OT OT OT EXCERPTS FROM STARR REPORT (skip if not interested)
Ms. Lewinsky's Account
In his grand jury testimony, the President relied heavily on a
particular interpretation of "sexual relations" as defined in the Jones
deposition. Beyond insisting that his conduct did not fall within the
Jones definition, he refused to answer questions about the nature of his
physical contact with Ms. Lewinsky, thus placing the grand jury in the
position of having to accept his conclusion without being able to
explore the underlying facts. This strategy -- evidently an effort to
account for possible traces of the President's semen on Ms. Lewinsky's
clothing without undermining his position that he did not lie in the
Jones deposition -- mandates that this Referral set forth evidence of an
explicit nature that otherwise would be omitted.
In light of the President's testimony, Ms. Lewinsky's accounts of their
sexual encounters are indispensable for two reasons. First, the detail
and consistency of these accounts tend to bolster Ms. Lewinsky's
credibility. Second, and particularly important, Ms. Lewinsky
contradicts the President on a key issue. According to Ms. Lewinsky, the
President touched her breasts and genitalia -- which means that his
conduct met the Jones definition of sexual relations even under his
theory. On these matters, the evidence of the President's perjury cannot
be presented without specific, explicit, and possibly offensive
descriptions of sexual encounters.
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had ten sexual
encounters, eight while she worked at the White House and two
thereafter.(35) The sexual encounters generally occurred in or near the
private study off the Oval Office -- most often in the windowless
hallway outside the study.(36) During many of their sexual encounters,
the President stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom across
from the study, which, he told Ms. Lewinsky, eased his sore back.(37)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that her physical relationship with the President
included oral sex but not sexual intercourse.(38) According to Ms.
Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President; he never performed
oral sex on her.(39) Initially, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President
would not let her perform oral sex to completion. In Ms. Lewinsky's
understanding, his refusal was related to "trust and not knowing me well
enough."(40) During their last two sexual encounters, both in 1997, he
did ejaculate.(41)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President on
nine occasions. On all nine of those occasions, the President fondled
and kissed her bare breasts. He touched her genitals, both through her
underwear and directly, bringing her to orgasm on two occasions. On one
occasion, the President inserted a cigar into her vagina. On another
occasion, she and the President had brief genital-to-genital contact.
(42)
Whereas the President testified that "what began as a friendship came to
include [intimate contact]," Ms. Lewinsky explained that the
relationship moved in the opposite direction: "[T]he emotional and
friendship aspects . . . developed after the beginning of our sexual
relationship."(43)
D. Emotional Attachment
As the relationship developed over time, Ms. Lewinsky grew emotionally
attached to President Clinton. She testified: "I never expected to fall
in love with the President. I was surprised that I did."(44) Ms.
Lewinsky told him of her feelings.(45) At times, she believed that he
loved her too.(46) They were physically affectionate: "A lot of hugging,
holding hands sometimes. He always used to push the hair out of my
face."(47) She called him "Handsome"; on occasion, he called her
"Sweetie," "Baby," or sometimes "Dear."(48) He told her that he enjoyed
talking to her -- she recalled his saying that the two of them were
"emotive and full of fire," and she made him feel young.(50) He said he
wished he could spend more time with her.(51)
Ms. Lewinsky told confidants of the emotional underpinnings of the
relationship as it evolved. According to her mother, Marcia Lewis, the
President once told Ms. Lewinsky that she "had been hurt a lot or
something by different men and that he would be her friend or he would
help her, not hurt her."(52) According to Ms. Lewinsky's friend Neysa
Erbland, President Clinton once confided in Ms. Lewinsky that he was
uncertain whether he would remain married after he left the White House.
He said in essence, "[W]ho knows what will happen four years from now
when I am out of office?" Ms. Lewinsky thought, according to Ms.
Erbland, that "maybe she will be his wife."(53)
E. Conversations and Phone Messages
Ms. Lewinsky testified that she and the President "enjoyed talking to
each other and being with each other." In her recollection, "We would
tell jokes. We would talk about our childhoods. Talk about current
events. I was always giving him my stupid ideas about what I thought
should be done in the administration or different views on things."(54)
One of Ms. Lewinsky's friends testified that, in her understanding,
"[The President] would talk about his childhood and growing up, and [Ms.
Lewinsky] would relay stories about her childhood and growing up. I
guess normal conversations that you would have with someone that you're
getting to know."(55)
The longer conversations often occurred after their sexual contact. Ms.
Lewinsky testified: "[W]hen I was working there [at the White House] . .
. we'd start in the back [in or near the private study] and we'd talk
and that was where we were physically intimate, and we'd usually end up,
kind of the pillow talk of it, I guess, . . . sitting in the Oval Office
. . . ."(56) During several meetings when they were not sexually
intimate, they talked in the Oval Office or in the area of the study.
(57)
Along with face-to-face meetings, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she spoke
on the telephone with the President approximately 50 times, often after
10 p.m. and sometimes well after midnight.(58) The President placed the
calls himself or, during working hours, had his secretary, Betty Currie,
do so; Ms. Lewinsky could not telephone him directly, though she
sometimes reached him through Ms. Currie.(59) Ms. Lewinsky testified:
"[W]e spent hours on the phone talking."(60) Their telephone
conversations were "[s]imilar to what we discussed in person, just how
we were doing. A lot of discussions about my job, when I was trying to
come back to the White House and then once I decided to move to New
York. . . . We talked about everything under the sun."(61) On 10 to 15
occasions, she and the President had phone sex.(62) After phone sex late
one night, the President fell asleep mid-conversation.(63)
On four occasions, the President left very brief messages on Ms.
Lewinsky's answering machine, though he told her that he did not like
doing so because (in her recollection) he "felt it was a little unsafe."
(64) She saved his messages and played the tapes for several confidants,
who said they believed that the voice was the President's.(65)
By phone and in person, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President
sometimes had arguments. On a number of occasions in 1997, she
complained that he had not brought her back from the Pentagon to work in
the White House, as he had promised to do after the election.(66) In a
face-to-face meeting on July 4, 1997, the President reprimanded her for
a letter she had sent him that obliquely threatened to disclose their
relationship.(67) During an argument on December 6, 1997, according to
Ms. Lewinsky, the President said that "he had never been treated as
poorly by anyone else as I treated him," and added that "he spent more
time with me than anyone else in the world, aside from his family,
friends and staff, which I don't know exactly which category that put me
in."(68)
Testifying before the grand jury, the President confirmed that he and
Ms. Lewinsky had had personal conversations, and he acknowledged that
their telephone conversations sometimes included "inappropriate sexual
banter."(69) The President said that Ms. Lewinsky told him about "her
personal life," "her upbringing," and "her job ambitions."(70) After
terminating their intimate relationship in 1997, he said, he tried "to
be a friend to Ms. Lewinsky, to be a counselor to her, to give her good
advice, and to help her."(71) |
