to be filed by convincing the grand jury that he
hadn't been paying attention. Take a look at this tape that is
coming up, and you will see what the President of the United
States doesn't want the people of the United States ever to
see. Watch.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Mr. Bennett: Your Honor, excuse me, Mr. President, I need
some guidance from the Court at this point. I'm going to object
to the innuendo. I'm afraid, as I say, that this will leak. I
don't question the predicates here. I question the good faith
of Counsel, the innuendo in the question. Counsel is fully
aware that Ms. Lewinsky has filed, has an affidavit which they
are in possession of saying that there is absolutely no sex of
any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton,
and yet listening to the innuendo in the questions----
Well, Your Honor, with all due respect, I would like to
know the proffer. I'm not coaching the witness. In preparation
of the witness for this deposition, the witness is fully aware
of Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit, so I have not told him a single
thing he doesn't know, but I think when he asks questions like
this where he's sitting on an affidavit from the witness, he
should at least have good faith proffer.
Mr. Schippers. Do you think for one moment, after watching
that tape, that the President wasn't paying attention? They
were talking about Monica Lewinsky, at the time the most
dangerous person in the President's life. If the false
affidavit worked, he was home free, because they wouldn't be
permitted to question him about her. Can anyone rationally
argue that the President wasn't vitally interested in what Mr.
Bennett was saying? Nonetheless, when he was asked in the grand
jury whether Mr. Bennett's statement was false, he still was
unable to tell the truth, even before a Federal grand jury. He
answered with a now famous sentence: ``It depends on what the
meaning of `is' is.''
That single declaration, members of the committee, reveals
more about the character of the President than perhaps anything
else in the record. It points out his attitude and his
conscious indifference and complete disregard for the concept
of the truth. He picks out a single word and he weaves from it
a deceitful answer. ``Is'' doesn't mean ``was'' or ``will be,''
so I can answer no. He also invents convoluted definitions of
words or phrases in his own crafty mind. Of course he will
never seek to clarify a question because that may trap him into
a straight answer.
Can you imagine dealing with such a person in any important
matter? You would never know his secret mental reservations or
the unspoken redefinition of words. And even if you thought you
had solved the enigma, it wouldn't matter; he would just change
the meaning to suit his purpose.
But the President reinforced Monica's lie. Mr. Bennett read
to him the paragraph, paragraph 8, in the affidavit where she
denied a sexual relationship, not sexual relations, sexual
relationship, with the President. Watch.
[Videotape played.]
The audio transcription follows:]
Question: In paragraph eight of her affidavit, she says
this, ``I have never had a sexual relationship with the
President, he did not propose that we have a sexual
relationship, he did not offer me employment or other benefits
in exchange for a sexual relationship, he did not deny me
employment or other benefits for rejecting a sexual
relationship.''
Is that a true and accurate statement as far as you know
it?
Answer: That is absolutely true.
Mr. Schippers. ``That is absolutely true.'' And at the time
the President knew that it was absolutely false.
When asked about this in the grand jury and when questioned
about it by this committee, the President said that if Ms.
Lewinsky believed it to be true, then it was a true statement
(see Appendix B, Exhibit 18).
Well, let's see: First of all, Monica admitted to the grand
jury that the paragraph was false. Second, the President wasn't
asked about Ms. Lewinsky's belief. He was asked quite clearly
and directly by his own lawyer whether the statement was true.
His answer was unequivocally, yes. Even by the President's own
tortured reading of the definition of sexual relations, that
statement is false. To use the President's own definition,
Monica Lewinsky touched, ``one of the enumerated body parts.''
Therefore, she had sexual relations with him even as he defined
it (see Appendix B, Exhibit 13).
Lastly, the President wants us to believe that according to
his reading of the deposition definition, he did not have
sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky. That definition was an
afterthought, conceived while preparing for his grand jury
testimony. His explanation to the grand jury then was also
false and misleading.
The President does not explain his denial of an affair or
of a sexual affair. He can't. Neither can he avoid his
unequivocal denial in the answers to the interrogatories in the
Jones case. These interrogatories were answered before any
narrowed definition of sexual relations had been developed. But
here, listen for yourself.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Question: Did you have an extramarital sexual affair with
Monica Lewinsky?
Answer: No.
Question: If she told someone that she had a sexual affair
with you beginning in November of 1995, would that be a lie?
Answer: It's certainly not the truth. It would not be the
truth.
Question: I think I used the term ``sexual affair.'' And so
the record is completely clear, have you ever had sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in
Deposition Exhibit #1, as modified by the Court?
Mr. Bennett: I object because I don't know that he can
remember----
Judge Wright: Well, it's real short. He can--I will permit
the question and you may show the witness deposition number
one.
Answer: I have never had sexual relations with Monica
Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her.
Mr. Schippers. By the time the President concluded his
deposition, he knew that someone was talking, and he knew that
the only person who could be talking was Ms. Lewinsky herself.
The cover story that he and Monica had created and that he used
liberally himself during the deposition was now in real
jeopardy. It became imperative that he not only contact Ms.
Lewinsky, but that he obtain corroboration from his trusted
secretary, Betty Currie (see Appendix A, Chart S). So at about
7 p.m. on the night of the deposition, the President called Ms.
Currie and asked that she come in the following day, which was
a Sunday. (See Appendix B, Ms. Currie could not recall the
President ever before calling her that late at home on a
Saturday night (see Appendix A, Chart S). Sometime in the early
morning hours of January 18, by the way, the President learned
of the Drudge report concerning Ms. Lewinsky that had been
released earlier that day (see Appendix B, Exhibit 14).
As those charts indicate over there, between 11:49 and 2:55
p.m., there were three phone calls between Mr. Jordan and the
President (see Appendix B, Exhibit 7). At about 5 p.m., Ms.
Currie met with the President. The President said that he had
just been deposed and that the attorneys asked several
questions about Monica Lewinsky. That, incidentally, was a
direct violation of Judge Wright's order prohibiting
discussions about the deposition testimony. The President then
made a series of statements to Ms. Currie (see Appendix A,
Chart T):
I was never really alone with Monica, right?
You were always there when Monica was there, right?
Monica came on to me and I never touched her, right?
You could see and hear everything, right?
She wanted to have sex with me and I can't do that.
During Betty Currie's grand jury testimony, she was asked
whether she believed that the President wanted her to agree
with that statement.
Question: Would it be fair to say, then, based on the way
he stated the five points and the demeanor that he was using at
the time that he stated it to you, that he wished you to agree
with that statement?
Answer: I can't speak for him but----
Question: How did you take it? Because you told us at these
meetings in the last several days that that is how you took it.
Answer: (Nodding.) Witness is nodding.
Question: And you're nodding your head ``yes''; is that
correct?
Answer: That's correct.
Question: Okay, with regard to the statement that the
President made to you, quote, ``You remember I was never really
alone with Monica, right?'' was that also a statement that, as
far as you took, that he wished you to agree with that?
Answer: Correct.
When the President testified in the grand jury, he was
questioned about his intentions when he made those five
statements. The President stated:
I thought we were going to be deluged by press comments and
I was trying to refresh my memory about what the facts were.
And what I wanted to establish was that Betty was there at all
other times in the complex and I wanted to know what Betty's
memory was about what she heard, what she could hear. And what
I did not know was--I did not know that, and I was trying to
figure out in a hurry because I knew something was up. So I was
not trying to get Betty Currie to say something that was
untruthful. I was trying to get as much information as quickly
as I could.
Though Ms. Currie would later intimate that she did not
necessarily feel pressured by the President, she did state that
she felt the President was seeking her agreement or
disagreement with those statements.
Logic tells us that the President's plea that he was just
trying to refresh his memory is contrived and false again.
First, consider the President's options after he left his
deposition. He could abide by Judge Wright's order to remain
silent and not divulge any details of his deposition. He could
choose to defy Judge Wright's orders, call Betty on the phone
and ask her an open-ended question; for example, what do you
remember about Monica Lewinsky and so on and so forth. Or he
could call Ms. Currie, arrange a Sunday afternoon meeting at a
time when the fewest distractions exist and the White House
staff is at a minimum. The President chose the third option.
He made sure that this was a face-to-face meeting, not an
impersonal telephone call. He made sure that no one else was
present when he spoke to her. He made sure that he had the
meeting in his office, an area where he was comfortable and
could utilize its power and its prestige to influence future
testimony.
