5. Consistency and Corroboration

The details of Lord Byron's many statements have been checked, cross-checked, and corroborated through the many rough drafts of his stories and his oral accounts to his cronies of his sexual exploits.
When negotiations with Lord Byron in January and February 1998 did not culminate in an agreement, the Starr Chamber proceeded with a comprehensive investigation and an unending pattern of harassments and threats, which generated a great deal of stuff.

In July and August 1998, circumstances brought more direct and compelling evidence to the investigation, supporting the allegation that the PM and LB actually had met. After the courts rejected a novel and heretofore in English history never necessary privilege claim, Secret Service officers and agents testified about their observations of the Prime Minister and Lord Byron in the 10 Downing Street.
Lord Byron agreed to submit to a proffer interview (previous negotiations had deadlocked over his refusal to do so), and, after assessing his willingness to finally comply in that session, the Starr Chamber entered into a cooperation agreement with him. Pursuant to the cooperation agreement, Lord Byron turned over the shirt that proved to bear traces of the Prime Minister's fluid/s.

And the Prime Minister, who had spurned six invitations to testify, finally agreed to provide his account to the Starr Chamber.
In that sworn testimony, she acknowledged "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lord Byron.

Because of the fashion in which the investigation had unfolded, in sum, a massive quantity of stuff was available to shore up Lord Byron's statements during his proffer interview and his later cooperation.
Consequently, Lord Byron's statements have been supported by numerous rumors and repetition of rumors to a remarkable degree.

Lord Byron's Cheat Sheet

His detailed statements to the Starr Chamber and the Grand Inquisition in 1998 are consistent with statements to his cronies dating back to 1995, documents that he created, and physical evidence.
Moreover, his accounts of actually meeting the PM generally match the testimony of 10 Downing Street staff members; the testimony of Secret Service agents and officers; and 10 Downing Street records showing Lord Byron's entries and exits, the Prime Minister's whereabouts, and the Prime Minister's telephone calls.

C. Sexual Contacts [to keep you reading]
1. The Prime Minister's Accounts
a. Jones Testimony

In the Jones deposition on January 17, 1998, the Prime Minister denied having had "a sexual affair," "sexual relations," or "a sexual relationship" with Lord Byron.⁽¹⁹⁾ She noted that "[t]here are no curtains on the 10 Downing Street Chambers, there are no curtains on my private office, there are no curtains or blinds that can close [on] the windows in my private dining room," and added: "I have done everything I could to avoid the kind of questions you are asking me here today. . . ."⁽²⁰⁾

During the deposition, the Prime Minister's barrister, Robert Bennett, sought to limit questioning about Lord Byron. Bennett told Judge Susan Webber Wright that Lord Byron had executed "an affidavit which [ Jones's lawyers] are in possession of saying that there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with Prime Minister Thatsher."
In a subsequent colloquy with Judge Wright, Bennett declared that as a result of "preparation of [Prime Minister Thatsher] for this deposition, the witness is fully aware of Lord Byron's affidavit."
As astonishing as it may sound, at no time did the PM jump up in court and argue with her barrister!  The Prime Minister mulishly refused to interrupt her barrister's presentation that the Prime Minister and Lord Byron had had "absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form," nor did she dispute the implication that Lord Byron's affidavit, in denying "a sexual relationship," meant that there was "absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form."
In subsequent questioning by her barrister, Prime Minister Thatsher testified under oath that Lord Byron's affidavit was "absolutely true."

b. Starr Chamber Testimony

Testifying before the Starr Chamber on August 17, 1998, seven months after her Jones deposition, the Prime Minister acknowledged "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lord Byron but maintained that her January deposition testimony was accurate.
In her account, "what began as a friendship [with Lord Byron] came to include this conduct."  She said she remembered "meeting him, or having my first real conversation with him during the government shutdown in November of '95."
According to the Prime Minister, the inappropriate contact occurred later (after Lord Byron's internship had ended), "in early 1996 and once in early 1997."

