Admission Might Not End Clinton Problems

By admitting that he had an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, President Clinton succeeded Monday in pushing aside the single strongest charge that could have led to his impeachment.

Despite claims to the contrary, the Lewinsky investigation has been mostly about sex--and lying about sex.

Had the president again flatly denied the sexual encounters--contradicting Lewinsky’s latest sworn statement--independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr could have used this possible perjury before a grand jury as the prime exhibit in his report to the House of Representatives.

But the president’s tactical retreat does not necessarily resolve all of his legal problems.

Starr’s prosecutors have believed for several years that Clinton is evasive and scheming and they are unlikely to be satisfied just because he has admitted one falsehood.

Much depends on what evidence the prosecutors have obtained and how the president handled the prosecutor’s many other questions. David E. Kendall, the president’s personal attorney, told the Associated Press that Clinton had testified “truthfully” but, in response to “a few highly intrusive questions . . , he gave candid but not detailed answers.”

This leaves open the possibility that Starr later will seek further testimony from the president.

Lawyers who have closely followed Starr’s inquiry point to at least four other areas where Clinton remains potentially vulnerable. They involve the president’s gifts to Lewinsky, the jobs she was offered, his past denials under oath of a sexual affair and his meeting with her Dec. 28, when they may have talked about how to hide their relationship.

“The real concern now is Betty Currie and the gifts,” said one former White House lawyer, referring to Clinton’s secretary.

Prosecutors have repeatedly questioned Currie before the grand jury. If the president told his secretary to retrieve the small gifts he gave Lewinsky--or if he told Lewinsky to quietly return them to Currie--that exchange could be cited as evidence that he sought to cover up his lie about their relationship.

On Sunday, Jan. 18, the day after Clinton denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, or that he recalled even being alone with her, the president called Currie to come to his office.

“We were never alone, right?” he reportedly said.

Prosecutors could call this evidence of obstruction of justice because it could be construed as an attempt to reinforce his statement in the Jones deposition.

Lewinsky also obtained sudden, high-level help in obtaining a job outside of Washington in December and January, just as the president was preparing to testify in the Jones case. Bill Richardson, Clinton’s then-United Nations ambassador, and presidential confidant Vernon E. Jordan Jr. were among those who came to the assistance of the then-24-year-old former intern. Prosecutors could weave this evidence into another charge of attempted obstruction of justice.

Next is the charge that Clinton committed perjury when he denied under oath on Jan. 17 that he had sexual relations with Lewinsky. Paula Corbin Jones, the former Arkansas state employee, had sued Clinton over an alleged crude advance in a Little Rock hotel room. But when her lawyers finally questioned Clinton under oath, they spent much of the time asking about Lewinsky.

“At any time were you and Monica Lewinsky alone together in the Oval Office?” one lawyer reportedly asked.

“I don’t recall,” the president reportedly said, adding that she might have “brought things to me once or twice on weekends.” The White House logs show that the ex-intern visited the Oval Office area 37 times after leaving her job.

After a broad definition of sexual relations was read to him, Clinton denied having had sexual relations with Lewinsky.

During Monday’s testimony, the president was almost surely asked about that contradiction. In his televised address, he defended his answer as “legally accurate,” if misleading.

Still, Starr could cite Clinton’s response in the Jones deposition as a deliberately false statement under oath and possible grounds for impeachment.

In a court of law, Clinton’s lawyers could assert that this false statement was not “material” to the outcome of the Jones lawsuit, which itself was later thrown out of court. For that reason, it does not amount to perjury. However, the House is a political body, not a court, and its members could say that it is an impeachable offense for the nation’s chief executive to lie under oath, regardless of the circumstances.

Finally, the president and the former intern met alone at the White House on Sunday evening, Dec. 28, just after she had filed a sworn statement denying a sexual relationship and just three weeks before the president was to answer questions under oath. Prosecutors find this meeting to be highly suspicious.

While Lewinsky has reportedly said the president did not tell her to lie, prosecutors suspect that he encouraged her to keep quiet.

It is unclear whether Starr’s prosecutors have enough evidence to charge the president with perjury, suborning perjury or obstruction of justice and it is doubtful that the House would move to impeach the president on this basis.

But some lawyers who support Starr’s investigation said it is a mistake to think the president’s testimony Monday ends his legal jeopardy.

“I think there will be a false spring after today,” said Bradford A. Berenson. “It will look as if the president has confessed and all this is going away. But it will be revived with a vengeance when an impeachment report goes to the Hill.”

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Topics of Testimony

On Monday, when President Clinton offered televised testimony to a grand jury in the Monica S. Lewinsky case, he was faced with six months of evidence compiled by prosecutors, including his sworn testimony in the Paula Corbin Jones case. Here’s a sample of what has been gathered so far.

Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony that she had a sexual relationship with Clinton in the White House

Lewinsky’s blue dress with stain from alleged sexual encounter

Answering-machine tapes with messages from the president

Letters and computer documents corroborating relationship

Official White House photograph with personal inscription from the president

Receipt for “Vox,” steamy novel on phone sex former White House intern Lewinsky says she gave to president

White House entry logs show 37 visits after Lewinsky transferred to Pentagon

Linda Tripp audiotapes, which are said to graphically describe details of relationship

Talking points document Lewinsky gave Tripp on what to say in affidavit in Jones case

Kathleen E. Willey’s allegation of a crude presidential advance in the White House

Betty Currie allegedly collected Clinton’s gifts from Lewinsky and was used as a cover for the intern’s visits

Testimony from Secret Service officers who might have seen Lewinsky and Clinton alone

Modest gifts from Clinton to Lewinsky, such as Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”

Sources: Associated Press research; Newsweek