Once the controls were established, the President made
short, clear, understandable, declarative statements telling
Ms. Currie what her testimony was to be. He wasn't interested
in what she knew. Why? He didn't want to be contradicted by his
personal secretary. And the only way to ensure that was by
telling her what to say, not asking her what she remembered.
And you certainly don't make declarative statements to someone
regarding factual scenarios of which the listener was totally
unaware.
Betty Currie could not possibly have any personal knowledge
of the facts the President was asking about. How could she know
if they were never alone? If they were, Ms. Currie wasn't
there, right? So, too, how would she know that the President
never touched Monica? No, this wasn't any attempt by the
President to refresh anybody's recollection. It was witness
tampering, pure and simple.
The President essentially admitted to making those
statements when he knew that they were not true. Consequently,
he had painted himself kind of into a legal corner.
Understanding the seriousness of the President coaching Ms.
Currie, his attorneys have argued that those statements to her
could not constitute obstruction because she had not been
subpoenaed and the President didn't know she was a potential
witness at the time. This argument is refuted both by law and
facts.
The United States Court of Appeals rejected that very
argument and stated:
A person may be convicted of obstructing justice if he
urges or persuades a prospective witness to give false
testimony. Neither must the target be scheduled to testify at
the time of the offense, nor must he or she actually ever give
testimony at a later time.
As discussed, the President and Ms. Lewinsky concocted that
cover story that brought Ms. Currie into the fray. She was
there as a corroborating witness for the President. True to the
scheme, the President, as previously noted, invoked Ms.
Currie's name frequently as a witness who could corroborate his
false and misleading testimony about the Lewinsky affair in the
deposition. For example, during that deposition, when asked
whether he was alone with Ms. Lewinsky, the President said that
he was not alone with her or that Betty Currie was there with
Monica. When asked about the last time he saw Ms. Lewinsky,
which was December 28, he falsely testified that he only
recalled that she was there to see Betty. He also told the
Jones lawyers to ``ask Betty'' whether Lewinsky was alone with
him or with Betty in the White House between the hours of
midnight and 6 a.m. Asked whether Ms. Lewinsky sent packages to
him, he stated that Betty handled packages for him. Asked
whether he may have assisted in any way with Ms. Lewinsky's job
search, he stated that he thought Betty suggested Vernon Jordan
talk to Ms. Lewinsky, and that Monica asked Betty to ask
someone to talk to Ambassador Richardson about a job at the
U.N.
Of course Ms. Currie was a prospective witness, and the
President clearly wanted her to be deposed as a witness. His
``ask Betty,'' constantly ``ask Betty,'' clearly demonstrates
that he wanted them to bring her in. Now, the President claims
that he called Ms. Currie into work on a Sunday night only to
find out what she knew. But the President knew the truth about
the relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, and if he had told the
truth during his deposition the day before, he would have no
reason to worry about what Ms. Currie knew. More important, the
President's demeanor, Ms. Currie's reaction to his demeanor and
the suggested lies clearly prove that the President was not
merely interviewing Ms. Currie. Rather, he was looking for
corroboration for his false cover-up, and that is why he
coached her.
Very soon after his Sunday meeting with Ms. Currie at 5:12
p.m., the flurry of telephone calls began, looking for Monica
(see Appendix A, Chart S). Between 5:12 and 8:28, Ms. Currie
paged Monica four times. ``Kay'' is a reference to a code name
that Ms. Lewinsky and Ms. Currie had created when contacting
one another. At 11:02, the President called Ms. Currie at home
to ask if she had reached Lewinsky.
On the following morning, January 19, Currie continued to
work diligently on behalf of the President. Between 7:02 and
8:41 a.m., she paged Ms. Lewinsky another five times (see
Appendix A, Chart S; Appendix B, Exhibit 8). After the 8:41
page, Betty called the President at 8:43 and said that she had
been unable to reach Monica. One minute later, she again pages
Monica. This time Ms. Currie's page stated ``family
emergency.'' Apparently, in an attempt to alarm Monica into
calling back, they put that code in there. That may have even
been the President's idea, since Betty had just spoken with
him. The President was obviously quite concerned because he
called Betty Currie only 6 minutes later, at 8:50. Immediately
thereafter, at 8:51, Currie tries a different tack, sending the
message, ``Good news.'' Another one of the President's ideas,
no doubt. If bad news doesn'tget her to call, maybe good news
will. Ms. Currie said that she was trying to encourage Ms. Lewinsky to
call, but there was no sense of ``urgency.'' Ms. Currie's recollection
of why she was calling was again amazingly fuzzy. She said at one point
that she believed the President asked her to call Ms. Lewinsky and she
thought she was calling just to tell her that her name had come up in
the deposition. Monica Lewinsky had been subpoenaed, and everybody knew
it. Of course her name came up in the deposition. There was obviously
another and a much more important reason the President needed to get in
touch with her.
At 8:56 a.m., the President telephoned Vernon Jordan, who
then joined in the search. Over a course of 24 minutes, from
10:29 to 10:53 a.m., Mr. Jordan called the White House three
times, paged Ms. Lewinsky, and called Ms. Lewinsky's attorney
Frank Carter. Between 10:53 a.m. and 4:54 p.m., there are
continued calls between Mr. Jordan, Ms. Lewinsky's attorney and
several individuals at the White House.
Later that afternoon, things really went downhill for the
President. At 4:54 p.m., Mr. Jordan called Mr. Carter and
Carter relayed the information that he had been told he no
longer represented Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Jordan then made feverish
attempts to reach the President, or someone at the White House,
to tell them the bad news, as represented by the six calls
between 4:58 and 5:22 p.m. Vernon Jordan said that he tried to
relay this information to the White House because, ``The
President asked me to get Monica Lewinsky a job.'' She had a
job.
And he thought it was ``information they ought to have.''
(See Appendix A, Chart Q.)
So do I.
Mr. Jordan then called Mr. Carter back at 5:14 p.m. to ``go
over'' what they had already talked about. Mr. Jordan finally
reached the President at 5:56 and told him that Mr. Carter had
been fired.
Now, why all this activity? It shows how important it was
for the President of the United States to find Monica Lewinsky
to learn to whom she was talking. Betty Currie was in charge of
contacting Monica. The President had just completed a
deposition in which he had provided false and misleading
testimony about his relationship. She was a co-conspirator, she
being Monica Lewinsky, in hiding this relationship from the
Jones attorneys, and he was losing control over her. She was
slipping away. The President never again got complete control
over Monica Lewinsky, and that is why we are here today.
On August 17, the last act of this tragedy took place.
After six scorned invitations, the President of the United
States appeared before a grand jury of his fellow citizens and
took an oath to tell the truth. We all now know what happened
after that. The President equivocated, engaged in legalistic
fencing, but he also lied. During the course of this
presentation, I discuss several of those lies specifically.
Actually the entire performance, and it was a performance, was
calculated to mislead and to deceive the grand jury and
eventually the American people. The tone was set at the very
beginning. You recall Judge Starr testified that in a grand
jury, a witness can either tell the truth, lie or assert his
privilege against self-incrimination (see Appendix A, Chart Y).
President Clinton was given a fourth choice. The President was
permitted to read a statement. There it is, over there on the
chart (see Appendix A, Chart Z).
Even that statement is false in many particulars. President
Clinton claims that he engaged in wrong conduct with Ms.
Lewinsky ``on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in
1997.'' Notice he didn't mention 1995. There was a reason. On
the three occasions in 1995, Monica was a 21-year-old intern.
As for being on ``certain occasions,'' the President was alone
with Monica more than 21 times at least (see Appendix A, Chart
A). The President also told the jurors in that statement that
he ``also had occasional telephone conversations with Ms.
Lewinsky that included sexual banter.'' Now, ``occasional''
sounds like once every 3 or 4 months, doesn't it? Actually the
two had at least 55 phone conversations, many in the middle of
the night. And in 17 of those calls, Monica and the President
of the United States engaged in phone sex (see Appendix A,
Chart B). Now, I am not going to go into any details, but if
what happened on those phone calls is banter, then Buckingham
Palace is a cabin.
Here we are again with the President carefully crafting his
statements to give the appearance of being candid when actually
his intent was exactly the opposite. In addition, throughout
the testimony, whenever the President was asked a specific
question that could not be answered directly without either
admitting the truth or giving an easily provable false answer,
he said, ``I rely on my statement.'' Nineteen times he relied
on his statement, his false and misleading statement; nineteen
times, then, he repeated those lies. Let's just watch one of
them.
