Depositions begin in Senate trial

WASHINGTON - President Clinton's legal team apologized to Monica Lewinsky "on behalf of the president" yesterday for all she has been put through after the former White House intern testified for more than four hours behind closed doors as part of his impeachment trial, according to sources familiar with the session.

Under questioning by a House Republican prosecutor, Lewinsky stuck tightly to her past sworn testimony about her affair with Clinton and their attempts to keep it hidden in the Paula Jones case, providing no new evidence to be used against the president when his trial resumes Thursday, the sources said.

While some of her testimony remained damaging to the president, the sources said, Clinton's lawyers passed up a chance to cross-examine Lewinsky when Rep. Edward Bryant (R-Tenn.) was done, apparently confident that she had not said anything to change the dynamic in the Senate, where they have enough votes to guarantee Clinton's acquittal.

Instead, they ended the session with a one-sentence apology to a woman who told the grand jury last August that she was upset when Clinton did not offer any words of regret to her in his televised confession a few days earlier.

"On behalf of the president, we would like to tell you that we are all very sorry for what you've been through," attorney Nicole Seligman told Lewinsky, as one person in the room recalled it. Other sources offered slightly different paraphrased versions with the same thrust. Lewinsky thanked Seligman but offered no further reaction, they said.

The deposition, conducted in the $5,000-a-night presidential suite at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington, was the first of three scheduled for this week as the House "managers" take the only testimony so far permitted by the Senate. Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan Jr. will be interviewed today and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal tomorrow.

While six senators attended at least part of yesterday's session, all 100 will be allowed to view a videotape or review transcripts starting at 8 a.m. today. But the testimony will not be made public unless the full Senate agrees to do so on a majority vote when it reconvenes Thursday.

Although Lewinsky provided House prosecutors with no new damning information, neither did she retreat from any of her past grand jury testimony, which has provided the basis for the case that Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice during the Jones case and subsequent criminal investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Lewinsky has sworn that she and the president engaged in sexual activities that he has denied under oath and she detailed again yesterday an elaborate chain of events, including conversations with the president, a job search conducted for her by his friends and the hiding of presidential gifts to avoid a subpoena that prosecutors say establishes Clinton's obstruction.

Even without additional information, House managers viewed the session as positive because she reaffirmed the evidence they have been using. "The notion of no-new-ground has two sides to it," said one source familiar with the deposition. "There were no denials or rejections or inconsistencies."

Bryant, the manager who handled the questioning, told reporters as he left the hotel that the interview was "good" and "productive" but said he could not disclose the specifics under Senate rules. He also canceled a scheduled appearance for last night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

The deposition started at 9:03 a.m. and broke every hour for five minutes.

With about 40 people in attendance, many had to sit in an adjoining spillover room to watch. During an hour-long lunch break starting at 12:40 p.m., the hotel served roast beef and turkey sandwiches, soda, fruit, peanut butter cookies and brownies. With prosecutors limited to four hours and the White House lawyers asking no questions, the session broke up at 3:14 p.m., much earlier than scheduled.

Lewinsky sat at one end of a long table, with two of her attorneys flanking her on either side, Jacob Stein, Plato Cacheris, Sydney Jean Hoffmann and Preston Burton. A video camera recorded her from the other end of the table. To her right were two Clinton lawyers, Seligman and Cheryl Mills.

Another presidential attorney, David Kendall, sat behind them. To her left was Bryant, joined by another manager, Rep. James Rogan (R-Calif).

Also at the table were two senators who presided jointly, Sen. Mike

DeWine (R-Ohio) for the Republicans, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and later John Edwards (D-N.C.) for the Democrats.

Lewinsky, who has been interviewed by FBI agents, prosecutors and grand jurors about two dozen times already, maintained her composure throughout the session and was in clear command of details, to the point where she sometimes corrected Bryant, according to people in the room and others who were briefed afterward.

Several sources described her demeanor as less open than when she met more informally with Bryant and two other managers a week earlier. "She provided very limited answers. She didn't volunteer information," one source said. "She was much more coached and guarded."

But several people in attendance were struck with her now-honed skills as a witness. A Senate lawyer afterward told others there that she should give lessons to corporate executives about how to testify under oath.

Bryant asked about the job search, the gifts, the "cover stories" and other familiar elements of the saga that led to the impeachment trial. He focused intently on her Dec. 17, 1997, telephone conversation with Clinton when he first informed her that she was on the witness list in the Jones case. And he elicited a statement from Lewinsky that it was possible Oval

Office secretary Betty Currie picked up the gifts about 90 minutes later than she remembered, a key point of dispute at the trial.

The session was occasionally scrappy as Lewinsky's lawyers objected several times to Bryant's questions, sources said. Once when he appeared to be asking about details of her sexual encounters with the president - an issue that forms the basis of the perjury count against Clinton - her lawyers cried foul. And repeatedly they complained that he was asking two or more questions at once.

After several such clashes, Bryant himself took back a question when he realized it was a compound question. "See? I"m making my own objections," he said, according to one person in the room.

"Sustained!" Lewinsky called out, prompting laughter.

At another point, when he asked her what Clinton was thinking on a particular occasion, Lewinsky's lawyers objected and Bryant complained that he did not think it was fair for her attorneys to complain, sources said. That prompted a brief timeout, but DeWine and Leahy ruled that they

could object.

The session began with DeWine swearing in Lewinsky. One of her attorneys,

Stein, read a statement into the record making clear that she was

testifying under the presumption that the deposition was covered by the

same immunity agreement she struck with Starr last summer, sources

said. Lewinsky's legal team solicited and received letters from Starr and

the lead House manager, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill., confirming that

understanding last week.

At the end, the two sides briefly quarreled over whether she could be

summoned again to testify. Rogan, who left the questioning to Bryant, told

Lewinsky that she was not excused and could be recalled. Cacheris

objected and said prosecutors would have to obtain a new subpoena, a

position upheld by DeWine, sources said.

The deposition came against the backdrop of renewed political skirmishing

between the White House and Starr over allegations of leaking. Before

heading off for the Lewinsky interview, Kendall filed a "show cause"

motion asking Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson to

consider holding Starr's office in contempt for violating grand jury secrecy

rules in connection with a weekend New York Times story.

"The Office of Independent Counsel has once again engaged in illegal and

partisan leaking," Kendall said, citing a Times article that quoted unnamed

Starr associates saying he has concluded he has the authority to indict a

sitting president.

Greeted by television cameras outside his home Monday morning, Starr

declined to discuss the matter. "It is premature for us to be commenting

at all on this and so we're not going to be commenting. There is a process

that is under way and that process should go forward," he said, before

quickly clarifying that he meant "a process that is under way in the United

States Senate."

His spokesman flatly denied that Starr's office violated secrecy rules. "We

did not leak this information," Charles G. Bakaly III said on ABC's "Good

Morning America." "We have no interest in interposing ourselves in the

Senate's business. It would be wrong to do. We do not do that."

Yet hours later, Starr announced that he would conduct his own inquiry to

determine whether in fact his office played any role in the story, saying he

was "deeply troubled" by the report. "We are launching an internal

investigation to determine whether anyone in this office improperly

disclosed the information to the Times," he said in a written statement.

"The announcement of this investigation should not be taken as

confirmation of anything in the article."

LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST--02-01-99 2148EST

02-02-99