Clinton tapes released today

That video will show Clinton admitting "inappropriate intimate contact" and "sexual banter" with Lewinsky but resisting prosecutors' efforts to define the conduct further. Clinton offers many legalistic replies and, at times, shows remorse.

"I regret that what began as friendship came to include this conduct," the president answered when he was first asked a sex-related question by prosecutors just seven minutes into his Aug. 17 testimony. The president's testimony was described to The

AP PHOTO Foundry United Methodist Church pastor Jay Philip Wogaman watches as President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton leave his church in Washington yesterday.

Associated Press by lawyers familiar with it.

The moments of presidential regret are interspersed with legal hairsplitting involving the terms "sexual relations" and "alone" and, in one exchange, the tense of a verb.

At one point, Clinton was asked why he failed to produce to Paula Jones' lawyers a series of correspondence between himself and Kathleen Willey, the former White House volunteer who accused the president of an unwanted sexual advance near the Oval Office in 1993.

Clinton replied that he understood the subpoena to cover personal documents, and the Willey letters were in White House files. If the lawyer wanted the letters, Clinton said, they should have issued two subpoenas - one personal and the other official, lawyers said.

The White House and Congress - both facing perils in the unfolding impeachment proceedings - braced for today's release of an avalanche of new evidence that includes more material in which Lewinsky explicitly describes sex acts with Clinton, the president's videotape, presidential phone messages left at Lewinsky's home and the FBI test results that conclude semen on one of Lewinsky's dresses belongs to Clinton.

Clinton made a brief appearance yesterday morning at a fund-raiser aboard a Potomac River cruise ship and then he and his wife attended services at Foundry United Methodist Church, the first time since before his Aug. 17 grand jury testimony. Today, when the 2,800 pages of documents and videotape are released, Clinton will be in New York City addressing the United Nations.

A key senator suggested on the Sunday talk shows that Clinton immediately volunteer to testify to the House Judiciary Committee and answer all questions fully to spare the country further embarrassment.

"I believe the president would be well-served to explain exactly what he did, exactly what he was thinking, do it to the Judiciary Committee and let's vote and let's move on one way or the other," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a Clinton ally.

"The nation is being ill served by this political water torture that is taking place in a highly calculated, highly partisan way," Kerry told NBC regarding Congress' selected release of evidence.

Kerry's call for voluntary Clinton testimony was embraced by several colleagues, including Republican Sen. John Ashcroft, a presidential aspirant and harsh Clinton critic, and House Judiciary Committee members Barney Frank (D-Mass), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

Uneasy about defending some of Clinton's legalistic answers, Democrats are discussing whether to concede Clinton committed perjury and accept Lewinsky's version of their sexual encounters even though Clinton disputes her allegations that he touched her and sexually stimulated her.

"I'm almost willing to say, 'Let's stipulate that President Clinton touched Monica Lewinsky where he shouldn't have,"' Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said on NBC.

Two sources familiar with the material Starr turned over to Congress told The Associated Press it includes an FBI interview report of an Arkansas woman whom Jones' lawyers sought to question about possible sexual misconduct by the president two decades ago.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the FBI report is "inconclusive" about whether anything improper happened, declining to be more specific. The report is not among the materials scheduled for release today.

In an event unparalleled in history, the unfiltered footage of the president's grand jury testimony will be aired by cable news channels simultaneous with its release, expected shortly after the breakfast hour today. To prepare viewers, CNN aired special statements yesterday warning that the video, which it plans to run in its entirety, contains "both language and descriptions" that "may be offensive to some viewers and unsuitable to children."

Congress risked a political backlash by releasing a videotape that 52 percent of Americans said they planned to watch but that 69 percent felt was unnecessary to release, according to a CBS survey.

The CBS poll indicated Congress' approval rating had dropped from 56 percent earlier last week to 44 percent, and that 59 percent of the public believed the tape's release had more to do with embarrassing the president than letting the public judge him. The White House sharpened its attack yesterday along those lines.

"They (lawmakers) decided that rather than just doing a document dump they would do a garbage dump (today), and I think people are going to wonder about that," said White House Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta.

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