Lewinsky and Her Attorney Are Returning to Southland

As the legal and political crisis that has overtaken the nation’s capital entered its third week, two people at the center of the storm--former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and her attorney, William Ginsburg--are returning to Los Angeles.

“Monica needs her daddy, and I’m going to take her home this week,” Ginsburg said in an interview Saturday. Ginsburg said Lewinsky, 24, would return to Washington to testify before a federal grand jury when and if required.

Lewinsky’s father, Dr. Bernard Lewinsky, lives in Brentwood. She has been staying with her mother in Washington.

Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is investigating allegations that President Clinton had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky and encouraged her--either directly or through his close friend, Washington attorney Vernon E. Jordan Jr.--to lie about it under oath to attorneys for Paula Corbin Jones, who has sued the president for sexual harassment.

The news of Lewinsky’s impending return to the Southland comes as negotiations with Starr over a grant of immunity for Lewinsky have all but broken down. Ginsburg said he has not heard from Starr or his staff since Thursday and that he now is preparing a legal case for Lewinsky’s defense against a possible perjury charge.

In a sworn affidavit, Lewinsky has denied having a sexual relationship with the president. However, in taped conversations with her friend Linda Tripp, another former White House employee, Lewinsky reportedly talks at length about a relationship with Clinton.

Meanwhile, a flood of political donations and pledges of support from across the country to the Democratic National Committee have prompted the DNC to establish a separate office to handle the flow.

After a brief dip in donations, contributions have bounced up and shot well past their level before the allegations of Clinton improprieties surfaced, said DNC National Chairman Steven Grossman. Positive responses from solicitations have increased by 8 percentage points, and the amount of the average contribution has risen from almost $28 to more than $30, he said.

“We hope it continues, and we expect it will,” Grossman said. “People are saying: ‘I’m with the president. Stay the course. What can I do? Put me to work.’ ”

Party officials attributed the groundswell of support to the president’s State of the Union speech Tuesday and to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s spirited defense of the president throughout the week. Her assertions that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” is behind the latest allegations also have helped mobilize Americans on the president’s behalf, they said.

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Grossman said much of the support has been prompted by “the anger that is out there among people who believe the independent counsel has just gone too far.”

Starting late in the week, DNC officials began tracking a rise in responses to recent direct-mail campaigns and to telephone solicitations conducted over the last week. Solicitors have focused on past contributors to the Democratic Party.

In addition, party faithful have been calling the White House and DNC to express their support and inquire about what they could do.

White House Communications Director Ann Lewis said the volume of such calls and inquiries had reached such a level that by week’s end, the White House dispatched one of its political aides, Karen Hancox, to the DNC to handle them. Now on the DNC payroll, Hancox’s job will be to rally Clinton’s supporters to back him publicly.

Lewis sought to portray the new DNC operation as a response to offers of support, rather than damage control.

As Democrats touted the latest surge in support, Republicans--who so far have largely held their fire--have begun to step up their attacks on Clinton.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Satuday that the president should be forced from office for what Barr called “his latest indiscretion.”

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“I’m here to deliver a message to the president: Character counts,” Barr said. “Mr. President, you are responsible for bringing shame upon a great institution, and we, the people of the United States of America, will hold you accountable.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) told CNN’s “Evans & Novak” program that his wife would “throw the rolling pin at me” if he were guilty of what Clinton has been accused of doing.

In a related development, New York literary agent Lucianne S. Goldberg, who encouraged Tripp to tape her conversations with Lewinsky, threatened Saturday to release tapes of her own conversations with Tripp about the matter.

Goldberg tied her threat to what she called efforts to discredit Tripp.

“They are mine, and I will choose the time,” Goldberg said of the tapes in a group television interview conducted by NBC-TV. She added that she would release the tapes “when it gets really bad. It’s not quite that bad yet, but it’s coming.”

Times staff writers Melissa Healy and John J. Goldman contributed to this story.