| The lawyers asked, among other things, how well I knew her, whether we had ever exchanged gifts, whether we had ever talked on the phone, and if I had had ***ual relations with herI discussed our conversations, acknowledged that I had given her gifts, and answered no to the ***ual relations question
The Rutherford Institute lawyers kept asking the same questions with slight variations over and over againWhen we took a break, my legal team was perplexed, because Lewinskys name had shown up on the plaintiffs list of potential witnesses only in early December, and she had been given a subpoena to appear as a witness two weeks laterI didnt tell them about my relationship with her, but I did say I was unsure of exactly what the curious definition of ***ual relations meantAt the beginning of the deposition, my attorney, Bob Bennett, had invited the Rutherford Institute lawyers to ask specific and unambiguous questions about my contact with womenAt the end of the discussion of Lewinsky, I asked the lawyer who was questioning me if there wasnt something more specific he wanted to ask meOnce again he declined to do soInstead he said, Sir, I think this will come to light shortly, and youll understand
I was relieved but somewhat concerned that the lawyer seemed not to want to ask specific questions, nor to want to purple fendi bags get my answers to themIf he had asked such questions, I would have answered them truthfully, but I would have hated itDuring the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House and those who were there were working late, Id had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the PentagonFor the next ten months, I didnt see her, although we talked on the phone from time to time
In February 1997, Monica was among the guests at an evening taping of my weekly radio address, after which I met with her alone again for about fifteen minutesI was disgusted with myself for doing it, and in the spring, when I saw her again, I told her that it was wrong for me, wrong for my family, and wrong for her, and I couldnt do it anymoreI also told her that she was an intelligent, interesting person who could have a good life, and that if she wanted me to, I would try to be her friend and help her
Monica continued to visit the White House, and I saw her on some of those occasions, but nothing improper occurredIn October, she asked me to help her get a job in New York, and I didShe had received two offers and accepted one, and late in December, she came to the White House to imitation louis vuitton wallets say good-byeBy then, she had received her subpoena in the Jones caseShe said she didnt want to be deposed, and I told her some women had avoided questioning by filing affidavits saying that I had not ***ually harassed them
What I had done with Monica Lewinsky was immoral and foolishI was deeply ashamed of it and I didnt want it to come outIn the deposition, I was trying to protect my family and myself from my selfish stupidityI believed that the contorted definition of ***ual relations enabled me to do so, though I was worried enough about it to invite the lawyer interrogating me to ask specific questionsI didnt have to wait long to find out why he declined to do so
On January 21, the Washington Post led with a story that I had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and that Kenneth Starr was investigating charges that I had encouraged her to lie about it under oathThe story first emerged publicly early on the eighteenth, on an Internet siteThe deposition had been a setup; nearly four years after he first offered to help Paula Jones, Starr had finally gotten into her case
In the summer of 1996, Monica Lewinsky had begun talking to a co-worker, Linda Tripp, about her relationship with meA year later, Tripp had started taping their telephone conversationsIn October 1997, Tripp offered to play the tapes for a sale chanel quilted handbag Newsweek reporter and did play them for Lucianne Goldberg, a conservative Republican publicistTripp was subpoenaed in the Jones case, though she was never on any witness list provided to my attorneys
Late on Monday, January 12, 1998, Tripp phoned Starrs office, described her secret taping of Lewinsky, and made arrangements to turn over those tapesShe was concerned about her own criminal liability, because the kind of taping she had done was a felony under Maryland law, but Starrs people promised to protect herThe next day Starr had FBI agents wire Tripp so that she could secretly record a conversation with Lewinsky over lunch at the Pentagon City Ritz-CarltonA couple of days later, Starr asked the Justice Department for permission to expand his authority to encompass the investigation of Lewinsky, apparently being less than truthful about the basis for his request
On the sixteenth, the day before my deposition, Tripp arranged to meet Lewinsky again at the hotelThis time Monica was greeted by FBI agents and attorneys who took her to a hotel room, questioned her for several hours, and discouraged her from calling a lawyerOne of Starrs lawyers told her she should cooperate if she wanted to avoid going to jail and offered her an immunity deal that expired at midnightLewinsky was also pressured to wear a wire to mens cartier watch secretly tape conversations with people involved in the alleged cover-upFinally, Monica was able to call her mother, who contacted her father, from whom she had long been divorcedHe got in touch with a lawyer, William Ginsburg, who advised her not to accept the immunity deal until he learned more about the case, and who blasted Starr for holding his client for eight or nine hours without an attorney and for pressuring her to wear a wire to entrap others
After the story broke, I called David Kendall and assured him that I had not suborned perjury or obstructed justiceIt was clear to both of us that Starr was trying to create a firestorm to force me from officeHe was off to a flying start, but I thought that if I could survive the public pounding for two weeks, the smoke would begin to clear, the press and the public would focus on Starrs tactics, and a more balanced view of the matter would emergeI knew I had made a terrible mistake, and I was determined not to compound it by allowing Starr to drive me from officeFor now, the hysteria was overwhelming
I went on doing my job, and I stonewalled, denying what had happened to everyone: Hillary, Chelsea, my staff and cabinet, my friends in Congress, members of the press, and the American peopleWhat I regret the most, other than my conduct, is having misled all of best fake tiffany and co |