Just A Sex Cover-Up?: High Crimes? Or Just A Sex Cover-Up?

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The President was now devoting a lot of attention to the Monica problem. After 2 a.m. on Dec. 17, he called her at home and told her she was on the witness list. According to Lewinsky, he told her that "it broke his heart" to see her listed. But if she were subpoenaed, he said, "she could sign an affidavit to try to satisfy the inquiry and not be deposed." He also went over what Lewinsky calls one of the "cover stories" they had discussed as the affair unfolded: her frequent visits to the White House were to see her friend Currie. Starr calls this a case of subornation of perjury. Clinton testified that he didn't recall saying it.

Over the next couple of days, the twin worries of affidavit and job only grew. So did Jordan's role. On Dec. 18 and 23, Lewinsky interviewed at two New York firms contacted by Jordan. On Dec. 19, she was served with a subpoena to testify in the Jones case. On Dec. 22, Jordan took Lewinsky to her new attorney, and the two discussed her job prospects, the subpoena and the Jones case during the ride in his limousine.

For a man who claimed to see no connection between jobs and affidavit, Jordan was at the intersection of both. Immediately after she was subpoenaed, on Dec. 19, Lewinsky called Jordan, who invited her to his office. Ten minutes after she arrived, he received a call from Clinton and spoke for four minutes. A minute later, he called the attorney he had chosen for Lewinsky, Francis Carter. Monica gave Jordan more reason to suspect an affair at that meeting when she asked him about the future of the Clintons' marriage. Concerned that she seemed "mesmerized" by Clinton, Jordan says, he asked if there was a sexual relationship. She denied it--but told the grand jury she thought Jordan knew of the affair and was asking her not what had happened but what she would tell Paula Jones' lawyers. Jordan said he took her reply literally. When he met with Clinton that night, Jordan testified, he asked him if there was a sexual relationship. Jordan says the President replied, "No, never."

Three days later, when Jordan escorted Lewinsky to Carter's office, he was again confronted with the true nature of the relationship. She told him she was worried about someone's eavesdropping on her phone calls with Clinton, which would be a problem because "we've had phone sex." At the same time, she says, she showed him gifts Clinton had given her. (Jordan denied it.)

Lewinsky was getting worried about all those gifts--souvenirs from Martha's Vineyard, a special edition of Leaves of Grass. She testified that on Dec. 28, during an early-morning meeting with Clinton at the White House, she asked him if she should "put the gifts away outside my house somewhere or give them to someone, maybe Betty." Clinton responded, "I don't know" or "Let me think about that." Later that day Currie called Monica and said, according to Lewinsky, either "I understand you have something to give me" or "The President said you have something to give me." Currie then went to Lewinsky's apartment, took a box of gifts and hid them under her own bed. She later gave them to Starr.