[Videotape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Question: Getting back to the conversation you had with
Mrs. Currie on January 18th, you told her--if she testified
that you told her, Monica came on to me and I never touched
her, you did, in fact, of course, touch Ms. Lewinsky, isn't
that right, in a physically intimate way?
Answer: Now, I've testified about that. And that's one of
those questions that I believe is answered by the statement
that I made.
Mr. Schippers. When Judge Starr was testifying here before
you, he made reference to six occasions on which, faced with a
choice, the President chose deception. Make it seven.
In an effort to avoid unnecessary work and to bring this
inquiry to an expeditious end, this committee submitted to the
President 81 requests to admit or deny specific facts relevant
to the investigation (see Appendix B, Exhibit 18). Although for
the questions could have been answered with a simple admit or
deny, the President elected to follow the pattern of selective
memory, reference to other testimony, blatant untruths, artful
distortions, outright lies and half-truths, the blackest lie of
all. When he did answer, he engaged in legalistic hair-
splitting in an obvious attempt to skirt the whole truth and to
deceive this committee.
Thus, on at least 23 questions, the President professed a
lack of memory. This from a man who is renowned for his
remarkable memory, for his amazing ability to recall details.
In at least 15 answers, the President merely referred to
``White House records.'' He also referred to his own prior
testimony and to that of others. He answered several of the
requests by merely stating the same deceptive answers that he
gave to the grand jury. We have pointed out several of those
false statements in this summation already.
The answers are a gratuitous insult to your intelligence
and to your common sense. The President then has lied under
oath in a civil deposition, lied under oath in a criminal grand
jury. He lied to the people, he lied to his Cabinet. He lied to
his top aides. And now he has lied under oath to the Congress
of the United States. There is no one left to lie to.
In addition, the half-truths, legalistic parsings, evasive
and misleading answers, were obviously calculated to obstruct
the efforts of this committee. They have had the effect of
seriously hampering the committee's ability to inquire and to
ascertain the truth. The President has, therefore, added
obstruction of an inquiry and an investigation before the
legislative branch to his obstructions of justice before the
judicial branch of our constitutional system of government.
Now, let's talk a little about abuse of power. As soon as
Paula Jones filed her lawsuit, President Clinton, rather than
confront the charges, tried to get it dismissed.
To do so, he used the power and dignity of the office of
the President in an attempt to deny Ms. Jones her day in court.
Remember, this was a private suit against the President in his
private capacity.
He argued that as President, he is immune from a lawsuit
during his tenure in office; that is, that the President as
President is immune from the civil law of the land. As I
recall, a similar position was taken by King John just before
that gathering at Runnymede where he was forced to sign the
Magna Carta.
More interesting is the rationale given by the President
for his immunity, and I am quoting from one of his documents:
``The broad public and constitutional interests that would be
placed at risk by litigating such claims against an incumbent
President far outweigh the asserted private interests of a
plaintiff who seeks civil damages for an alleged past injury.''
There you have it. Sorry, Ms. Jones. Because William
Jefferson Clinton occupies the office of President, your
lawsuit against him, not as President, but personally, must be
set aside. The President's lawyers are referring to the most
basic civil rights of an American citizen to due process of law
and to the equal protection of the laws, those same rights that
President Clinton had taken an oath to preserve and protect. Or
is it that some people are more equal than others?
Here is a clear example of the President abusing the power
and majesty of his office to obtain a purely personal advantage
over Ms. Jones and to avoid having to pay money damages.
The case was actually stalled for several years until the
Supreme Court ruled. If there is one statement that might
qualify as the model of President Clinton, it is that contained
in one of the briefs filed on behalf of him. ``In a very real
and significant way, the objectives of William J. Clinton, the
person, and his administration, are one and the same.''
But the President was just getting started. He employed the
power and prestige of his office and of his Cabinet officers to
mislead and to lie to the American people about the Jones case
and the Monica Lewinsky matter. But even more, throughout the
grand jury investigation and other investigations, the
President has tried to extend the relatively narrow bounds of
presidential privilege to unlimited if not bizarre lengths. One
witness, Bruce Lindsey, asserted executive privilege before the
grand jury even after that claim had been dropped by the
President. I guess he didn't get the message.
The whole plan was to delay, obstruct, and detour the
investigations; not to protect the presidency, but to protect
the President personally. It is bad enough that the office was
abused for that purpose, but the infinite harm done to the
presidency by those frivolous and dilatory tactics is
irreparable. With a single exception, every claim of immunity
and every privilege has been rejected outright by the courts.
Future presidents will be forced to operate within those
strictures because one person assumed that the office put him
above the law.
Furthermore, the power and prestige of the office of
President was marshaled to destroy the character and the
reputation of Monica Lewinsky, a young woman who had been ill-
used by the President. As soon as her name surfaced, the
campaign began to muzzle any possible testimony and to attack
the credibility of witnesses in a concerted effort to insulate
the President from the lawsuit of a single female citizen of
Arkansas. It almost worked.
When the President testified at his deposition that he had
no sexual relations, no sexual affairs or the like with Monica
Lewinsky, he felt secure. Monica, the only other witness, was
already in the bag. She'd furnished the false affidavit also
denying everything. Later when he realized from the Dredge
Report that there were taped conversations between Ms. Lewinsky
and Linda Tripp, he had to come up with a new story, and he
did. In addition, he recounted that story to White House aides
to passed it on to the grand jury.
On Wednesday, January 21, 1998, The Washington Post
published a story entitled, ``Clinton Accused of Urging Aide to
Lie; Starr Probes Whether President Told Woman to Deny Alleged
Affair to Jones Lawyers.'' The White House learned the
substance of the story on the evening of the 20th. After the
President learned of the existence of that story, he made a
series of telephone calls.
At 12:08 a.m. he called his attorney, Mr. Bennett, and they
had a conversation. The next morning, Mr. Bennett was quoted in
The Washington Post stating: ``The President adamantly denies
he ever had a relationship,'' not relation, relationship,
``with Ms. Lewinsky and she has confirmed the truth of that.''
He added, ``This story seems ridiculous and I frankly smell a
rat.''
He was right.
After that conversation, the President had a half-hour
conversation with White House counsel, Bruce Lindsey. At 1:16
a.m., the President called Betty Currie and spoke to her for 20
minutes. He then called Bruce Lindsey again. At 6:30 a.m., the
President called Vernon Jordan. He wasn't sleeping too well,
apparently. After that, the President again conversed with
Bruce Lindsey.
This flurry of activity was a prelude to the stories which
the President would soon inflict upon top White House aides and
his advisers. On the morning of January 21, the President met
with Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and his two deputies, John
Podesta and Sylvia Matthews. Erskine Bowles recalled entering
the President's office at 9 a.m. that morning. He then recounts
the President's immediate words as he and two others entered
the Oval Office (see Appendix A, Chart V): ``And he looked up
at us and he said the same thing he said to the American
people. He said, `I want you to know, I did not have sexual
relationships with this woman, Monica Lewinsky. I did not ask
anybody to lie, and when the facts come out, you'll
understand.' '' After the President made that blanket denial,
Mr. Bowles responded: ``I said, `Mr. President, I don't know
what the facts are. I don't know if they are good, bad or
indifferent. But whatever they are, you ought to get them out
and you ought to get them out right now.' ''
When counsel asked whether the President responded to
Bowles' suggestions that he tell the truth, Bowles responded,
``I don't think he made any response, but he didn't disagree
with me.''
Deputy Chief John Podesta also recalled a meeting with the
President on the morning of January 21st. He testified before
the grand jury as to what occurred in the Oval Office (see
Appendix A, Chart V):
And we started off meeting--we didn't--I don't think we
said anything. And I think the President directed this
specifically to Mr. Bowles. He said, ``Erskine, I want you to
know that this story is not true.''
``Question: What else did he say?
``Answer: He said that--that he had not had a sexual
relationship with her and that he never asked anybody to lie.
Two days later on January 23rd, Mr. Podesta had another
discussion with the President:
I asked him how he was doing and he said he was working on
his draft and he said to me that he never had sex with her, and
that--and that he never asked, you know, he repeated the
denial. But he was extremely explicit in saying he never had
sex with her.
