Replay

With that, Judge Starr, would you please rise so I may administer the oath?

Mr. Starr, do you swear that the testimony you are about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
STARR: I do.

HYDE: Thank you.

Let the record reflect the witness responded in the affirmative.

And Mr. Starr, you may proceed.
STARR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I welcome this opportunity to be before the committee. This...

The Impartial Chairman
& The Gavity of These Proceedings

HYDE: Is your mike on?
(UNKNOWN): You need to pull it closer.
STARR: I was just told to push it away.
(UNKNOWN) Some Democrat told you that.
(LAUGHTER)
HYDE: I'm sure that may have been Mr. Delahunt.
(LAUGHTER)
STARR: The person did not identify his affiliation in saying that.

But this is my first opportunity to publicly report on certain issues and aspects of our work, and I look forward to doing so and seeking to assist the committee.

I appreciate both the seriousness of the committee's work and the gravity of its assignment. I have reviewed the statements made by the 37 members at the October 5 hearing.

Any citizen who watched that hearing would have been impressed by the depth and the breadth of the discussion that day, and...

(UNKNOWN): Mr. Chairman, I apologize for interrupting Judge Starr. But Judge, could you pull the mike a little closer?
(UNKNOWN): Yes, I'll keep...
RANGEL: Pull it.

STARR: So I appear before you today in the wake of your own hearings, both on October 5 and in the hearings to which the chair just referred, with great respect and awareness of the difficulty of your task.

As you know, in January of this year, and as the chairman indicated, the attorney general of the United States petitioned the Special Division of the United States Court of Appeals for this jurisdiction, the panel that oversees independent counsels.

And at the attorney general's request, the special division granted authority to us to investigate whether Monica Lewinsky or others committed federal crimes relating to the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones against the president.

Our office conducted a swift yet thorough investigation. We completed the primary factual investigation in under eight months, notwithstanding a number of obstacles in our path.

The law requires, as the chairman indicated, an independent counsel to report to the House of Representatives substantial and credible information that an impeachable offense may have been committed.

On September 9, pursuant to our statutory duty, we submitted a referral, and we submitted backup documentation to the House, as Mr. Conyers has noted. I am here today at your invitation in furtherance of our statutory obligation.

Let me say at the outset that I recognize that it is the House of Representatives -- and not an independent counsel -- which enjoys the sole power to impeach. My role today is to discuss our referral and the underlying investigation.

Let me then begin with an overview.

Giving An Overview Repeating the Allegations as Factually Supported?
	As our referral explains, the evidence suggests that the president made false statements under oath
	and thwarted the search for truth in Jones versus Clinton.
	The evidence further suggests that the president made false statements under oath to the grand jury on August 17 of this year.
That same night, the president publicly acknowledged an inappropriate relationship, but maintained that his testimony had been legally accurate. The president also declared that all inquiries into the matter should end, because, he said, it was private.
Since discussing the most important point here -- i.e. if The President's testimony was legally accurate, he did not commit perjury -- would undermine our entire case, we will skip that part and talk about the legally irrelevant issue of privacy.
	But shortly after the president's August 17 speech, Senators Lieberman, Kerrey and Moynihan stated that the president's actions were not a private matter. In our view, they were correct.
Giving An Overview Repeating the Allegations as Factually Supported?
	Indeed, the evidence suggests that the president repeatedly tried to thwart the legal process in the Jones matter and in the grand jury investigation. That is not a private matter.
	The evidence further suggests that the president in the course of those efforts misused his authority and his power as president and contravened his duty to faithfully execute the laws. That, too, is not a private matter.

Closer still? OK. There's noise in the hall, so I will continue to try to speak up and into the mike. OK.

The evidence suggests that the misuse of presidential authority occurred in the following 10 ways.

