Text of Starr's Testimony-7

By The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 18, 1998; 9:35 p.m. EST

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

In asserting protective function and government attorney-client privileges, the administration was asking the federal courts to make up one new privilege out of whole cloth and to apply another privilege in a context in which no federal court had ever applied it before. And thus it again came as little surprise that the federal courts rejected the administration's claims. Indeed, as to the government attorney-client claim, the D.C. Circuit and the District Court, like the Eighth Circuit a year ago, stated that the president's position not only was wrong but would authorize a ``gross misuse of public assets.'' The Supreme Court refused to grant review of the cases notwithstanding the administration's two strongly worded petitions.

This point bears emphasis: The administration justified its many privilege claims by claiming an interest in protecting the presidency, not the president personally. But that justification is dubious for two reasons. First, Presidents Carter and Reagan waived all government privileges at the outset of criminal investigations in which they were involved. The examples set by those two presidents demonstrate that such privilege claims in criminal investigations are manifestly unnecessary to protect the presidency. Second, these novel privilege claims were quite weak as a matter of law.

And that raises a question: What was it about the Monica Lewinsky matter that generated the administration's particularly aggressive approach to privileges? The circumstantial evidence suggests an answer: delay. Indeed, when this office sought to have the Supreme Court decide all three privilege claims at once this past June, the Administration opposed expedited consideration.

Not only did the administration invoke these three losing privileges, but the president publicly suggested that he had not invoked executive privilege when in fact he had. On March 24, 1998, while traveling in Africa, the president was asked about executive privilege. He stated in response: ``You should ask someone who knows. I haven't discussed that with the lawyers. I don't know.'' But White House Counsel Charles Ruff had filed an affidavit in federal court only seven days earlier in which he swore that he had discussed the assertion of executive privilege with the president and the president had approved its invocation.

After Chief Judge Johnson ruled against the president, the president dropped the executive privilege claim in the Supreme Court. In August, the president explained to the grand jury why he dropped it. The president stated: ``I didn't really want to advance an executive privilege claim in this case beyond having it litigated.''

But this statement -- to the grand jury -- was inaccurate. In truth, the president had again asserted executive privilege only a few days earlier. And a few days after his grand jury testimony, the president again asserted executive privilege to prevent the testimony of Bruce Lindsey. These executive privilege cases continue to this day; indeed, one case is now pending in the D.C. Circuit.

When the president and the administration assert privileges in a context involving the president's personal issues; when the president pretends publicly that he knows nothing about the executive privilege assertion; when the president and the administration rebuff our office's efforts to expedite the cases to the Supreme Court; when the president contends in the grand jury that he never really wanted to assert executive privilege beyond having it litigated -- despite the fact that he had asserted it six days earlier and will do so again four days afterwards, there is substantial and credible evidence that the president has misused the privileges available to his office. And the misuse delayed and impeded the federal grand jury's investigation.

The fifth tactic was diversion and deflection. The president made false statements to his aides and associates about the nature of the relationship -- with knowledge that they could testify to that effect to the grand jury sitting here in Washington. The president did not simply say to his associates that the allegations were false or that the issue was a private matter that he did not want to discuss. Instead, the president concocted alternative scenarios that were then repeated to the grand jury.

The final two tactics were related: (i) to attack the grand jury investigation, including the Justice Department prosecutors in my office -- to declare war, in the words of one presidential ally -- and (ii) to shape public opinion about the proper resolution of the entire matter. It is best that I leave it to someone outside our office to elaborate on the war against our office. But no one really disputes that those tactics were employed -- and continue to be employed to this day.

F. The President's Actions: Aug. 17

This strategy proceeded for nearly seven months. It changed course in August after Monica Lewinsky reached an immunity agreement with our office, and the grand jury, after deliberation, issued a subpoena to the president.

The president testified to the grand jury on Aug. 17. Beforehand, many in Congress and the public advised that the president should tell the whole truth. They cautioned that the president could not lie to the grand jury. Senator Hatch, for example, stated that ``So help me, if he lies before the grand jury, that will be grounds for impeachment.'' Senator Moynihan stated simply that perjury before the grand jury was, in his view, an impeachable offense.

The evidence suggests that the president did not heed this senatorial advice. Although admitting to an ambiguously defined inappropriate relationship, the president denied that he had lied under oath at his civil deposition. He also denied any conduct that would establish that he had lied under oath at his civil deposition. The president thus denied certain conduct with Ms. Lewinsky and devised a variety of tortured and false definitions.
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