Then Podesta testified as follows:
Question: Okay. Not explicit in that sense, that he got
more specific than sex, than the word ``sex.''
Answer: Yes, he was more specific than that.
Question: Okay, share that with us.
Answer: Well, I think he said, he said that--there was some
spate of, you know, what sex acts were counted, and he said he
had never had sex with her in any way whatsoever.
Question: Okay.
Answer: That they had not had oral sex.
Later in the day on January 21st, the President called
Sidney Blumenthal to his office. It is interesting to note how
the President's lies become more elaborate and pronounced when
he has time to concoct his newest line of defense. Remember
that when the President spoke to Mr. Bowles and Mr. Podesta he
simply denied the story. But by the time he spoke to Mr.
Blumenthal, the President had added three new angles: One, he
now portrays Monica Lewinsky as the aggressor; two, he launched
an attack on her reputation by portraying her as a stalker; and
three, he presents himself as an innocent victim being attacked
by the forces of evil.
Note well this recollection by Mr. Blumenthal in his June
4th, 1998, grand jury testimony (see Appendix A, Chart U):
``And it was at this point that he gave his account of what
had happened to me and he said that Monica--and it came very
fast, he said, `Monica Lewinsky came at me and made a sexual
demand on me.' He rebuffed her. He said, `I've gone down that
road before, I've caused pain for a lot of people and I'm not
going to do that again.''
She threatened him. She said that she would tell people
that they'd had an affair, that she was known as the stalker
among her peers and that she hated it and if she had an affair
or said she had an affair, then she wouldn't be the stalker
anymore.
This is the President speaking.
And then consider what he told Mr. Blumenthal moments
later.
And he said, ``I feel like a character in a novel. I feel
like somebody who is surrounded by an oppressive force that is
creating a lie about me and I can't get the truth out. I feel
like the character in the novel ``Darkness at Noon.' '' And I
said to him, ``When this happened with Monica Lewinsky, were
you alone?'' And he said, ``Well, I was within eyesight or
earshot of someone.''
At one point Mr. Blumenthal was asked by the grand jury to
describe the President's manner and demeanor during the
exchange:
Question: In response to my question how you responded to
the President's story about a threat or discussion about a
threat from Mrs. Lewinsky, you mentioned you didn't recall
specifically. Do you recall generally the nature of your
response to the President?
``Answer: It was generally sympathetic to the President,
and I certainly believed his story.
Listen to this. ``It was a very heartfelt story. He was
pouring out his heart, and I believed him.''
When Betty Currie testified before the grand jury, she
couldn't recall whether she had a second one-on-one discussion
with the President on January 20th or Wednesday January 21st.
She did state that on one of those days, the President summoned
her back into his office. At that time he recapped their now
famous Sunday afternoon post-deposition discussion in the Oval
Office. I think you all remember that meeting.
That is when the President made a series of those
statements to Ms. Currie, some of which Ms. Currie could not
have possibly known. Monica came on to me and stuff like that.
When he spoke to her on January 20th and 21st, he spoke in
the same tone and the same demeanor that he'd used on Sunday
afternoon. Ms. Currie stated that the President may have
mentioned that she might be asked about Monica Lewinsky.
It is abundantly clear that the President's assertions to
staff were designed for dissemination to the American people.
But it is equally important to understand that the President
intended his aides to relate that false story to investigators
and grand jurors alike. We know that this is true for the
following reasons: The special division had recently appointed
the Office of Independent Counsel to investigate the Monica
Lewinsky matter. The President realized that the Jones
attorneys and investigators were investigating this matter. The
Washington Post journalists and investigators were exposing the
details of the Lewinsky affair, and the investigation relating
to perjury charges based on presidential activities in the Oval
Office would certainly lead to interviews and possible
testimony on thepart of West Wing employees and high-level
staffers.
Because the President knew he wasn't going to appear before
the grand jury, his version of the events could be supplied by
those staffers to whom he was telling these lies. The President
actually acknowledged that he knew his aides might be called
before the grand jury. In addition, Mr. Podesta testified that
he knew he was likely to be a witness in the ongoing grand jury
criminal investigation. He said he was ``sensitive about not
exchanging information because I knew I was a potential
witness.''
He also recalled that the President volunteered to provide
information about Ms. Lewinsky to him, even though Mr. Podesta
had not asked for those details. In other words, the
President's lies and deceptions to his White House aides,
coupled with his steadfast refusal to accept an invitation to
testify, had the effect of presenting a totally false account
of the events to the investigators and to the grand jurors.
The President's aides believed the President when he told
them his contrived account. The aides' eventual testimony
provided the President's calculated falsehoods to the grand
jury which, in turn, gave the jurors a totally inaccurate and
misleading set of facts upon which to base any decisions.
President Clinton also implemented a win at any cost
strategy. We know this because of testimony presented by Dick
Morris to the Federal grand jury. Mr. Morris, a former
presidential advisor, testified that on January 21st he met
President Clinton and they discussed the turbulent events that
were occurring that day. The President again denied the
accusation against him, and after further discussion, they
decided to take an overnight poll to determine if the American
people would forgive the President for adultery, perjury and
obstruction of justice. When Mr. Morris obtained the results he
called the President.
This is Mr. Morris talking:
``And I said, `They're just too shocked by this. It's just
too new. It's too raw.' And I said, `And the problem is they're
willing to forgive you for adultery, but not for perjury or
obstruction of justice or the various other things.' ''
Morris recalls the following exchange:
``And I said, `They're just not ready for it,' '' meaning
the voters.
``And the President said, `Well, we just have to win,
then.' '' The President, of course, can't recall this
statement.
Worst of all, in order to win, it was necessary to convince
the public and hopefully those grand jurors who read the
newspapers that Monica Lewinsky was unworthy of belief. If the
account given by Monica to Linda Tripp was believed, then there
would emerge a tawdry affair in or near the Oval Office.
Moreover, the President's own perjury and that of Monica
Lewinsky would surface. How do you do this? Congressman Graham
showed you. You employ the full power and credibility of the
White House and the press corps of the White House to destroy
the witness.
Thus on January 19th:
``Inside the White House, the debate goes on about the best
way to destroy `that woman,' as President Bill Clinton called
Monica Lewinsky. Should they paint her as a friendly fantasist
or a malicious stalker?''
Again: ``That poor child has serious emotional problems,''
Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, said
Tuesday night before the State of the Union. ``She's
fantasizing. And I haven't heard that she played with a full
deck in her other experiences.''
Listen to Gene Lyons, an Arkansas columnist, on January 30:
``But it's also very easy to make a mirror's eye view of
this thing, look at this thing from a completely different
direction and take the same evidence and posit a totally
innocent relationship in which the President was, in a sense,
the victim of someone rather like the woman who followed David
Letterman around.''
From another ``source'' on February 1st:
``Monica had become known at the White House, says one
source, as `the stalker.' ''
And on February 4th:
``The media have reported that sources describe Lewinsky as
`infatuated' with the President, `star struck', and even `a
stalker.' ''
Here is the worst:
``One White House aide called reporters''--called
reporters--``to offer information about Monica Lewinsky's past,
her weight problems, and what the aide said was her nickname,
`The Stalker.' ''
``Junior staff members, speaking on the condition that they
not be identified, said she was known as a flirt, wore her
skirts too short, and was `A little bit weird.' ''
``Little by little, ever since allegations''--this is all
part of this same article--``ever since allegations of an
affair between the U.S. President, Bill Clinton, and Lewinsky
surfaced 10 days ago, White House sources have waged a behind-
the-scenes campaign to portray her as an untrustworthy climber
obsessed with the President.''
``Just hours after the story broke, one White House source
made unsolicited calls offering that Lewinsky was the
`troubled' product of divorced parents and may have been
following the footsteps of her mother, who wrote a tell-all
book.''
``One story''--still, we are still in this same article--
``one story had Lewinsky following former Clinton aide George
Stephanopoulos to Starbucks. After observing what kind of
coffee he ordered, she showed up the next day at his
secretary's desk with a cup of the same coffee to `surprise
him.' ''
The President was given every opportunity to present tothis
committee witnesses. Did you see one human being come in to corroborate
these filthy stories?
Sound familiar? It ought to, because that is the same
tactics that were used to destroy Paula Jones. The difference
is that these rumors were emanating from the White House, the
bastion of the free world, and to protect one man from being
forced to answer for his conduct in the highest office in the
United States.
