For those who haven't read today's IBD EdOp page:
IMHO: its not about sex but about lying to a Federal Grand Jury: he should have just come out (no pun intended) and said "Yeah I shagged her rotten!"
E D I T O R I A L S The Unspeakable Facts
Date: 12/11/98
The impeachment case against President Clinton boils down to perjury. Other charges like obstruction of justice are weaker. But to make the case, we have to do what both Democrats and Republicans won't do - talk bluntly about the facts.
Democrats are loath to even question the facts. Doing so exposes Clinton's guilt.
And Republicans are shy about diving into them, having seen how the White House tarred Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr as ''sex-obsessed'' for including ''salacious'' details in his report.
The smear was so effective that Starr avoided talking about them in his testimony before Congress. Republicans have taken his lead. Better to be priggish.
But those details prove that Clinton lied Aug. 17 before a federal grand jury investigating felony crimes. Though regrettably obscene and graphic, they are critical to the case. And they shouldn't stay hidden, as Clinton wishes, under the ''brown paper wrapper'' of the Starr report.
It's plain from the facts that Clinton lied to grand jurors about at least two things: That he never had reciprocal sex with Monica Lewinsky, and that they never had sex of any kind in '95.
Lie No. 1.
Deputy Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg: ''The question is, if Monica Lewinsky says that while you were in the Oval Office area, you touched her breast, would she be lying?''
Clinton: ''That is not my recollection. My recollection is that I did not have sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky.''
DNA tests backed Lewinsky's story that she performed oral sex on Clinton. Clinton knew that going into his grand jury testimony and wasn't stupid enough to argue that it never happened.
Instead, Clinton swore he didn't have ''sexual relations'' with Lewinsky. As he defines it, ''sexual relations'' requires mutual arousal. Thus the denial about touching Lewinsky's breast. But that's a lie.
In fact, Clinton did have ''sexual relations'' - under his own ridiculously narrow definition - with Lewinsky. And here's the proof:
With precision, Lewinsky described for grand jurors nine Oval Office encounters in which Clinton fondled and kissed her bare breasts and four times when he touched her genitalia.
Clinton's M.O. is the same in many of the encounters: He kisses her, unbuttons her blouse, lifts her bra, touches and/or mouths her breasts and then unzips his pants.
In fact, Lewinsky testified that Clinton brought her to orgasm during two encounters in the Oval Office area. She said once Clinton put his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.
On March 29, 1997, the two made genital-to-genital contact. The contact was brief, Lewinsky said, because the much-taller Clinton had trouble lowering himself due to his injured knee.
Such specifics aren't the only reason Lewinsky's testimony is credible. She also gave contemporaneous accounts of their mutual sex to friends.
E-mail throughout '97 to Catherine Davis corroborates Lewinsky's version that Clinton touched her intimately.
What's more, White House aide Ashley Raines testified that Lewinsky told her in '96 that Clinton performed oral sex on Lewinsky.
Also, Lewinsky told her therapists - Dr. Irene Kassorla and Kathleen Estep - the same story in '96 that she told grand jurors. Lewinsky had no motive to lie to them.
More compelling evidence that Clinton lied about the extent of their sex is a deleted file investigators recovered from Lewinsky's home PC. It's a letter to Clinton memorializing their affair after their '97 breakup.
One sentence reads: ''If you were 100% fulfilled in your marriage, I never would have seen that raw, intense sexuality that I saw a few times - watching your mouth on my breast or looking in your eyes while you explored the depth of my sex.'' (Emphasis added.)
Finally, Clinton had motive to lie about touching and/or kissing Lewinsky's breasts and genitalia.
He sought to deny any acts that would show he perjured himself in the Paula Jones sex-harassment case. In his Jan. 17 deposition, Clinton swore he ''never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.''
Remember: Clinton didn't just lie about sex. He lied about material facts in a serious lawsuit against him - to derail it. That the judge later ruled the Lewinsky evidence inadmissible and then threw out the entire case is immaterial. Clinton didn't know that would happen at the time he lied under oath.
Lie No. 2.
Clinton: ''I'd like to read this statement.''
Deputy Independent Counsel Robert Bittman: ''Absolutely. Please, Mr. President.''
Clinton: ''When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong.''
