Lewinsky, Given Immunity, Reportedly Agrees to Tell of Pact With Clinton to Lie

July 29, 1998

Lewinsky, Given Immunity, Reportedly Agrees to Tell of Pact With Clinton to Lie

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By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and JOHN M. BRODER

ASHINGTON -- Monica Lewinsky received a sweeping grant of immunity from federal prosecution Tuesday, in exchange for a promise to testify that she and President Clinton had agreed to deny that they had a sexual relationship, two lawyers familiar with her account said Tuesday.
Both Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky did deny under oath that they had a sexual relationship. But in discussions leading to the immunity deal, Ms. Lewinsky told prosecutors this week that she and the president had a sexual relationship that began in 1995. The 25-year-old former White House intern now admits she lied in the sworn affidavit she submitted in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct suit in January.

A CHRONOLOGY

Lewinsky, From Her Internship at the White House to Her Agreement for Immunity
JUNE 1995 Monica S. Lewinsky begins work at the White House as an unpaid intern.
APRIL 17, 1996 Ms. Lewinsky moves to the Pentagon as a confidential aide to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and becomes friends with Linda R. Tripp, who had formerly worked as secretary to the White House counsel, Bernard W. Nussbaum.
FALL 1997 Mrs. Tripp begins secretly taping telephone conversations in which Ms. Lewinsky says she had an affair with President Clinton.
JAN. 7, 1998 In an affidavit in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case, Ms. Lewinsky denies that she had a sexual relationship with Clinton.
JAN. 12 Mrs. Tripp tells prosecutors for the Whitewater independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, that she has a tape on which Ms. Lewinsky says that Mr. Clinton's friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. encouraged her to deny having an affair.
JAN. 17 The President is questioned for six hours by lawyers for Ms. Jones.
He is asked about Ms. Lewinsky and denies that he had a sexual relationship with her.
JAN. 21 News accounts first appear of the alleged affair between the President and Ms. Lewinsky.
JAN. 29 After inconclusive discussions between Ms. Lewinsky's lawyer, William H. Ginsburg, and Starr's prosecutors, negotiations on an immunity deal protecting Ms. Lewinsky from prosecution for perjury appear stalled.
FEB. 10-11 Ms. Lewinsky's mother, Marcia Lewis, testifies for more than six hours over two days and leaves the Federal District Court in Washington looking physically shaken and emotionally distraught.
MARCH 5 Ginsburg argues before a Federal district judge in Washington that Starr's office had made, then retracted, a firm offer of immunity for Ms. Lewinsky in return for her full testimony.
Starr denies making such a deal.
APRIL 1 A Federal district judge in Arkansas throws out Ms. Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit.
Ms. Jones's lawyers later appeal the decision.
APRIL 29 A Federal district judge rules that Ms. Lewinsky did not have an agreement with the independent counsel that would give her immunity from testifying.
MAY 11 The Lewinsky family hires Judy Smith, a veteran media relations specialist.
MAY 28 In a Los Angeles F.B.I. office, Ms. Lewinsky gives handwriting, fingerprint and voice samples.
JUNE 2 Ms. Lewinsky dismisses Ginsburg and hires Jacob A. Stein and Plato Cacheris. One week later, the new lawyers discuss possible immunity for Ms. Lewinsky with independent counsel prosecutors.
JUNE 11 Ms. Lewinsky flies to California to spend time with her father, signaling that no agreement is near on possible immunity.
JULY 28 Lawyers for Ms. Lewinsky broker an immunity deal with Starr in which she promises "full and truthful testimony" in exchange for a sweeping grant of immunity from Federal prosecutors. Her mother, Ms. Lewis, is also given immunity.

One of the lawyers said Tuesday that Ms. Lewinsky had indicated to prosecutors that the president discussed with her hypothetical explanations that would help them keep their relationship private. In one aside, two lawyers with knowledge of Ms. Lewinsky's proposed testimony said, the president told her: If there are two people in a room and something happens and they both deny it, there is no way to prove it. Ms. Lewinsky has said that Clinton told her that in mid-December, after she was listed on the witness list in the Jones case but before she had received a subpoena.
The admissions were crucial to reaching the broad immunity deal with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr announced Tuesday. Ms. Lewinsky pledged her "full and truthful testimony" in exchange for freedom from the threat of prosecution. Ms. Lewinsky's mother, Marcia Lewis, received a similar grant of immunity Tuesday.
Under the immunity arrangement, Ms. Lewinsky is prepared to testify that the president told her that he planned to deny a relationship and if they both denied it, no one would know the truth, the lawyers said.
Ms. Lewinsky is also prepared to say that the president encouraged her to say that her many visits to the White House after she lost her job there in 1996 were to see Betty Currie, Clinton's private secretary, and not the president himself, the lawyers said.
Ms. Lewinsky's proposed testimony contradicts Clinton's assertions in public and under oath about their relationship.
In January, after the alleged affair became public, Clinton emphatically denied in a public statement having sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky or encouraging her or anyone else to lie.

