The prosecutor labels this obstruction of justice by Clinton--concealing the truth by concealing the gifts. But Currie's testimony disputes Lewinsky on the key question of who initiated the call. Currie said Monica called her first and asked her to take the gifts. Currie testified that she didn't remember talking to the President about the gifts before or after she fetched them from Lewinsky, which raises the question, What would have motivated Currie to act on her own initiative? Still, the White House notes that Starr's report relies on Lewinsky's version of events as accurate and dismisses Currie's contradictory testimony, even though Lewinsky is an admitted perjurer and Currie is not.

Three days after Currie collected the gifts, Jordan allegedly caused the destruction of other evidence linking Lewinsky to Clinton. According to the report, at a Dec. 31 breakfast meeting between Jordan and Lewinsky, she told him that Linda Tripp might have seen drafts of highly charged notes she had written the President. "Go home and make sure they're not there," Jordan allegedly told her. When Lewinsky returned home that day, she says, she threw out some 50 draft notes to Clinton.

The report suggests an active role by Clinton in creating Lewinsky's affidavit denying a sexual relationship. He had suggested the affidavit in the first place, and though Lewinsky says he never explicitly asked her to lie, they had often discussed keeping their relationship secret. As Lewinsky told Linda Tripp in a recorded conversation, "I don't think he thinks of [it as] lying under oath... He thinks of it as...'We're being smart; we're being safe; it's good for everybody.'" Jordan testified that Clinton was "concerned about the affidavit and whether it was signed or not," and he had kept up "a continuing dialogue" with Clinton on the matter. Phone records for Jan. 6, for example, show Jordan in contact with the White House twice, Lewinsky three times and her attorney Carter four times. In one flurry, Jordan called the President less than 30 minutes after speaking with Lewinsky and then called Carter immediately after that.

On Jan. 7, Lewinsky signed the affidavit and brought a copy to show Jordan. He placed three long calls to the White House that day in which he told the President, according to his testimony, that she had signed the affidavit and that he was continuing to work on getting her a job. In both cases, Jordan testified, the President said, "Good."

The next day Jordan applied a little of what he calls the "Jordan magic" to close the deal on Lewinsky's job. On that day Lewinsky interviewed in New York City with a top executive of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., billionaire Ron Perelman's umbrella company, but the executive decided she was unsuited for any opening. (Jordan is on the board of Revlon, a MacAndrews subsidiary.) Lewinsky reported to Jordan that the interview went "very poorly." So Jordan called Perelman. "I have spent a good part of my life learning institutions and people, and in that process, I have learned how to make things happen," he explained to the grand jury. "And the call to Ronald Perelman was a call to make things happen, if they could happen." (He also made three calls to the White House that day.) According to Perelman, Jordan touted Lewinsky as a "bright young girl who I think is terrific." It was the first time in the 12 years Jordan had served as a Revlon director that he had called to recommend someone for a job.

By the end of the day, Revlon called Lewinsky for an interview. On Jan. 9, she met with one executive from MacAndrews and two from Revlon. Within hours, Lewinsky was informally offered a job. She informally accepted and reported the news to Jordan. He immediately informed Currie and Clinton: "Mission accomplished." But Lewinsky still needed references, and Clinton reached down into the White House staff to make sure Lewinsky would get a favorable one. In the end, Revlon withdrew the job offer after the scandal broke.

During his Jones deposition on Jan. 17, Clinton was barraged with questions about Lewinsky. After the interrogation was finished, he called Currie and summoned her to the White House the following day, a Sunday. In the meeting, Currie testified, Clinton made a series of statements about himself and Lewinsky. "You were always there when she was there, right? We were never really alone. Monica came on to me, and I never touched her, right?"

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