Text of Starr's Testimony-4

By The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 18, 1998; 8:50 p.m. EST

Testimony of Independent Council Kenneth Starr prepared for delivery Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee:

The conversation between the president and Ms. Lewinsky on Dec. 17 was a critical turning point. The evidence suggests that the president chose to engage in a criminal act -- to reach an understanding with Ms. Lewinsky that they would both make false statements under oath. At that moment, the president's intimate relationship with a subordinate employee was transformed into an unlawful effort to thwart the judicial process. This was no longer an issue of private conduct.

Recall that the Supreme Court had concluded that Paula Jones was entitled to an ``orderly disposition'' of her claims. The president's action on Dec. 17 was his first direct effort to thwart the Supreme Court's mandate.

The story continued: The president faced a second choice. On Dec. 23, 1997, the president submitted under oath a written answer to an interrogatory. The request stated in relevant part: ``Please state the name ... of (federal employees) with whom you had sexual relations when you (were) ... president of the United States.'' In his sworn answer, the president stated ``None.''

On Dec. 28, the president faced a third critical choice. On that day, the president met with Ms. Lewinsky at the White House. They discussed the fact that Ms. Lewinsky had been subpoenaed for gifts she had received from the president. According to Ms. Lewinsky, she raised the question of what she should do with the gifts. Later that day, the president's personal secretary, Betty Currie, drove to Ms. Lewinsky's Watergate home. Ms. Lewinsky gave Ms. Currie a sealed box that contained some of the subpoenaed gifts. Ms. Currie then stored the box under her bed at home.

In her written proffer on Feb. 1, four weeks after the fact, Ms. Lewinsky stated that Ms. Currie had called her to retrieve the gifts. If so, that necessarily meant that the president had asked Ms. Currie to call. It would directly and undeniably implicate him in an obstruction of justice. Ms. Lewinsky later repeated that statement in testimony under oath. Ms. Currie, for her part, recalls Ms. Lewinsky calling her. But even if Ms. Lewinsky called Ms. Currie, common sense and the evidence suggest some presidential knowledge or involvement, as the referral explains.

Let me add another point about the gifts. In his grand jury appearance in August, the president testified that he had no particular concern about the gifts in December 1997 when he had talked to Ms. Lewinsky about them. And he thus suggested that he would have had no reason to take part in December in a plan to conceal the gifts. But there is a serious problem with the president's explanation. If it were true that the president in December was unconcerned about the gifts, he presumably would have told the truth under oath in his January deposition about the large number of gifts that he and Ms. Lewinsky had exchanged. But he did not tell the truth. At that deposition, when asked whether he had ever given gifts to Monica Lewinsky, and he had given her several on Dec. 28, the president stated ``I don't recall. Do you know what they were?''

In short, the critical facts to emphasize about the transfer of gifts are these: First, the president and Ms. Lewinsky met and discussed what should be done with the gifts subpoenaed from Ms. Lewinsky. Second, the president's personal secretary Ms. Currie drove later that day to Ms. Lewinsky's home to pick up the gifts. Third, Ms. Currie stored the box under her bed.

Meanwhile, the legal process continued to unfold, and the president took other actions that had the foreseeable effect of keeping Ms. Lewinsky ``on the team.'' The president helped Ms. Lewinsky obtain a job in New York. His efforts began after the Supreme Court's decision in May 1997 -- at a time when it had become foreseeable that she could be an adverse witness against the president. These job-related efforts intensified in December 1997 after Ms. Lewinsky's name appeared on the witness list.

Vernon Jordan, who had been enlisted in the job search for Ms. Lewinsky, testified that he kept the president informed of the status of Ms. Lewinsky's job search and her affidavit. On Jan. 7, 1998, Mr. Jordan told the president that Ms. Lewinsky had signed the affidavit. Mr. Jordan stated to the president that he was still working on getting her a job. The president replied, ``Good.'' In other words, the president, knowing that a witness had just signed a false affidavit, encouraged his friend to continue trying to find her a job. After Ms. Lewinsky received a job offer from Revlon on Jan. 12, Vernon Jordan called the president and said: ``Mission accomplished.

As is often the situation in cases involving this kind of financial assistance, no direct evidence reveals the president's intent in assisting Ms. Lewinsky. Ms. Lewinsky testified that no one promised her a job for silence; of course, crimes ordinarily do not take place with such explicit discussion. But federal courts instruct juries that circumstantial evidence is just as probative as direct evidence. And the circumstantial evidence here is strong. At a bare minimum, the evidence suggests that the president's job assistance efforts stemmed from his desire to placate Ms. Lewinsky so that she would not be tempted -- under the burden of an oath -- to tell the truth about the relationship. Monica Lewinsky herself recognized that at the time, saying to a friend, ``Somebody could construe or say, 'Well, they gave her a job to shut her up. They made her happy.'''

And given that the president's plan to testify falsely could succeed only if Ms. Lewinsky went along, the president naturally had to be concerned that Ms. Lewinsky at any time might turn around and decide to tell the truth. Indeed, some wanted her to tell the truth. For example, one friend talked to Ms. Lewinsky about the Dec. 28 meeting with the president. The friend stated that she was concerned because she ``didn't want to see (Monica) being like Susan McDougal'' and did not want Monica to lie to protect the president. Needless to say, any sudden decision by Ms. Lewinsky to tell the truth, whether out of anger at the president or simple desire to be law-abiding, would have been very harmful to the president. That helps to explain his motive in providing job assistance.
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