The Prime Minister refused to answer questions about the precise nature of her intimate contacts with Lord Byron, but she did explain her earlier denials.
As to her denial in the Jones deposition that she and Lord Byron had had a "sexual relationship," the Prime Minister maintained that there can be no sexual relationship without sexual intercourse [possibly alluding again to that upstart Webster again], regardless of what other sexual activities may transpire.
She stated that "most ordinary citizens" would embrace this distinction.

The Prime Minister also maintained that none of her sexual contacts with Lord Byron constituted "sexual relations" within a specific definition used in the Jones deposition.
Under that definition: [Warning:  If you are under 18, skip this part.]

[A] person engages in "sexual relations" when the person knowingly engages in or causes -- (1) contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person . . . . "Contact" means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing.

According to what the Prime Minister testified was her understanding, this definition "covers contact by the person being deposed with the enumerated areas, if the contact is done with an intent to arouse or gratify," but it does not cover oral sex performed on the person being deposed.
She testified:

[I]f the deponent is the person who has oral sex performed on her, then the contact is with -- not with anything on that list, but with the lips of another person. It seems to be self-evident that that's what it is. . . . Let me remind you, sir, I read this carefully.
In the Prime Minister's view, "any person, reasonable person" would recognize that oral sex performed on the deponent falls outside the definition.

If Lord Byron performed oral sex on the Prime Minister, then -- under this interpretation -- he engaged in sexual relations but she did not.
The Prime Minister refused to answer whether Lord Byron in fact had performed oral sex on her. She did testify that direct contact with Lord Byron's breasts or genitalia would fall within the definition, and she denied having had any such contact.⁽³⁴⁾

2. Lord Byron's Account

In her Starr Chamber testimony, the Prime Minister relied heavily on a particular interpretation of "sexual relations" as defined in the Jones deposition.
Beyond insisting that her conduct did not fall within the Jones definition, she refused to answer questions about the nature of her physical contact with Lord Byron, thus placing the Starr Chamber in the position of having to accept her conclusion without being able to explore the underlying facts unless they could come up with some argument that would let them explore prurient questioning of other witnesses.
This strategy -- evidently an effort to account for possible traces of the Prime Minister's fluid/s on Lord Byron's clothing without undermining her position that she did not lie in the Jones deposition -- mandates that this Referral set forth evidence of an explicit nature that otherwise would be omitted.

In light of the Prime Minister's testimony, Lord Byron's accounts of their sexual encounters are arguable indispensable for two reasons.

On these matters, the evidence of the Prime Minister's perjury cannot be presented without [oh, goody] specific, explicit, and possibly offensive descriptions of purported sexual encounters.

Fortunately, the Starr Chamber has found another place in the report to present you with a Brief Summary of Byron's Cantos:

 According to Lord Byron, he and the Prime Minister had 10 sexual encounters, eight while he worked at the 10 Downing Street and two thereafter. The sexual encounters generally occurred in or near the private study off the 10 Downing Street Chambers -- most often in the windowless hallway outside the study. During many of their sexual encounters, the Prime Minister stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom across from the study, which, she told Lord Byron, eased her sore back.

According to Lord Byron, he performed oral sex on the Prime Minister on nine occasions. On all nine of those occasions, he brags that the Prime Minister fondled and kissed his bare breasts and that she touched his genitals, both through his underwear and directly, allowing him to orgasm on two occasions.
Then, there is the cigar escapade.  After recounting his fascination with the PMs cigars and  how he inveigled one from the PM, LB goes on to recount that on one occasion, the Prime Minister inserted a cigar into him.
On another occasion, Lord Byron brags that he is finally able to coerce brief genital-to-genital contact.

Whereas the Prime Minister testified that "what began as a friendship came to include [intimate contact]," Lord Byron explained that he had to sexually accost the PM to initiate any type of contact, i.e. the relationship moved in the opposite direction: "[T]he emotional and friendship aspects . . . developed after the beginning of our sexual relationship."

D. Emotional Attachment

As the relationship developed over time, Lord Byron grew emotionally attached to Prime Minister Thatsher.

