Nation's eyes focus on tapes

Testimony released to the public

The videotape and 3,183 pages of printed material were provided by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to augment his report to the House. Republicans in Congress voted to release the material as a prelude to a possible impeachment inquiry.

The public's main focus was on the videotape of Clinton's Aug. 17 appearance before a federal grand jury investigating whether Clinton committed perjury or took other steps to cover up his relationship with Lewinsky, the former White House intern.

"It's an embarrassing and personally painful thing," Clinton declared in testimony recorded in secret and now laid bare to the nation and world.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) minimized the day's events.

"I don't expect a meaningful impact on the public's overall impression of the president or the process that's under way," he said. "Based on the expectations built up by both sides, the broadcast failed to register on the Richter scale."

Presidential spokesperson Mike McCurry said it "should now be clear to everyone" that "the president's conduct does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense." Still, he added: "The White House couldn't feel anything but awful about the day that we have gone through as a nation."

Much of the material released yesterday was Lewinsky's version of the relationship as she testified over the summer to the grand jury. Portions of her account was published last week in Starr's report to Congress.

The president resisted persistent efforts by prosecutors to get him to admit that he committed perjury last January in the Paula Jones lawsuit when he denied "sexual relations" with Lewinsky. Prosecutors expressed exasperation and grand jurors forwarded a question to Clinton asking on what grounds he could refuse to answer questions.

"Look, I'm not trying to be evasive here. I'm trying to protect my privacy," Clinton snapped. At another point, he said: "I can't explain why I didn't answer every question in the way you seem to think I should have."

Painfully aware that the video footage "will be forever in the historic annals of the United States," Clinton lamented that he had "to contend with things no previous president has ever had to contend with."

While the president repeatedly brushed aside questions about their sexual relationship, Lewinsky described them to the grand jury in sometimes-reluctant detail.

She rejected the president's legalistic descriptions of their relationship.

"It's hard for me to feel that he has characterized this relationship as a service contract and that was never something that I thought it was," she said.

As chronicled in the Starr report, Lewinsky testified that her relationship with the president included fondling and oral sex that began while she was a 22-year-old intern in November 1995.

She said Clinton suggested misleading testimony she could give in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit and tacitly agreed that she should hide gifts after they were subpoenaed.

Clinton, for his part, described a relationship that involved intimate encounters that began after her internship ended and she had shifted to a paid White House job. He steadfastly denied that he fondled Lewinsky or encouraged her to obstruct justice.

"I absolutely never asked her to lie," Clinton said emphatically during his Aug. 17 testimony. He did acknowledge: "It's an embarrassing and personally painful thing, the truth about my relationship with Lewinsky."

The materials released yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee provides one side of the story: the evidence that Starr said supports his case for 11 possibly impeachable offenses against the president. The White House denounced the release as "deeply flawed" and "regrettable."

Two fat volumes of evidence accompanied the release of Clinton's videotaped testimony, adding to the president's embarrassment.

The material included a picture of the dress the FBI concluded was stained with his semen, brief private phone messages he left on her answering machine, and dozens of love letters Lewinsky drafted but never sent.

The evidence also included a chart chronicling Clinton and Lewinsky's encounters, which began in August 1995 with "eye contact" and "flirtation" and led to "physical intimacy" that November.

The last entry is Dec. 28, 1997 when Lewinsky gave Clinton holiday presents that included a suggestive candy gag gift.

In his testimony, Clinton brushed aside the question of whether he encouraged Lewinsky to hide the subpoenaed gifts with Oval Office secretary Betty Currie - an event Starr cited as evidence of obstruction of justice.

Lewinsky "may have been worried about this gift business but it didn't bother me," he declared.

09-22-98