Now, let's turn to President Clinton's grand jury
appearance. On August 16th, the President's personal attorney,
David Kendall, provided the following statement:
``There is apparently an enormous amount of groundless
speculation about the President's testimony tomorrow. The truth
is the truth. Period. And that's how the President will
testify.''
On August 17th the President testified. He admitted to the
grand jury that, after the allegations were publicly reported,
he made misleading statements to particular aides whom he knew
were likely to be called to testify before the grand jury.
Question: ``Do you deny'' or ``Do you recall denying any
sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky to the following
people: Harry Thomasson, Erskine Bowles, Harold Ickes, Mr.
Podesta, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Jordan, Ms. Betty Currie? Do you
recall denying any sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky to
those individuals?''
Here is the President's straightforward answer:
``I recall telling a number of those people that I didn't
have, either I didn't have an affair with Monica Lewinsky or
didn't have sex with her. And I believe, sir, that you'll have
to ask them what they thought. But I was using those terms in
the normal way people use them. You'll have to ask them what
they thought I was saying.''
Question: ``If they testified that you denied sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky, or if they told us that you
denied that, do you have any reason to doubt them, in the days
after the story broke; do you have any reason to doubt them?''
Answer--for once--``No.''
The President then was specifically asked whether he knew
that his aides were likely to be called before the grand jury.
Question: ``It may have been misleading, sir, and you knew
though, after January 21st when the Post article broke and said
that Judge Starr was looking into this, you knew that they
might be witnesses. You knew that they might be called into a
grand jury, didn't you?''
Yes or no?
Mr. Clinton: ``That's right. I think I was quite careful
what I said after that. I may have said something to all the
people to that effect, but I'll also--whenever anybody asked me
any details, I said, look, I don't want you to be a witness or
I turn you into a witness or give you information that would
get you in trouble. I just wouldn't talk. I, by and large,
didn't talk to people about it.''
Question: ``If all these people--let's leave Mrs. Currie
for a minute. Vernon Jordan''--and then they name all the
people--``after the story broke, after Judge Starr's
involvement was known * * * have said that you denied sexual
relationship with them. Are you denying that?''
Answer: ``No.''
Which is it? He didn't talk to anybody, but if they come in
and say he did talk to somebody, they're not lying?
Question: ``And you've told us that you''----
Mr. Clinton: ``I'm just telling you what I meant by it. I
told you what I meant by it when they started this
deposition.''
Question: ``You've told us now''--he refers to deposition,
by the way, when he's talking about the grand jury testimony--
''You've told us now that you were being careful, but that it
might have been misleading. Is that correct?''
Answer: ``It might have been * * *. So what I was trying to
do was to give them something they could--that would be true,
even if misleading in the context of this deposition, and keep
them out of trouble, and let's deal--and deal with what I
thought was the almost ludicrous suggestion that I had urged
someone to lie or tried to suborn perjury, in other words.''
As the President testified before the grand jury, he
maintained that he was being truthful with his aides.
Watch the screen, again.
[Video tape played.]
[The audio transcription follows:]
Question: You don't remember denying any kind of sex in any
way, shape or form, and including oral sex, correct?
Answer: I remember that I issued a number of denials to
people that I thought needed to hear them, but I tried to be
careful and to be accurate, and I do not remember what I said
to John Podesta.
Question: Did you deny it to them or not, Mr. President?
Answer: Let me finish. So, what--I did not want to mislead
my friends, but I wanted to find language where I could say
that. I also, frankly, did not want to turn any of them into
witnesses, because I--and, sure enough, they all became
witnesses.
Question: Well, you know they might be----
Answer: And so----
Question: Witnesses, didn't you?
Answer: And so I said to them things that were true about
this relationship. That I used--in the language I used, I said,
there's nothing going on between us. That was true. I said, I
have not had sex with her as I defined it. That was true. And
did I hope that I would never have to be here on this day
giving this testimony? Of course.
But I also didn't want to do anything to complicate this
matter further. So, I said things that were true. They may have
been misleading, and if they were I have to take responsibility
for it, and I'm sorry.
Mr. Schippers. He stated that when he spoke to his aides,
he was very careful with his wording. The President stated he
wanted his statement regarding ``sexual relations'' to be
literally true because he was only referring to intercourse.
However, recall that John Podesta said that the President
denied sex ``in any way whatsoever,'' including oral.
The President told Mr. Podesta, Mr. Bowles, Ms. Williams,
and Harold Ickes that he did not have a ``sexual relationship''
with that woman.
And also take note of this fact: Seven days after the
President's grand jury appearance, the White House issued a
document entitled ``Talking Points, January 24, 1998.'' (See
Appendix A, Chart W; Appendix B, Exhibit 16.) They're up there
on that chart. This ``Talking Points'' document outlined
proposed questions that the President may be asked in the press
conference. It also outlined suggested answers to those
questions. The ``Talking Points'' purport to state the
President's view of sexual relations and his view of the
relationship with Ms. Lewinsky (see Appendix B, Exhibit 17).
The talking points are as follows:
Question: ``What acts does the President believe constitute
a sexual relationship?''
Answer: ``I can't believe we're on national television
discussing this. I'm not about to engage in an `act-by-act'
discussion of what constitutes a sexual relationship.''
``Well, for example, Ms. Lewinsky is on tape indicating
that the President does not believe oral sex is adultery. Would
oral sex, to the President, constitute a sexual relationship?''
Answer: ``Of course it would.''
Based upon this foregoing material, the President's own
talking points refute his ``literal truth'' argument.
I would like to take a few moments to address some of the
matters that have been put before you by the President's
defenders over the past few days. Ever since this inquiry
began, we have heard the complaint that no factual witnesses
were being called by the majority. Actually, there are many
factual witnesses: Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, Betty
Currie, Sidney Blumenthal, Erskine Bowles, John Podesta, all of
whom have testified one or more times under oath--under oath,
either in a formal deposition or before a grand jury.
With minimal exceptions, I've avoided reference to
interviews and the like. Interviewees are not under oath and
0usually the report doesn't reflect the exact words of the
witness. I note, though, that the President did rely on unsworn
testimony and unsworn interviews and produced no factual
witnesses whatsoever.
Now, some Members have suggested that none of these
witnesses have been subjected to cross-examination. Well, the
answer to that is twofold.
First, this is not, as some seem to believe, a trial. It is
in the nature of an inquest. Any witnesses whose testimony is
referred to in this proceeding will be subjected to full cross-
examination if a trial results in the Senate. That is the time
to cross-examine and test credibility. As it stands, all of the
factual witnesses upon whose testimony I have relied are
uncontradicted and amply corroborated.
Second, if any Member or the President's counsel had
specific questions for any of these witnesses that I just
named, he or she was free to bring them before the committee
and to ask them to testify in this proceeding.
Although the President's lawyers admit that his actions in
the Jones case and in the Lewinsky matter were immoral, and I
think they used the term ``maddening'' acts, they argue that
they don't rise to the level of criminal activity and certainly
not to the level of impeachable offenses.
They produced another gaggle of witnesses to testify that
this really is not so bad, it's only lying about sex; that only
private conduct is involved and really the Congress should just
close up the book, slap the President on the hand, and, well,
just kind of get on with politics as usual. Some even suggested
that a prosecutor wouldn't even consider an indictment based
upon the evidence available here. Well, that remains to be
seen.
I doubt if any of those experts have read all the evidence
that I have read, and we know that the prosecutors are in
possession of that evidence and perhaps much more. Whether to
indict is their decision. And whether the offenses of President
Clinton are criminally chargeable is of no moment whatever.
This is not a criminal trial, nor is it a criminal inquiry. It
is a fundamental precept that an impeachable offense need not
be a criminal act.
Concerning the perjury issue, it is noteworthy that the
President's argument is focused on only one aspect of his
testimony, that regarding whether he had sexual relations. He
glosses over or ignores the perjury claims premised on his
denial of being alone with Ms. Lewinsky, his denial of any
involvement in obtaining a job for her in his January 17th
deposition, his falsely minimizing the number of occasions on
which he had encounters with Ms. Lewinsky and his lies
regarding the gifts to and from her.
They also argue that because the President believed that he
was telling the truth and there is no proof that he didn't so
believe, then he cannot be guilty of perjury. Now that is a
good one. That is a good one. That totally misstates the law of
perjury. They assert that under the law, the subjective belief
of the defendant is what counts. In fact, however, the question
in perjury is judged by an objective standard as to what is
reasonable under the circumstances, not the nebulous subjective
standard advanced by the President's counsel.
