Lewinsky, Starr Appear Closer to Agreement

Monica S. Lewinsky’s new legal team, seeking a deal to protect her from prosecution, has offered to have her testify that she had sex with President Clinton, but independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr wants her to plead guilty to some offense as part of any agreement, according to lawyers close to the talks.

Lewinsky’s lawyers have told Starr she would not testify that she was encouraged by Clinton or his friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. to lie under oath in the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit, a focus of Starr’s investigation, the legal sources said. However, they added, her new attorneys have argued that Starr should take what he can get because the contradictory statements of her former lawyer may have damaged Lewinsky’s value as a witness against the president.

Starr too is playing hardball during this new round of discussions, offering as he has in the past only to consider a plea agreement and not the complete immunity that Lewinsky is seeking from possible perjury or obstruction of justice charges, the lawyers said.

The positions staked out by both sides may simply be opening bids in high-stakes negotiations, but they have defined the parameters of talks whose outcome is crucial to the Starr investigation. Despite the seeming gulf in their bargaining positions, both camps have signaled that they are optimistic they can strike a bargain in the next few weeks.

“Each side is working hard to reach some conclusion,” said one attorney familiar with the talks.

Whether Starr would be satisfied with an admission of sex but no testimony about obstruction of justice is unclear. He rejected such a proposal offered by Lewinsky’s former attorney, William H. Ginsburg, who, according to defense lawyers, submitted five separate--and in some ways inconsistent--proffers detailing how she would testify if given immunity.

But the new lawyers, Jacob A. Stein and Plato Cacheris, hope to use their credibility as longtime, respected Washington attorneys to persuade Starr. And if Lewinsky does testify that she had sex with Clinton, that statement alone could be problematic for the president, politically if not legally, because it would contradict his sworn testimony in the Jones lawsuit and his nationally televised statement that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

Facing the prospect of a deal, the president’s defenders are bracing to counter a possibly damaging witness. To prepare for that eventuality, Clinton’s defense team months ago commissioned a private detective agency to conduct a thorough investigation of Lewinsky’s past, sources involved in the endeavor said last week.

The firm, Investigative Group International, completed the work for David E. Kendall, Clinton’s chief lawyer in the Lewinsky matter, according to sources close to the company. Terry F. Lenzner, the founder and president of the company, reportedly supervised the work but declined to comment last week.

The extent and findings of the investigation could not be learned, but such an investigation is common in high-profile cases, and even lawyers sympathetic to Lewinsky said it would not be objectionable unless it delved into areas such as her sex life, private bank accounts, medical records and the like.

Starr appears almost through bringing dozens of witnesses before a Washington grand jury as part of an effort to prove that Lewinsky lied in the Jan. 7 affidavit she signed in the Jones case in which she denied having a sexual relationship with Clinton. Prosecutors plan to bring White House Deputy Chief of Staff John D. Podesta back to the grand jury Tuesday and are preparing to call one of their last major witnesses, Linda Tripp, the onetime Lewinsky friend who secretly tape-recorded their conversations about Clinton.

Moreover, Starr has records that appear to contradict other elements of Lewinsky’s affidavit beyond her denial of an affair, including White House entry logs showing three dozen visits by Lewinsky after April 1996.

Either way, Lewinsky’s lawyers are preparing for the possibility of going to trial if no deal can be reached with Starr.