XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 14:02:00 PST THU FEB 19 1998 XXXXX
MONICA LEWINSKY'S DAD SPEAKS TO BARBARA WALTERS; SAYS INVESTIGATION REMINISCENT OF HITLER ERA
**Internet Exclusive**
For the first time since the allegations surrounding his daughter and President Clinton hit headlines, Dr. Bernard Lewinsky breaks his silence and speaks with Barbara Walters on ABC's 20/20 Friday.
The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained transcripts of the interview that has Lewinsky's father telling Prosecutor Starr to "Lay off!" his daughter. He tells a stunned Walters: "I think he's totally out of control. My daughter has not done anything from the federal point of view. She's not a murderer. She's not a spy. There was an alleged involvement in a civil case. I don't understand what this is all about."
Bernard Lewinsky also blasts Linda Tripp: "I don't know how she sleeps at night. I think that the expression, 'With friends like her, you don't need enemies' has a new meaning. She is a pathetic specimen of humanity."
More Lewinsky:
"I can't imagine that this incident is going to erode the confidence of the people of this country with the job that [Clinton] is doing. And I think it would be a sad day if something like this were to bring down a Presidency."
"I feel that my daughter is about to go to the grand jury, and it is time for me to speak up about the horrors that she has gone through and continues to go through. What is going on, and what Ken Starr has brought upon her, is unconscionable in my mind. To pit a mother against her daughter, to coerce her to talk-- To me, it's reminiscent of the McCarthy era, of the Inquisition, and even, you know you could stretch it and say the Hitler era. It's awful. I can't believe that this is happening."
BW: "To your knowledge, does your daughter exaggerate?"
LEWINSKY: "My daughter's a very excitable person. You know, if we wanted to decorate a party with balloons, she would buy fifty, when I had in mind five. That's the type of exaggeration but as far as in life, no."
BW: "Do you think your daughter could have made up a whole relationship with the President that didn't exist?"
LEWINSKY: "I can't imagine her making that up."
Lewinsky tells Walters how he first learned of the Starr sting:
"At approximately 3:00 on Friday, January the 16th, I got a phone call from her mother who was traveling from New York to Washington, D.C., where she informed me that Monica had been tricked into a hotel room at the Ritz in Pentagon City, and that she was being accused of some
relationship, I did not know exactly what."
BW: "And Monica herself at one point talked to you?"
LEWINSKY: "She was in tears, she was frightened, she had been with approximately five FBI men and five prosecutors in a hotel room for about nine hours. And they were threatening her with a 20-year jail sentence. They were telling her that she had to cooperate or she would go to jail."
FOOTNOTE: ABC research is projecting a 30+ share for the exclusive interview, a network source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.
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