Bill Clinton: I Misled People

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For once in his life, Bill Clinton was early: he showed up for his testimony at 12:59 and didn't even wait for the first question before speaking. When he sat down in the White House Map Room, with the grand jurors watching on closed-circuit TV and Starr and his six prosecutors spread out before him, he had a statement all prepared so he could tell his story before they had a chance to ask. Yes, he had had an "inappropriate" relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He had indeed been alone with her, but he didn't really consider it alone, since stewards and assistants were always hovering just outside the office, within earshot, as he suggested during the Jones deposition. He presented a brief history of the relationship and gave dates and places of their liaisons.

On most issues the President's account of the affair generally matched Lewinsky's. He admitted giving her the gifts--the hatpin, the book of poems and a T shirt--that he had difficulty remembering when Jones' lawyers asked about them back in January. And he explained how the two had promised to keep the affair secret, though he stressed that those discussions did not occur after she was subpoenaed in the Jones case.

But when it came to talking about the actual sexual encounters, the two stories went their separate ways. Just as the previews promised, the President claimed that he did not commit perjury back in January because under the definition of sexual relations that the Jones lawyers put on the table that day, he did not consider his behavior with Lewinsky to count as sex. During that deposition seven months ago, a source familiar with his testimony told TIME, "he construed things narrowly. He was accurate but not helpful. That was his goal, and that's what he did. That's why he testified honestly."

That line of defense, of course, made the whole question of what he did and didn't do with Lewinsky relevant, especially since by her sworn account, what happened between them qualified under any definition of sex. Lewinsky, sources close to her defense said, had told the grand jury that Clinton fondled her breasts and genitals--the kind of activity covered by the Jones definition of sexual relations. Unless the President gave detailed testimony, there was no way for prosecutors to reconcile the discrepancy.

But when the prosecutors tried then to ask the specific questions, Clinton revolted, invoked his right to privacy, and refused to answer. Discussing the sexual-relations definition used in the Jones case, Clinton was asked about various activities that might fit the definition--and the President said oral sex did not make the cut. Yet he did not acknowledge engaging in it with Lewinsky. Starr and his team huddled, came back and proceeded to ask Clinton specific questions the President had just ruled out of bounds. The prosecutors pushed harder, drawing on the details they had from Lewinsky's testimony. He refused to budge, trying to screen out what his legal team described as questions of a "graphic and offensive" nature. Clinton's team insists these were the only questions he refused to answer--a strategy apparently aimed at making it appear that any further pushing by Starr would be an effort to get into the salacious details that no American would want to volunteer and that the country doesn't want to hear anyway.