Clinton did not comment in public about the immunity agreement.
His spokesman, Mike McCurry, said Clinton told aides he was "pleased that things are working out" for Ms. Lewinsky. The president had nothing more to say about the matter, McCurry said.
The immunity deal -- which protects Ms. Lewinsky from virtually any possibility of prosecution except for perjury in her future grand jury testimony -- poses serious problems for Clinton if he has been less than truthful in his previous public and sworn statements.
Ms. Lewinsky's assertions go beyond the question of whether they engaged in some form of sexual behavior and reach the marrow of Starr's inquiry.
Starr is seeking to learn whether Clinton or close advisers committed perjury, witness tampering or obstruction of justice in seeking to conceal his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
The lawyers familiar with her account say Ms. Lewinsky is prepared to testify that she wrote the "talking points," a three-page document that she gave to her colleague, Linda Tripp, that were intended to influence Ms. Tripp's testimony in the Jones case. She also will testify that no one at the White House helped her prepare them, the lawyers said. White House aides expressed jubilation at this development, saying that news accounts and allies of Starr had said the talking points would form the foundation of an obstruction of justice case against the president.
Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly refused to discuss Ms. Lewinsky's potential grand jury testimony.
The immunity deal came after months of fitful negotiations between Ms. Lewinsky's lawyers and lawyers from Starr's office. William Ginsburg, the California medical malpractice lawyer who represented Ms. Lewinsky in the early months of the inquiry, openly mocked Starr's prosecution team and all but dared them to indict her.
Ms. Lewinsky's family dismissed Ginsburg in early June and her new legal team of experienced Washington defense lawyers quickly opened talks with Starr that led to Tuesday's agreement.
Ms. Lewinsky's mother, Ms. Lewis, whose grand jury testimony last winter was suspended after she broke down on the witness stand, also reached an immunity deal with prosecutors Tuesday, said her lawyer, Billy Martin.
Starr wants Ms. Lewis' complete story because Ms. Lewinsky shared with her mother many details of her dealings with the president.
Ms. Lewis' lawyer sought immunity to protect her from any charges that might arise from advice she gave her daughter about how to respond to the Jones lawyers.
Clinton, McCurry said in a testy and abbreviated briefing for reporters, was not concerned about Ms. Lewinsky's impending testimony.
"Her lawyer said that she's going to give complete and truthful testimony and if she does, that should present no problem to the president, obviously," McCurry said.
McCurry said that he believed Clinton's earlier denials of a sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
If Ms. Lewinsky contradicts those denials, McCurry was asked, is she lying?
"Well, I would presume so, yes," he answered.
Ms. Lewinsky's account of her conversations with Clinton in which she said he urged her to deny a sexual relationship recall an account told by Gennifer Flowers in the 1992 presidential campaign. Ms. Flowers said that Clinton told her to deny a relationship if reporters asked and he would do the same and no witnesses could contradict them.
After years of denials, Clinton admitted in his January deposition in the Jones case that he had had sex once with Ms. Flowers, in 1977.
Clinton's private lawyer, David Kendall, remained in negotiations with prosecutors over how the president would respond to a subpoena for his testimony. White House officials and others involved in the inquiry indicated that Clinton is seeking to delay his testimony for several weeks, citing the heavy demands of his office.
McCurry, seeking to justify the president's desire for delay, said, "He's going to be a busy guy. He's the president."
Kendall did not return telephone calls seeking comment. He was seen at the federal courthouse this afternoon but the reason for his visit could not be learned. "It's under seal so we're all in Kabuki-land," McCurry said.
In a scene that has become familiar since the sensational sex-and-perjury allegations became public in January, reporters gathered outside the office of Ms. Lewinsky's lead lawyer, Plato Cacheris, in downtown Washington Tuesday.
Ms. Lewinsky, arriving in a taxi, was escorted through the surging throng by Judy Smith, her spokeswoman. Ms. Lewinsky arrived in Washington this morning after spending five hours with several of Starr's deputies in Manhattan on Monday reviewing her proposed testimony.
Cacheris and his co-counsels, Jacob Stein and Nathaniel Speights, reached the immunity agreement with the office of independent counsel Tuesday morning.
Just before 2 p.m., Cacheris walked to the bank of microphones outside his office and delivered a brief statement.
"We, as counsel for Monica Lewinsky," Cacheris said, "reached an agreement today which provides that Ms. Lewinsky's full and truthful testimony is the basis for the OIC's grant of full transactional immunity from prosecution."
Transactional immunity is a rarely granted full guarantee that a witness cannot be prosecuted for any crime related to the matter under investigation, in exchange for full disclosure. But the witness could face perjury charges and a revocation of immunity if a prosecutor believes that the witness has lied about a material fact in sworn testimony.

Ms. Lewinsky's family is happy that she finally reached an immunity deal with prosecutors after six months of uncertainty about her status. There was frequent speculation that prosecutors would seek to indict her on perjury charges if she did not offer to testify fully on her relationship with Clinton.
Ms. Lewinsky's parents and stepfather are "relieved that their daughter is out of harm's way," Ms. Smith said Tuesday.
At the federal courthouse Tuesday, Ms. Tripp, onetime friend of Ms. Lewinsky, who tape-recorded 20 hours of their conversations, appeared before the grand jury for the seventh time.
Philip Coughter, Ms. Tripp's spokesman, said that she is expected to return to the grand jury Wednesday, perhaps for the last time. Coughter said that he interpreted the immunity agreement between Ms. Lewinsky and Starr as "corroboration of Linda's testimony before the grand jury."
He quoted Ms. Tripp as saying, "I am encouraged by this development. It now appears that Monica Lewinsky is prepared to tell at least a portion of the truth. I encourage her and all other witnesses not only to tell the truth, but to tell the full truth."
Three uniformed officers of the Secret Service also gave testimony; several other officers have been called to appear Thursday.
But Starr is apparently finished taking testimony from Larry Cockell, the plainclothes agent in charge of the Secret Service detail that guards the president.
Cockell, who removed himself from the protective detail after he was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury three weeks ago, returned to the job Tuesday night. He accompanied Clinton to two political events in Washington as lead agent.

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