The President's subjective belief is not sufficient. He
admits that he is an attorney and at the time of his deposition
was represented by Mr. Bennett as well as Mr. Ruff. The
President had an independent duty to review the definition of
``sexual relations'' and to determine whether, in fact, his
conduct fell within that definition. He cannot rely on his
attorney, who was not in possession of all the facts, to
divorce himself from a determination of whether he told the
truth. He cannot rely on what his attorney thinks any more than
he could rely on what Monica Lewinsky thought when he, the
President, is the only person who knows the relevant facts and
is able to determine whether his conduct fell within that
definition. In other words, there must be a reasonable basis
for the President's subjective belief. There was no reasonable
basis.
Similarly, the argument that there is ``no proof'' that the
President didn't believe that he was telling the truth as to
whether he engaged in sexual relations under the Jones
definition ignores the record. The proof that the President's
subjective belief is contradicted by the evidence is
overwhelming, and it has been addressed in detail. For the
President now to advance the assertion that he had a subjective
belief that his conduct did not constitute ``sexual relations''
continues that same subterfuge and obstruction begun in the
Jones case, continued in the grand jury, and now presented here
before the Congress.
Another argument propounded by those who oppose impeachment
is that the President's lies were not material to the Jones
case. How many times have we heard that? That is to say, the
Lewinsky information was private and irrelevant. That argument
was disposed of by Judge Susan Webber Wright in her order of
December 11, 1997. She said:
The Court finds, therefore, that the plaintiff is entitled
to information regarding any individuals with whom the
President had sexual relations or proposed or sought to have
sexual relations and who were during the relevant time frame .
. . State or Federal employees. Plaintiff is also entitled to
information regarding every person whom the President asked,
during the relevant time frame, to arrange a private meeting
between himself and any female.
More than a month before the President's deposition and six
days before the President suggested that Monica Lewinsky could
sign a phony affidavit to avoid testifying, the judge had
clearly concluded that the subject matter was neither private
nor irrelevant. So much for the materiality issue.
If the President's testimony concerning Monica Lewinsky was
not material, the judge--who, by the way, was sitting there
while the deposition was being taken--would never have allowed
it.
Judge Wright's order is not the only decision on the
materiality question. A recently unsealed opinion from the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit conclusively decided the issue and is right on point.
In the opinion, filed under seal on May 26th, 1998, the
court addressed Ms. Lewinsky's argument that she could not have
committed perjury or obstruction of justice because her false
affidavit did not involve facts material to the Jones case. In
a three to zero decision, the Court of Appeals rejected that
argument.
The Court examined whether the misrepresentation or
concealment was predictably capable of affecting, that is, had
a natural tendency to affect, the official decision. Here is
what the judges unanimously concluded:
There can be no doubt that Lewinsky's statements in her
affidavit were--in the words of Kungys versus United States--
predictably capable of affecting this decision. She executed
and filed her affidavit for this very purpose.
Of course, if Ms. Lewinsky's relationship with President
Clinton was a material issue when she signed her affidavit, it
certainly was a material issue when the President testified at
a deposition. And just as those lies could support perjury and
obstruction of justice against Ms. Lewinsky, they support
perjury and obstruction of justice against the President. Both
Ms. Lewinsky and the President are subject to the same criminal
code.
However, even if the three judges on the D.C. Court of
Appeals were wrong and if, for some hypothetical reason, the
President's relationship was not material in the Jones case,
there can be no doubt in the President's or anyone else's mind
that the relationship was absolutely material when he lied to
the grand jury and when he lied to this committee.
Perhaps the most strident complaint from the President's
supporters is what they perceive as the fundamental unfairness
of this process. They have, however, been hard-pressed to point
with any degree of specificity to any unfair actions.
With reference to the Office of the Independent Counsel,
did they treat the President unfairly? They invited him to
testify before the grand jury on six occasions before they
issued a subpoena. Even then, they withdrew the subpoena and
allowed Mr. Clinton the dignity of appearing voluntarily.
During his grand jury testimony, which, by the way, was
given in the White House and not the district court, the
President was permitted to have his lawyers present at all
times. The prosecutors allowed him to read a statement into the
record and to rely on that statement in lieu of an answer some
19 times. Finally, the time allotted for questioning the
President was limited. Not one of these courtesies is afforded
to any other witness before a grand jury.
How about in his dealings with the committee? Has the
President been treated fairly? He has been treated with
extraordinary courtesy and fairness. Examples abound.
The Rodino Watergate format was adopted, giving the White
House the privilege of responding to evidence received and
testimony adduced; suggesting additional testimony or other
evidence to make a complete record; attending all executive or
open hearings at which witnesses are called; and questioning
witnesses before the committee.
The President's counsel was permitted to cross-examine
Judge Starr for a full hour. I only got 45 minutes.
A complete hearing was held in part because of a White
House request concerning standards for impeachment.
The President's counsel was allowed access to the secure
room over in the Ford Building so it could assist him in
preparing his defense.
The committee afforded the President 30 hours, or the
equivalent of 4 full days, if he needed it, to present
witnesses or other defense evidence.
The staff met with White House counsel to try working out a
method of cooperation.
And the Chairman repeatedly asked the White House to submit
any exculpatory evidence.
Despite all of these efforts, the Chairman continues to
suffer from accusations of unfairness. What more do they want?
On the other hand, how fair have the President and his
supporters been?
Was it fair to procure and produce false affidavits from
prospective witnesses in the Jones case and thus subject those
witnesses to prosecution for perjury? How about employing every
conceivable means, including perjury and obstruction, to defeat
the legal rights of a woman who claimed she had been wronged?
How fair was it to stand by and allow his friends to attack
that woman's character with remarks like, ``drag a $10 bill
through a trailer camp and you never know what will turn up''?
Was it fair to Monica Lewinsky to construct an elaborate
lie that made it appear that she was a predator who threatened
to lie about a sexual encounter if the President didn't succumb
to her advances? By the way, if the dress had not turned up,
that story would have been President Clinton's defense today.
The stage had already been set, the scenery was in place, and
the actors had been given their lines.
Was it fair for the President to coach Betty Currie,
knowing that she would likely testify under oath and expose
herself to possible criminal charges? And how about the
constant trashing of anyone who had the courage to criticize or
to refuse to go along with the game plan? Is it fair to make
misstatements about the Independent Counsel's Referral and then
use those misstatements as the basis to attack Judge Starr's
credibility?
As to the last, my staff and I have had the unenviable task
of reviewing the President's latest Submission consisting of
almost 200 pages. For the most part, there was nothing new. It
had all been presented to you in one form or another by the
experts brought in by the Minority and the President, which, by
the way, far outnumbered those produced by the Republican
Majority. Most of the arguments have been dealt with in my
presentation already, but a few points might be highlighted.
In paragraph 2 of the Preface the statement is made:
``He,'' referring to the President, ``did not want anyone to
know about his personal wrongdoing.'' That personal wrongdoing
includes perjury, obstruction and the like. Of course he didn't
want anybody to know, and he lied and had others lie to conceal
it.
The introduction contains this statement: ``He repeatedly
has acknowledged that what he did was wrong, he has apologized,
and he has sought forgiveness.'' We all know that he has only
admitted what he couldn't deny, and he has continued to play
games about the rest.
Stripped to its basic elements, the President's Submission
merely states:
That the President lied; that it was okay to lie because it
was nobody's business but his own; that his conduct isn't a
high crime or misdemeanor; that he would never be convicted of
perjury or obstruction in a court of law; that the Jones suit
was bogus, therefore, his testimony didn't matter.
By the way, do you settle bogus suits for $700,000 after
you won?
Judge Starr was a prosecutor most foul; Judge Starr
purposely failed to include relevant exculpatory evidence; and,
finally, impeachment is such a big step that the committee
shouldn't put the country through it.
By the way, who is putting the country through this? The
President, by his actions.
The Submission is the ultimate use of the ``legal
technicality'' concept.
We have heard all of this before. This Submission is a
last-ditch effort of a President caught in his own legacy of
lies, scandal and abuse of the highest office in the land. The
American people deserve better. They do not deserve legal hair-
splitting, prevarication and dissembling.