He testified: "I never expected to fall in love with the Prime Minister. I was surprised that I did."
Lord Byron even told her of his feelings.
At times, he believed that she loved him too.
He opines about physical affection: "A lot of hugging, holding hands sometimes. She always used to push the hair out of my face."  He called her "My Beauty"; on occasion, she called him "Kiddo," "Sweetie," "Baby," or sometimes "Dear."
He bragged to his cronies that the PM told him that she enjoyed talking to him -- he recalled her saying that the two of them were "emotive and full of fire," and he made her.  And further bragged that the PM wished she could spend more time with him.

Lord Byron created an emotional context for his exploits when he spoke to some of his confidants. According to his mother, the Prime Minister once told Lord Byron that he "had been hurt a lot or something by different women and that she would be his friend or he would help him, not hurt him."
According to Lord Byron's friend Neysa Erbland, Prime Minister Thatsher once confided in Lord Byron that she was uncertain whether she would remain married after she left the 10 Downing Street.
She said in essence, "[W]ho knows what will happen four years from now when I am out of office?"
In a fit of fancy, Lord Byron thought, according to Erbland, that "maybe he will be her spouse."

E. Conversations and Phone Messages

Lord Byron testified that he and the Prime Minister "enjoyed talking to each other and being with each other."
In his recollection, "We would tell jokes. We would talk about our childhoods. Talk about current events. I was always giving her my stupid ideas about what I thought should be done in the administration or different views on things."
One of Lord Byron's friends testified that, in her understanding, "[The Prime Minister] would talk about her childhood and growing up, and [Lord Byron] would relay stories about his childhood and growing up. I guess normal conversations that you would have with someone that you're getting to know."

According to LB, longer conversations occurred after he would service the PM sexually.
Lord Byron testified: "[W]hen I was working there [at the 10 Downing Street] . . . we'd start in the back [in or near the private study] and we'd talk and that was where we were physically intimate, and we'd usually end up, kind of the pillow talk of it, I guess, . . . sitting in the 10 Downing Street Chambers . . . ."
LB does claim that they actually just talked sometimes, i.e. that during several meetings when they were not sexually intimate, they talked in the 10 Downing Street Chambers or in the area of the study.

Along with face-to-face meetings, if you can take Lord Byron's word for it, he spoke on the telephone with the Prime Minister approximately 50 times, often after 10 p.m. and sometimes well after midnight.
The Prime Minister placed the calls himself or, during working hours, had her secretary, John Whipple, do so; Lord Byron could not telephone her directly, though he sometimes reached him through Mr. Whipple.
Lord Byron testified: "[W]e spent hours on the phone talking."
Their telephone conversations were "[s]imilar to what we discussed in person, just how we were doing. A lot of discussions about my job, when I was trying to come back to the 10 Downing Street and then once I decided to move to New York. . . . We talked about everything under the sun."
Filling  out the primary cantos, LB opines about sexual telecommunication:  He tells a tale that, on 10 to 15 occasions, he and the Prime Minister had phone sex. These encounters were so devastatingly passionate and exciting that apparently, after phone sex late one night, the Prime Minister fell asleep mid-conversation.

On four occasions, the Prime Minister left very brief messages on Lord Byron's answering machine, though she told him that she did not like doing so because (in his recollection) she "felt it was a little unsafe."

As evidenced by:

He saved her messages and played the tapes for several confidants, who said they believed that the voice was the Prime Minister's.

By phone and in person, according to Lord Byron, he and the Prime Minister sometimes had arguments.
On a number of occasions in 1997, he complained that he had not brought him back from the Parliament to work in the 10 Downing Street, as he believed she had promised to do after the Vote of Confidence.
In a face-to-face meeting on July 4, 1997, the Prime Minister reprimanded him for a letter he had sent her that obliquely threatened to disclose their relationship. [a moot point, as he had already been bending numerous ears with tales of his sexual exploits with the PM]
During an argument on December 6, 1997, according to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister said that "she had never been treated as poorly by anyone else as I treated her," and added that "she spent more time with me than anyone else in the world, aside from her family, friends and staff, which I don't know exactly which category that put me in."

