Clinton's Crisis: Truth or...Consequences

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In a sworn affidavit on Jan. 7, Lewinsky reportedly denied having a sexual relationship with Clinton. But Tripp meanwhile was pursuing a very different strategy. Lawyer Kirby Behre, retained by the White House to prepare her for congressional committees and grand jury investigations into Travelgate and Vince Foster's suicide, did not seem to Tripp terribly interested. So she decided it was time for a more aggressive defender. She brought her tapes to James Moody, a solo practitioner who specializes in fighting regulations, whom she had met during the Bush Administration. Moody had little faith in Janet Reno's Justice Department and agreed with Tripp that they should turn the tapes over to Starr.

For Starr, whose investigation had been going heaven only knows where for four years, Tripp was a gift from God. They met on Monday, Jan. 12, and Moody was stunned by the speed of Starr's response. The next day, Tripp was outfitted with a body wire so they could tape her meeting with Lewinsky at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City. Once again Lewinsky discussed her plans to cover up the affair, and her hopes that Jordan would help her land a good job.

That Wednesday, Lewinsky drove Tripp home from the Pentagon and offered her a mysterious set of "talking points" about how to handle her deposition. It was clear Lewinsky hadn't written the document herself, but she didn't say who had given it to her. The document recommended that Tripp change her story about Willey, suggest that she could have smeared her own makeup and messed up her clothes. And it recommended that Tripp dismiss Lewinsky as a liar and a stalker of the President, in effect supporting Lewinsky's sworn statement that there was no affair.

But Starr now had evidence that would potentially support charges of perjury, suborning perjury and obstruction of justice. He approached the Justice Department and received formal permission to expand his inquiry. When Newsweek called to say it was preparing to run the first detailed account of the Lewinsky affair, Starr pressured the editors to hold off, to allow him time to enlist Lewinsky's aid in stinging Jordan and potentially the President as well. When Lewinsky met Tripp at the Ritz-Carlton again on Friday, she quickly found herself surrounded by FBI agents and prosecutors and directed upstairs to confront her predicament.

And so began the strangest and most pivotal chapter in the whole drama: the Getting to Know You duet between Ken Starr and Monica Lewinsky. In exchange for immunity, he wanted her to tell him all the details of the affair, and most important, to agree to wear a wire that would let him catch Jordan trying to keep her quiet. Otherwise, he had the tapes that would allow him to prosecute her for perjury. Faced with this choice, Lewinsky fell apart. She cried. She asked for her mother. "My life is ruined," she said.