Clinton to Give Taped Testimony on Lewinsky

Heading off a potential constitutional crisis, President Clinton has agreed to give videotaped testimony on Aug. 17 for the grand jury investigating his relationship with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, his personal attorney announced Wednesday.

Addressing reporters in the White House driveway, David E. Kendall capped a week of negotiations with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr by declaring that the president “will voluntarily provide his testimony . . . in an effort to achieve a prompt resolution of this entire matter.”

The deal with Starr gives Clinton two conditions he had sought. He will give his testimony at the White House, saving him the indignity of entering the U.S. courthouse like a common suspect, and he will be permitted to have his lawyers present for the one-day questioning, a concession by Starr to Clinton’s high office.

Grand jury rules normally prevent a witness from having a lawyer present, although witnesses may excuse themselves from time to time to consult their attorneys in a hallway outside the room.

Starr is trying to determine whether Clinton had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky and then asked her to lie about it. The president has denied under oath that he had an improper relationship with the former White House intern.

The agreement gives Starr an earlier date for the testimony in the face of White House demands that it should be postponed until September, after Clinton’s vacation and a trip to Russia and Ireland. And the scope of Starr’s questioning apparently will not be limited, as Kendall had originally asked.

News of Clinton’s upcoming testimony came as sources from various legal camps continued to spin their versions of testimony to be offered by Lewinsky, the other key witness in the case, who secured a grant of complete immunity from prosecution on Tuesday.

Some of those sources said Lewinsky agreed to turn over to Starr physical evidence that could help establish a close relationship with Clinton, including telephone message recordings with his voice on them and a dress she allegedly wore while with Clinton.

Meanwhile, Linda Tripp, Lewinsky’s onetime friend, completed her eighth and last day of grand jury testimony Wednesday, defending the role she has played in the investigation.

Starr’s unprecedented subpoena of Clinton, which the independent counsel withdrew Wednesday, would have marked the first time that an American president had been compelled to testify in a criminal case. If Clinton had refused to testify, as some lawyers had suggested, and fought the subpoena on the grounds that it violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, it probably would have prompted a major legal battle.

It is considered likely that Lewinsky would be called to testify before the president’s questioning, perhaps as early as next week. Lewinsky has told prosecutors she will testify that she had a sexual relationship with Clinton.

When he testifies, however, the president will repeat his previous denials of a sexual relationship, White House officials said.

If Starr has other evidence of an affair, such a denial could open Clinton to the charge of perjury.

Contrary to some media accounts, sources familiar with the case said Wednesday that the former White House intern will testify that she came away from secret meetings with the president with no specific instructions to deny her sexual relationship with him, but rather “an implicit understanding” that she was to conceal it.

Her “implicit understanding” was based in part on the president’s suggestion that she should explain, if asked, that her frequent visits to him at the White House actually were trips to see her friend Betty Currie, Clinton’s personal secretary.

“No one told her to lie [about a sexual relationship]. It wouldn’t be done that way,” a government source said of the closed-door account she gave earlier this week to secure immunity from Starr’s prosecutors.

Starr’s investigators long have hoped that Lewinsky would tell a federal grand jury that Clinton instructed her to perjure herself. Lewinsky denied having an affair with the president in a sworn affidavit she gave to lawyers representing Paula Corbin Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton. But sources said Lewinsky took pains during her five-hour session with prosecutors this week to avoid incriminating the president in any alleged scheme that could result in his being accused of suborning her perjury in the Jones case.

Although the president denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky in his Jan. 17 deposition in the Jones case, “the two of them never agreed between themselves” to offer false testimony, one source said of Lewinsky’s account to prosecutors.

“They never even discussed hypothetical explanations about how you cover up an affair,” this source added. Such statements by Lewinsky conflict with suggestions she made to Tripp in tape-recorded phone conversations that she had been encouraged to lie.

Under her grant of immunity, Lewinsky is prepared to tell grand jurors that the president has sworn falsely in denying their sexual relationship. But there is some question as to whether members of Congress would find evidence that the president lied about an extramarital affair satisfied the terms of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution lays out as grounds for impeachment.

Starr must submit to the House of Representatives a report on his investigation’s findings of criminality.

In addition, legal experts said it is uncertain that prosecutors could build a case of obstruction of justice or subornation of perjury against Clinton based on Lewinsky’s potential testimony.

“You never know, however, what other evidence Starr has developed and how Lewinsky’s testimony fits into the bigger picture,” one Washington attorney said. “In addition, Starr’s lawyers probably plan to spend a lot more time with Monica and debrief her more fully before she is put in front of the grand jury.”

Another legal source familiar with Lewinsky’s statements to prosecutors gave this explanation:

“Long before any subpoenas in the Jones case, when [Clinton and Lewinsky] initiated the affair [in 1995], there was discussion of ‘Let’s keep this private and quiet.’ And the president said, ‘If you’re coming to see me, just say you’re coming to see Betty.’ It was the normal precaution you take as a married man having an affair.”

At the time, their conversation was not linked to any expectation of eventual testimony or sworn statements, this source noted.

Nor will Lewinsky testify that the president told her to return some gifts he had given to her after Jones’ lawyers had learned of them, contrary to previous reports. A source familiar with Lewinsky’s account said she will testify that while the subject was discussed, “no instructions were given her about the gifts” at any of the approximately three dozen meetings she had with the president after her departure from the White House staff.

Currie later retrieved the gifts from Lewinsky, apparently acting on directions the president had given to her, according to legal sources.

As to three pages of so-called “talking points” that Lewinsky gave to Tripp on Jan. 14 suggesting that Tripp shade her testimony in the Jones case to minimize statements made by another woman who claimed Clinton had groped her, Lewinsky is prepared to testify that she drafted these pages herself with a few suggestions from Tripp, the same source said.

Her account on this point would apparently clear Clinton or anyone in the White House of suspicion that they helped draft the document, which could have subjected such a person to a charge of obstructing justice.

Tripp on Wednesday strongly denied that she had contributed in any way to these talking points.

White House advisors sought to downplay the drama of the presidential testimony, noting that he twice has given videotaped testimony for Whitewater-related criminal trials in Little Rock, Ark., both times from the White House. His deposition in the Jones case, given at his lawyer’s office, also was videotaped.

The videotaped Aug. 17 session will be presented to grand jurors, but it will not be released publicly because grand jury proceedings are closed.

Presidential aide Rahm Emanuel said the American people should not expect Clinton to address the Lewinsky issue publicly when he testifies.

“What happened in the past was that he testified and went on to do the people’s business, and that’s what you can expect this time,” Emanuel said.

Senior White House officials were delighted by word that Lewinsky would testify that she had no White House help in drafting the talking points she gave to Tripp.

There had been speculation earlier this year that Bruce R. Lindsey, Clinton’s longtime confidant and deputy White House counsel, had played a major role in preparing the document.

“Everyone has said that it’s the linchpin,” one White House official exclaimed. “The office of independent counsel has concluded they didn’t come from here. That’s a huge deal!”

Times staff writer Erin Trodden contributed to this story.

Join an ongoing discussion of the President Clinton-Monica S. Lewinsky matter on The Times’ Web site. Go to: https://www.latimes.com/scandal