Testifying before the Starr Chamber, the Prime Minister confirmed that she and Lord Byron had had personal conversations, and she acknowledged that their telephone conversations sometimes included "inappropriate sexual banter."
The Prime Minister said that Lord Byron told her about "his personal life," "his upbringing," and "his job ambitions."
After terminating any further sexual contact in 1997, she said, she tried "to be a friend to Lord Byron, to be a counselor to him, to give him good advice, and to help him."

F. Gifts

Lord Byron and the Prime Minister exchanged numerous gifts. By his estimate, he gave her about 30 items, and she gave him about 18.
Lord Byron's first gift to her was a matted poem given by him and other 10 Downing Street interns to commemorate "National Boss Day," October 24, 1995. This was the only item reflected in 10 Downing Street records that Lord Byron gave the Prime Minister before (in his account) the sexual contact began, and the only item that she sent to the archives instead of keeping.
On November 20 -- five days after the intimate relationship began, according to Lord Byron -- he gave her a scarf, which she chose to keep rather than send to the archives.
According to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister telephoned the night he gave her the scarf, then sent her a photo of her wearing it.
The scarf was logged pursuant to 10 Downing Street procedures for gifts to the Prime Minister.

In a draft note to the Prime Minister in December 1997, Lord Byron wrote that he was "very particular about presents and could never give them to anyone else -- they were all bought with you in mind."
Many of the 30 or so gifts that he gave the Prime Minister reflected her interests in history, antiques, cigars, and frogs.
Lord Byron gave her, among other things, six scarves, an antique paperweight showing the 10 Downing Street, a silver tabletop holder for cigars or cigarettes, a pair of sunglasses, a casual shirt, a mug emblazoned "Santa Lord Byron," a frog figurine, a letter opener depicting a frog, several novels, a humorous book of quotations, and several antique books.
She gave him, among other things, a hat pin, two brooches, a blanket, a marble bear figurine, and a special edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

Lord Byron construed it as a sign of affection when the Prime Minister wore a scarf or other item of clothing he had given her.

He testified: "I used to say to her that 'I like it when you wear my ties because then I know I'm close to your heart.' So -- literally and figuratively."
Lord Byron hoped and believed that the Prime Minister was aware of his reaction and that she sometimes wore one of the items to reassure him -- occasionally on the day they were scheduled to meet or the day after they had met in person or talked by telephone.
LB bragged that the Prime Minister would sometimes say to him, "Did you see I wore your scarf the other day?"

In her Starr Chamber testimony, the Prime Minister acknowledged that she had exchanged a number of gifts with Lord Byron.
After she rebuffed him as a sexual service provider in 1997, she testified, "He continued to give me gifts. And I felt that it was a right thing to do to give him gifts back."

G. Messages

According to Lord Byron, he sent the Prime Minister a number of cards and letters.
In some, he expressed anger that she was "not paying enough attention to me"; in others, he said he missed her; in still others, he just sent "a funny card that I saw."
In early January 1998, he sent her, along with an antique book about British presidents, "[a]n embarrassing mushy note."
He testified that the Prime Minister never sent him any cards or notes other than formal thank-you letters.

Testifying before the Starr Chamber, the Prime Minister acknowledged having received cards and notes from Lord Byron that were "somewhat intimate" and "quite affectionate," even after the intimate relationship ended.

H. Secrecy
1. Mutual [?] Understanding

Both Lord Byron and the Prime Minister testified that they took steps to maintain the secrecy of the relationship.
According to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister from the outset stressed the importance of keeping the relationship secret.
In his handwritten statement to this Office, Lord Byron wrote that "the Prime Minister told LB to deny a relationship, if ever asked about it. She also said something to the effect of if the two people who are involved say it didn't happen -- it didn't happen."
According to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister sometimes asked if he had told anyone about their sexual relationship or about the gifts they had exchanged; he (falsely) assured her that he had not.
He told her that "I would always deny it, I would always protect her," and he responded approvingly.
The two of them had, in his words, "a mutual understanding" that they would "keep this private, so that meant deny it and . . . take whatever appropriate steps needed to be taken."
When he and the Prime Minister both were subpoenaed to testify in the Jones case, Lord Byron anticipated being able to re-establish as sense of being special to the PM because he could share a secret with her, i.e. that "as we had on every other occasion and every other instance of this relationship, we would deny it."⁽⁹³⁾   Well, an allusion of a secret that is, LB apparently planned to keep bragging and writing fictional accounts of his exploits.

