[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

                              ----------                              

                            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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