Most disturbing to me was the series of misrepresentations
regarding the Referral from Mr. Starr and the material produced
to support it. Let me give you just a few salient examples:
Regarding the President's and Ms. Lewinsky's testimony, the
Submission omits a key passage of a quotation. They say: For
example, the President answered yes to the question, ``Your
testimony is that it was possible, then, that you were alone
with her?'' This is the defense. He answered yes.
Now, listen to the full testimony:
Question: So I understand, your testimony is that it was
possible, then, that you were alone with her, but you have no
specific recollection of that ever happening?
Answer: Yes, that is correct. It's possible that she, in,
while she was working there, brought something to me and that
at the time she brought it to me, she was the only one there.
That is possible.
Not quite the same. The President testified that, despite
the theoretical possibility that he was alone with Ms.
Lewinsky, he had no recollection of it and even that
possibility was limited to while she was working at the White
House and when she was delivering papers. Same old cover story.
Given that the President and Ms. Lewinsky had been alone
less than 3 weeks earlier as well as numerous other times over
the span of two-and-a-half years, there is reason to doubt the
truthfulness of his answer.
Again, the President was asked in the deposition: Did
anyone other than your attorneys ever tell you that Monica
Lewinsky had been served with a subpoena in this case?
According to the White House, when the President responded
negatively, ``I don't think so,'' he meant something other than
the words he uttered.
From the Submission: Plainly, the President was not
testifying that no one other than his attorneys had told him
that Ms. Lewinsky had been subpoenaed. Now they are trying to
tell you that ``no'' means ``yes.'' Can't go much further.
The White House Submission notes that Ms. Lewinsky stated
that no one asked her to lie. The Referral makes this very
point. I think that aspect has been covered thoroughly.
Concerning evidence regarding the transfer of gifts, the
White House contends that the Referral omits a fundamental and
important fact that it was Ms. Lewinsky who, in her December
28th conversation with the President, first mentioned Ms.
Currie as a possible holder of the gifts. In fact, the Referral
twice quotes Ms. Lewinsky's testimony that she asked the
President if, ``I should put the gifts outside my house
somewhere or give them to someone, maybe Betty.''
Another one. The White House Submission contends that a
wealth of information contradicts the allegation that the
President obstructed justice with regard to gifts he had given
Ms. Lewinsky. As the most dramatic contradiction highlighted as
the epigraph to the section, the Submission juxtaposes the
Independent Counsel's statement that, ``the President and Ms.
Lewinsky met and discussed what should be done with the gifts
subpoenaed from her,'' and Ms. Lewinsky's statement in the
grand jury that ``he really didn't--he really didn't discuss
it.'' In truth, he really didn't discuss it.
He really didn't discuss it came in answer to--in response
to a second, more specific question after Ms. Lewinsky had
spent several hundred words recounting her conversation with
the President about the gifts. The White House quotation is so
brazenly misleading that I'm going to quote the full excerpt:
Juror: Retell for me the conversation you had with the
President about the gifts.
The Witness (Ms. Lewinsky): Okay. It was December 28th and
I was there to get my Christmas gifts from him. And we spent
maybe about 5 minutes or so, not very long, talking about the
case. And I said to him, ``Well, do you think--
What I mentioned, I said to him that it had really alarmed
me about the hat pin being in the subpoena, and I think he said
something like, ``Oh,'' you know, ``that sort of bothered me,
too.'' You know, ``That bothers me.'' Something like that.
And at one point I said, ``Well, do you think I should--''
I don't think I said ``get rid of.'' I think I said, ``But do
you think I should put away or maybe give to Betty or give to
someone the gifts?''
And he--I don't remember his response. I think it was
something like, ``I don't know,'' or ``Hmm,'' or--there really
was no response.
I know that I didn't leave the White House with any notion
of what I should do with them, that I should do anything
different than if they were sitting in my house. And then later
I got a call from Betty.
Juror: Now, did you bring up Betty's name or did the
President bring up Betty's name?
The Witness: I think I brought it up. The President
wouldn't have brought up Betty's name because he really
didn't--he didn't discuss it. So either I brought up Betty's
name, which I think is probably what happened, because I
remember not being too, too shocked when Betty called.
As an omission characterized as very cautious, insidious,
extraordinary and wholly unfair--there is that word again--the
Submission charges that the Referral never attempted to rebut
Ms. Currie's assertion that Ms. Lewinsky wanted to get rid of
the gifts because, in Ms. Currie's words, ``people were asking
questions about the stuff he had gotten.'' In fact, the
Referral outlines Ms. Currie's understanding of these questions
and points out the contradictory evidence.
The White House alleges that ``no mention is made in the
Referral of the fact that the OIC and the grand jurors regarded
as `odd' that there was a gift-giving on the same day.'' In
fact, the Referral not only acknowledges this apparent anomaly
but uses exactly the same term: ``When Ms. Lewinsky was asked
whether she thought it odd for the President to give her gifts
under the circumstances, she testified that she didn't think of
it at the time, but she did note some hesitancy on the
President's part.''
According to the White House, the Referral omits important
testimony from Ms. Currie to the effect that Ms. Lewinsky asked
her to pick up the box of gifts. In fact, the Referral includes
Ms. Lewinsky's recollection three times.
The White House contends that the Referral inaccurately
indicates that Ms. Currie said that the gift transfer occurred
on December 28th. In fact, the Referral says that ``Ms. Currie
stated, at various times, that the transfer occurred some time
in late December or early January.''
I could go on. I have pages here of things that happened,
and I'm not going to take your time to go through each one of
these obvious misstatements.
I will, however, say that the same effort was made this
morning. You were allowed to listen to a taped conversation
between Ms. Tripp and Ms. Lewinsky. The conversation was as
follows:
Ms. Tripp: Hmm, he knows you are going to lie? You've told
him, haven't you?
Lewinsky answer: No.
A great deal was made about that answer. There is Monica
Lewinsky saying the President said no.
Listen to the rest of it.
Ms. Tripp: Who, me?
Ms. Lewinsky: No, me.
Ms. Tripp: Oh.
Ms. Lewinsky: Whatever my ``quote, unquote'' truth is.
Ms. Tripp: Hmm, he knows you're going to lie. You've told
him, haven't you?
Ms. Lewinsky: No.
Ms. Tripp: I thought that night when he called that you
established that much.
Ms. Lewinsky: Well, I mean, I don't know.
Ms. Tripp: Oh, Jesus, does he think you're going to tell
the truth?
Answer: No.
What do they think we are? Do they think we don't read what
they give us? Do they think we don't listen to what we hear in
this room? The Submission has cited wrong testimony. They have
cited wrong propositions of law. They have cited experts who
say exactly the opposite of what they say they say. Does it
ever stop? This again proves the arrogance of the White House
and its total disdain for the intellect of the American people.
Some of the experts that have testified have questioned
whether the President's deportment affects his office, the
government of the United States or the dignity and honor of the
country. Let's take just a couple of minutes to cover that
issue.
Our Founders decided in the Constitutional Convention that
one of the duties imposed on the President is to take care that
the laws are faithfully executed. Furthermore, he is required
to take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States. Twice this President stood
on the steps of the Capitol, raised his right hand to God and
repeated that oath.
Now, the fifth amendment to the Constitution provides that
no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law.
The seventh ensures that in civil suits, the trial--the
right to trial by jury shall be preserved.
Finally, the 14th guarantees due process of law and the
equal protection of the laws.
Shall we examine the concepts of due process, equal
protection and the right to trial by jury as practiced by the
President to determine whether he's kept its oath to preserve
and protect?
Paula Jones, as I have said, is an American citizen, just a
single American citizen who felt she'd suffered a legal wrong.
More important, that legal wrong was based on the Constitution.
She claimed essentially that she was subjected to sexual
harassment which, in turn, constitutesdiscrimination on the
basis of gender. The case wasn't brought against just any citizen,
though, it was brought against the President of the United States, who
was under a legal and moral obligation to preserve and protect Ms.
Jones' rights. It is a relatively simple matter to mouth high-minded
platitudes and to prosecute vigorously rights violated by others. It
is, however, a test of courage, honor and integrity to enforce those
rights against yourself. The President failed that test.
As a citizen Ms. Jones enjoyed an absolute constitutional
right to petition the judicial branch of government to redress
her wrong by filing a lawsuit in the United States District
Court. That she did. At this point she became entitled to a
trial by jury, if she chose. Due process of law, and equal
protection of the laws, no matter who the defendant happened to
be. Due process, though, contemplates the right to a full and
fair trial, which, in turn, means the right to call and
question witnesses, to cross-examine adverse witnesses, and to
have her case decided by an unbiased and fully informed jury.