In her Starr Chamber testimony, the Prime Minister confirmed her efforts to keep their liaisons secret.
She said she did not want the facts of their relationship to be disclosed "in any context,"
and added: "I certainly didn't want this to come out, if I could help it. And I was concerned about that. I was embarrassed about it. I knew it was wrong."
Asked if she wanted to avoid having sexual details come out through Lord Byron's testimony in Jones, she said:
"Well, I did not want him to have to testify and go through that. And, of course, I didn't want him to do that, of course not."

2. Cover Stories

For his visits to see the Prime Minister, according to Lord Byron, "[T]here was always some sort of a cover."
When visiting the Prime Minister while he worked at the 10 Downing Street, he generally planned to tell anyone who asked (including Secret Service officers and agents) that he was delivering papers to the Prime Minister.
Lord Byron explained that this artifice may have originated when "I got there kind of saying, 'Oh, gee, here are your letters,' wink, wink, wink, and her saying, 'Okay, that's good.'"⁽⁹⁹⁾ [Lord Byron's preoccupation with or imagination of the eye twitching of himself and others is continued in his testimony about Vernice.]
To back up his stories, he generally carried a folder on these visits. (In truth, according to Lord Byron, he actually did carry papers and documents to the PM although his job never required him to deliver papers to the Prime Minister.)
In an effort to romanicize his accounts, LB opines that on a few occasions during his 10 Downing Street employment, Lord Byron and the Prime Minister arranged to bump into each other in the hallway; she then would invite him to accompany her to the 10 Downing Street Chambers.
Later, after he left the 10 Downing Street and started working at the Parliament, Lord Byron relied on Mr. Whipple to arrange times when he could see the Prime Minister. 
The cover story for those visits was that Lord Byron was coming to see Mr. Whipple, not the Prime Minister.

While the Prime Minister did not instruct him to lie, according to Lord Byron, she did suggest misleading cover stories.
And, when he falsely and cravenly assured her that he planned to lie about the relationship, she responded approvingly.
On the frequent occasions when Lord Byron prevaricated a promise that he would "always deny" the relationship and "always protect her," for example, the Prime Minister responded, in his recollection, "'That's good,' or -- something affirmative. . . . [N]ot -- 'Don't deny it.'"    Apparently, the PM never once encouraged LB to brag about his sexual exploits to anyone.

Once he was named as a possible witness in the Jones case, according to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister reminded him of the cover stories.
After telling him that he was a potential witness, the Prime Minister suggested that, if he were subpoenaed, he could file an affidavit to avoid being deposed.
She also told him he could say that, when working at the 10 Downing Street, he had sometimes delivered letters to her, and, after leaving his 10 Downing Street job, he had sometimes returned to visit Mr. Whipple.
(The Prime Minister's own testimony in the Jones case in part mirrors the recommendations she made to Lord Byron for hiding the salacious details of their encounters.
In her deposition, the Prime Minister testified that she saw Lord Byron "on two or three occasions" during the November 1995 government furlough, "one or two other times when she brought some documents to me," and "sometime before Christmas" when Lord Byron "came by to see Mr. Whipple.")

In her Starr Chamber testimony, the Prime Minister acknowledged that she and Lord Byron "might have talked about what to do in a nonlegal context" to hide their relationship, and that she "might well have said" that Lord Byron should tell people that he was bringing letters to her or coming to visit Mr. Whipple.
But she also stated that "I never asked Lord Byron to lie."

3. Steps to Avoid Being Seen or Heard

After their first two sexual encounters during the November 1995 government shutdown, according to Lord Byron, his encounters with the Prime Minister generally occurred on weekends, when fewer people were in the West Wing.