Later in his grand jury testimony:
Clinton: '' . . . I did what people do when they do the wrong thing . . . ''
Bittman: ''How many times did you do that?''
Clinton: ''I remember there were a few times in '96 (and) once in early '97.''
In Clinton's first statement, he voluntarily and premeditatedly lies by omission. Later, Bittman gives him a chance to amend his statement. But Clinton repeats the lie.
In fact, Clinton had sex with Lewinsky in '95, too. Not once, but three times.
Lewinsky testified their affair started during the November '95 government shutdown - when she was still an intern and just 22. Her story is more credible, and here's why:
Statements she made to her friends - Raines, Linda Tripp, who took contemporaneous notes, and Natalie Ungvari - and her two therapists from '95 to '97 corroborate her testimony. They swore to grand jurors that Lewinsky told them the affair began in earnest at a Nov. 17, 1995, White House pizza party. Indeed, a White House photo shows Clinton and Lewinsky eating pizza in Chief of Staff Leon Panetta's office that day.
Several witnesses confirm that when Lewinsky delivered pizza to Clinton in the Oval Office later that night, the two of them were alone.
White House records support details in Lewinsky's testimony.
She said Clinton spoke on the phone with a congressman with a ''nickname'' as she performed oral sex on him. It turns out it was Rep. H.L. ''Sonny'' Callahan, R- Ala. (Clinton was trying to persuade him to vote to fund more troops in Bosnia.)
Lewinsky says Clinton talked to members of Congress two nights before, on Nov. 15, as they had sex in the Oval Office. Records show Clinton took calls from Reps. Jim Chapman, D-Texas, and John Tanner, D-Tenn., around the time she remembered.
Clinton had a strong motive to deny having any sex with an intern.
Lewinsky testified he appeared to be nervous about her youth. In fact, on Nov. 15 Clinton tugged on her pink intern pass hanging from her neck and said that ''this'' may be a problem.
By New Year's Eve, their third sex session of '95, Lewinsky was a full-time White House staffer in the Office of Legislative Affairs.
Going into his Aug. 17 grand jury testimony, no one expected Clinton to recount every raunchy twist in his affair. All he had to do was admit to having sex with Lewinsky and trying to hide it in his Jones deposition.
All would have been forgiven.
But he chose to continue to lie -despite numerous warnings not to by Republican leaders, as well as former White House aides and Democrats.
On Aug. 2, former top Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos warned: ''If he doesn't tell the full truth to a criminal grand jury, Ken Starr's grand jury, then the rest of his presidency will be crippled by impeachment proceedings.''
The same day, Panetta warned that lying to the grand jury would ''undercut'' his presidential legacy.
''I'd stand up and say, 'Here's the deal,' '' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., told Time in the weeks before Clinton's grand jury testimony. ''Even though it might make Starr's case, no Congress would ever impeach him.''
''If he comes forth and tells (the truth),'' advised Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Aug. 2, ''then I think the president would have a reasonable chance of getting through this.''
Even Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, who have tried to block an impeachment vote, hoped Clinton would tell the truth to grand jurors.
''I will be crushed if the president doesn't tell the truth,'' said Rep. John Conyers, top Democrat on the panel, on Aug. 2.
''It's in the president's interest to tell the truth,'' advised Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, that same day.
Earlier this week, White House Special Counsel Gregory Craig admitted the charge of perjury before the grand jury is the ''more serious'' one facing Clinton. But he pointed out the president confessed to grand jurors that he had an ''improper'' rela- tionship with Lewinsky.
Of course, Craig is playing dumb. The issue isn't what Clinton admitted to, but what he wouldn't admit to.
He wouldn't admit he had sex with Lewinsky when she was an intern. Nor would he admit that he had two-way sex with her. If he did, he'd admit to lying in his Jones deposition, in which he lied to hide a pattern of hitting on female employees.
Fact is, Clinton hasn't admitted anything, and we're a year into this scandal.
The White House argues that Clinton's sex cover-up has caused no ''injury to the state.'' No? What greater injury to the state can a president do than to lie through his teeth to a U.S. district judge, federal investigators and grand jurors?
The law is the glue that keeps our fragile republic intact. If the chief law enforcer flouts it and lawmakers let him, how can they expect the rest of us to abide by it?
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(C) Copyright 1998 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
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