What did she actually get? None of the above.
On May 27th, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a
nine-to-nothing decision that like every other citizen, Paula
Jones has a right to an orderly disposition of her claims. In
accordance with that decision, Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled
on December 11th that she was entitled to information regarding
those employees. Six days after this ruling, the President
filed an answer to Ms. Jones' amended complaint. Here's the
answer. ``President Clinton denies that he engaged in any
improper conduct with respect to plaintiff or any other
woman.''
Ms. Jones' right to call and depose witnesses was thwarted
by perjurious and misleading affidavits and motions. Her right
to elicit testimony from adverse witnesses was compromised by
perjury and false and misleading statements under oath, and as
a result, had a jury tried that case, it would have been
deprived of critical information.
That result is bad enough in itself, but it reaches
constitutional proportions when denial of civil rights is
directed by the President of the United States who twice took
an oath to preserve, protect and defend those very rights. I
think we already know by now what the ``sanctity of an oath''
means to this President.
Moreover, the President is a spokesman for the government
of the people of the United States concerning both domestic and
foreign matters. His honesty and integrity, therefore, directly
influence the credibility of this country. When, as here, that
spokesman is guilty of a continuing pattern of lies, misleading
statements and deceits over a long period of time, the
believability of any of his pronouncements is seriously called
into question. Indeed, how can anyone in or out of our country
any longer believe anything he says, and what does that do to
the confidence and the honor and integrity of the United
States?
I am going to give you a few short quotations: ``The
President must be permitted to respond to allegations not only
to defend his personal integrity, but the integrity of the
office of the presidency itself.''
``The President, for all practical purposes, affords the
only means through which we can act as a Nation.''
And finally, ``A President needs to maintain prestige as an
element of presidential influence in order to carry out his
duties effectively. In particular, a President must inspire
confidence in his integrity, compassion, competency and
capacity to take charge in any conceivable situation. Indeed,
it is scarcely possible to govern well in the absence of such
confidence.''
Now, I am not quoting from some law book or from an
esoteric treatise on government. These quotations are taken
directly from the pleadings and briefs filed in the Jones case
on behalf of William Jefferson Clinton.
Make no mistake, the conduct of the President is
inextricably bound to the welfare of the people of the United
States. Not only does it affect economic and national defense,
but more directly, it affects the moral and law-abiding fiber
of the commonwealth without which no Nation can survive. When,
as here, that conduct involves a pattern that I have
demonstrated, the resulting damage to the honor and respect due
to the United States is of necessity devastating.
Again, there is no such thing as nonserious perjury,
nonserious lying under oath. Every time a witness lies, that
witness chips a stone from the foundation of our entire legal
system. Likewise, every act of obstruction of justice, of
witness tampering, or of perjury, adversely affects the
judicial branch of government like a pebble tossed into a lake.
You may not notice the effect at once, but you can be certain
that the tranquility of that lake has been disturbed. And if
enough pebbles are thrown into the water, the lake itself may
disappear. So too with the truth-seeking process of the courts.
Every unanswered and unpunished assault upon it has its lasting
effects, and given enough of them, the system itself will
implode.
That is why those 2 women who testified before you had been
indicted, convicted and punished severely for false statements
under oath in a civil case. And that is why only a few days ago
a Federal grand jury in Chicago, from whence came Mr. Sullivan,
yesterday indicted 4 former college football players because
they had given false testimony under oath in a grand jury.
Nobody suggested that they shouldn'tbe charged because their
motives may have been to protect their careers, and nobody has
suggested that the perjury was not serious because it involved only
lies about sports. Lies are lies are lies.
Apart from all else, the President's illegal actions
constitute an attack upon and utter disregard for the truth and
for the rule of law. Much worse, they manifest an arrogant
disdain not only for the rights of his fellow citizens, but
also for the functions and the integrity of the other two
coequal branches of our constitutional system. One of the
witnesses that appeared before you earlier likened the
Government of the United States to a three-legged stool. The
analysis is apt, because the entire structure of our government
rests upon the three equal supports: legislative, judicial and
executive. Remove one of those supports and the State will
totter. Remove two, and the structure will either collapse
altogether, or will rest upon a single branch of government.
There is another name for that: Tyranny.
The President mounted a direct assault upon the truth-
seeking process, which is the very essence and foundation of
the judicial branch. Not content with that, though, Mr. Clinton
renewed his lies, half-truths and obstruction to this Congress
when he filed his answers to simple requests to admit or deny.
In doing so, he also demonstrated his lack of respect for the
constitutional functioning of the legislative branch.
Actions do not lose their public character merely because
they may not directly affect the domestic and foreign
functioning of the executive branch. Their significance must be
examined for the effect on the functioning of the entire system
of government. Viewed in that manner, the President's actions
were both public and were extremely destructive.
Today, our country is really at a crossroad at which two
branches, or two paths branch off. One leads to the principles
that are once familiar and immortal that are contained in our
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These are the
principles that for over 200 years have so affected our actions
as to earn the admiration of the world and to gain for the
United States the moral leadership among nations. There was a
time not so very long ago when a policy decision by the
President of the United States was saluted as ``the most
unsordid act in the history of mankind.''
The other path leads to expediency, temerity, self-
interest, cynicism, and a disdain for the welfare of others and
the common good. That road will inevitably end in inequity,
dishonor, and abandonment of the high principles that we as a
people rely upon for our safety and happiness. There is no
third road.
This is a defining moment both for the presidency and
especially for the members of this committee.
For the presidency as an institution, because if you don't
impeach as a consequence of the conduct that I have just
portrayed, then no House of Representatives will ever be able
to impeach again. The bar will be so high that only a convicted
felon or a traitor will need to be concerned.
Remember, experts came up before you and pointed to the
fact that the House refused to impeach President Nixon for
lying on an income tax return. Can you imagine a future
President faced with possible impeachment pointing to the
perjuries, lies, obstructions, tamperings and abuses of power
by the current occupant of the office as not rising to the
level of high crimes and misdemeanors? If this isn't enough,
what is? How far can the standard be lowered without completely
compromising the credibility of the office for all time?
It is likewise a defining moment for you, the Members of
this Judiciary Committee.
The roster of this committee over the years has contained
the names of great Americans: Peter Rodino, Emmanuel Celler,
Tom Railsback, Bill McCulloch and Barbara Jordan.
These walls are infused with the honor and integrity that
has always prevailed in this chamber. Now it is your turn to
add to or subtract from that honor and integrity.
You have heard the evidence. You have read the law. You
have listened to the experts, and you have heard all of the
arguments.
What I say here will be forgotten in a few days, but what
you do here will be incised in the history of the United States
for all time to come. Unborn generations, assuming those
generations are still free and are still permitted to read true
history, will learn of these proceedings and will most
certainly judge this committee's actions. What will be their
verdict? Will it be that you rose above party and faction and
reestablished justice, decency, honor and truth as the standard
by which even the highest office in the land must be evaluated?
Or will it be that you announce that there is no abiding
standard, and that public officials are answerable only to
politics, polls, and propaganda? God forbid that that will be
your legacy.
The choice is yours.
On Tuesday, one of the witnesses referred to our country as
the Ship of State. The allusion is to the poem, ``The Building
of the Ship'' by Longfellow. Permit me to quote a short stanza
which refers to that.
Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
is hanging breathless on thy fate!
How sublime, poignant and uplifting; yet how profound and
sobering are those words at this moment in history. You are now
confronted with a monumental responsibility of deciding whether
William Jefferson Clinton is fit to remain at the helm of that
ship of state.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schippers follows:]
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Chairman Hyde. Thank you very much, Mr. Schippers, for a
wonderful presentation, very instructive.
The committee will stand--yes, the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Conyers. If you please, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
compliment Attorney Schippers. It has been a long day. He has
put a great deal of effort into his presentation, and I would
like to give him our commendations for that effort.
Mr. Schippers. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. You're welcome.
Chairman Hyde. That is very nice of you, Mr. Conyers.
The committee will take about a 10-minute recess, and then
we will come back for introduction of the Articles and opening
statements. We will go fairly long tonight, but we will kind of
play it by ear.
[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the committee proceeded to other
business.]
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A P P E N D I X
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