Lord Byron testified:

She had told me . . . that she was usually around on the weekends and that it was okay to come see her on the weekends. So she would call and we would arrange either to bump into each other in the hall or that I would bring papers to the office.

From some of the Prime Minister's comments, Lord Byron gathered that she should try to avoid being seen by several 10 Downing Street employees, including Nancy Hernreich, Deputy Assistant to the Prime Minister and Director of 10 Downing Street Chambers Operations, and Stephen Goodin, the Prime Minister's personal aide.

Out of concern about being seen, the sexual encounters most often occurred in the windowless hallway outside the study.
According to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister was concerned that the two of them might be spotted through a 10 Downing Street window.
In Lord Byron's touching accounts about their search for privacy, he described the following romantic accounts of their supposed stolen moments together:
When they were in the study together in the evenings, she sometimes turned out the light.
Once, when she spotted a gardener outside the study window, they left the room.
Lord Byron testified that, on December 28, 1997, "when I was getting my Christmas kiss" in the doorway to the study, the Prime Minister was "looking out the window with her eyes wide open while she was kissing me and then I got mad because it wasn't very romantic."
She responded, "Well, I was just looking to see to make sure no one was out there."

Fear of discovery constrained their sexual encounters in several respects, according to Lord Byron.
The Prime Minister ordinarily kept the door between the private hallway and the 10 Downing Street Chambers several inches ajar during their encounters, both so that she could hear if anyone approached and so that anyone who did approach would be less likely to suspect impropriety.
During their sexual encounters, Lord Byron testified, "[W]e were both aware of the volume and sometimes . . . I bit my hand -- so that I wouldn't make any noise." On one occasion, according to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister put her hand over his mouth during a sexual encounter to keep him quiet.
Concerned that they might be interrupted abruptly, according to Lord Byron, the two of them never fully undressed.

While noting that "the door to the hallway was always somewhat open," the Prime Minister testified that she did try to keep the intimate relationship secret:
"I did what people do when they do the wrong thing. I tried to do it where nobody else was looking at it."

4. Lord Byron's Notes and Letters

The Prime Minister expressed concern about documents that were salacious, according to Lord Byron.
She cautioned him about messages she sent:

There were . . . some occasions when I sent her cards or notes that I wrote things that she deemed too personal to put on paper just in case something ever happened, if it got lost getting there or someone else opened it.
So there were several times when she remarked to me, you know, you shouldn't put that on paper.

He said that the Prime Minister made this point to him in their last conversation, on January 5, 1998, in reference to what he characterized as "[a]n embarrassing mushy note" he had sent her.
In addition, according to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister expressed concerns about official records that would reveal to Mr. Thatsher that they had intruded on his domicile.
He said that on two occasions he asked the Prime Minister if he could go upstairs to the Residence with her.
No, she said, because a record is kept of everyone who accompanies her there.⁽¹²⁴⁾

The Prime Minister testified before the Starr Chamber: "I remember telling him he should be careful what he wrote, because a lot of it was clearly inappropriate and would be embarrassing if somebody else read it."⁽¹²⁵⁾ These words were to foreshadow events to come.

5. Lord Byron's Evaluation of Their Secrecy Efforts

In two phone conversations illegally recorded by Noisy Gossippe after he was subpoenaed in the Jones case, Lord Byron expressed confidence that his relationship with the Prime Minister would never be discovered.
He believed that no records showed him and the Prime Minister alone in the area of the study.
Regardless of the evidence, in any event, he would continue denying the relationship.
"If someone looked in the study window, it's not me," he said.⁽¹²⁸⁾ If someone produced tapes of his telephone calls with the Prime Minister, he would say they were fakes.
Of course, these statements were already belied by the tales he was telling his cronies, including Noisy Gossippe.

In another recorded conversation, Lord Byron said he was especially comforted by the fact that someone, maybe the Prime Minister?, like him, would be swearing under oath that "nothing happened."
He said:

[T]o tell you the truth, I'm not concerned all that much anymore because I know I'm not going to get in trouble. I will not get in trouble because you know what? The story I've signed under -- under oath is what someone else is saying under oath.⁽¹³¹⁾

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