*Charges: Misuse of Power*
Giving An Overview Repeating the Allegations as Factually Supported?
	First, the evidence suggests that the president made a series of premeditated false statements in his civil deposition on January 17, 1998. Those were statements under oath. The president had taken an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
By making false statements under oath, the president, the chief executive of our nation, failed to adhere to that oath and to his presidential oath to faithfully execute the laws.
	By stating this as if it were a proven fact that he lied under oath, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt.
Second, the evidence suggests that apart from making false statements under oath, the president engaged in a pattern -- a pattern of behavior during Jones' case was proceedings when Ms. Lewinsky's truthful testimony would have been harmful.
	He engaged in an apparent scheme to conceal gifts that had been subpoenaed from Ms. Lewinsky.
By stating this as if it were a proven fact, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt.
	Since I have taken an oath to tell the "whole truth," I'll leave out Betty Curie's testimony that indicated it was all Monica's idea to hide the gifts, and I will leave out the part of Monica's testimony where she says she raised HER concerns about the gifts to The President & his behavioral response was to give her more gifts..
	He coached a potential witness, his own secretary, Mrs. Currie, with a false account of relevant events.
By stating this as if it were a proven fact that he coached Betty Currie, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt.
	Since I have taken an oath to tell the "whole truth," I'll leave out The President's testimony that he was trying to refresh his memory with the only other person who might be able to recall specifics about Monica's visits after she was no longer working at The White House, and I will leave out The President's statement that the only "coaching" advice he gave to Betty Curie was for her to go in and testify to the truth as she understood it.
Those acts constitute a pattern of obstruction that is fundamentally inconsistent with the president's duty to faithfully execute the law.
	By stating this as if it were a proven fact that these acts occurred, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt.
Third.	The evidence suggests that the president participated in a scheme at his civil deposition in which his attorney, in his presence, deceived a United States district judge in an effort to cut off questioning about Ms. Lewinsky.
And here is the sum total of our evidence that The President was involved in a scheme. But by repeating the word "scheme" over & over again, I think I can get you to believe one must have existed because I have said it so often.
	The president did not correct his attorney's statement.
	But I can make you think I have weighty evidence by stating something that is true, but irrelevant if there are no substantial facts supporting my accusation of scheming:
	A false statement to a federal judge in order to shortcut and to prevent relevant questioning is an obstruction of the judicial process.
Note, how in the following allegation, by changing "misleading statements" to "false statements" once again, I will get you thinking that we have evidence that the statements were false rather than just misleading.
&, by slipping it in among the other allegations, I am hopeful that you will not ponder to long about whether or not a President making misleading statements to his cabinet is an impeachable offense.
Fourth.	The evidence suggests that on January 23, 1998, after the criminal investigation had become public, the president made false statements to his Cabinet and used his Cabinet as unwitting surrogates to publicly support the president's false story.
Although I will tell you that our report has nothing to do with sex, I would like to slip this allegation in & convince you that it is an impeachable offense for The President to mislead the American public about the details of his sex life.
Fifth.	The evidence suggests that the president, acting in a premeditated and calculated fashion, deceived the American people on January 26 and on other occasions when he denied a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
	Note: I will not get into a discussion of privacy at this point. Also, I left out the adjective "sexual" so you'll begin to think The President actually denied ever meeting Ms. Lewinsky. Then I'll have you convinced that he lied.
Note, how in the following allegation, by changing "misleading statements" to "false statements" once again, I will get you thinking that we have evidence that the statements were false rather than just misleading..
&, by slipping it in among the other allegations, I am hopeful that you will not ponder to long about whether or not a President making misleading statements to his aides is an impeachable offense.
Further note that I slip in "false alibis," as if we have already proven they can be characterized as "false." & I thought it was particularly clever to call them "alibis," a word you are more likely to associate with crime than an adulterer's cover story.
Sixth.	The evidence suggests that the president, after the criminal investigation became public, made false statements to his aides and concocted false alibis that these government employees repeated to the grand jury sitting at the United States courthouse.
I thought this would be another place I could slip in an unproven allegation as if it were fact:
	As a result, the grand jury here in Washington received inaccurate information.
	I thought this would be another place I could slip in an unproven allegation as if it were fact.
Please do not ponder too long about why The President of The United States, or a private citizen, might turn down an "invitation" to testify before a grand jury.
Seventh.	Having promised the American people to cooperate with the investigation, the president refused six invitations to testify before the grand jury.
I thought this would be another place I could slip in a true statement in a manner that will make you think The President must be guilty of what I am telling you.
Refusing to cooperate with a duly authorized federal criminal investigation is inconsistent with the general statutory duty of all executive branch employees to cooperate with criminal investigations. It also is inconsistent with the president's duty to faithfully execute the laws.
Therefore, if you are charged with a crime & are an executive branch employee, do not wait for a subpoena. Go before the grand jury the first time you're invited.
I thought this would be another place I could slip in an unproven allegation as if it were fact. I'll tell you what The President's motivation was. I'm a much better authority on The President's motivations than The President.
Eighth.	The president and his administration asserted three different governmental privileges to conceal relevant information from the grand jury.
Is the following what Congresswoman Bono means by Monday morning quarterbacking? If you don't win in court, that proves you had no right to raise the issue in the first place?
	The privilege assertions were legally baseless in these circumstances.
	&, in the interest of my oath to tell "the whole truth," I will leave out the information that attorneys for The Office of the President [obviously not the brilliant Constitutional scholar that I am] advised that these assertions of privilege be made.
They were inconsistent with the actions of Presidents Carter and Reagan in similar circumstances, and they delayed and impeded the investigation.
Above I am arguing that inconsistency with past presidents is evidence of a high crime. & that it is The President's fault we did not try to subpoena him earlier.
By stating the following as if it were a proven fact, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt. I'm getting really good at this.
Ninth.	The president made false statements under oath to the grand jury on August 17, 1998. The president again took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
By stating my following interpretation of the evidence, little of which I have direct knowlege of, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt.
	The evidence demonstrates that the president failed to adhere to that oath and thus to his presidential oath to faithfully execute the laws.
It wouldn't be fair for you to believe I garbled the following point. It must be the court recorder's fault, or Dellahunt's bad advice to me. At least they kept in the part I wanted to use to try to make the American people mad at The President.
Tenth.	The evidence suggests that the president deceived the American people foreseeable, even likely, that she would be a witness in the Jones case.
By stating the following as if it were a proven fact, I will get you to believe it is a proven fact. You'll begin to think we have already tried this case and come to a just conclusion of The President's Guilt. I'm really a master at this one.
Eleventh.	And the president used a governmental attorney, Bruce Lindsey, to assist his personal legal defense during the Jones case.
	I'm not sure what the evidence in our report was to support this final allegation. In fact, we didn't have the opportunity to question him. But I wanted to slip it in to help get the subpoena for Lindsey. & it really does sound pretty bad the way I've worded it, doesn't it?
In short, the evidence suggests that the president repeatedly used the machinery of government and the powers of his high office to conceal his relationship -- to conceal the relationship from the American people; from the judicial process in the Jones case; and from the grand jury.

Let me turn, then, to the legal context in which these issues first arose. At the outset, I want to emphasize that our referral never suggests that the relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky, in and of itself, could constitute a high crime or misdemeanor.

Why I Have To Tell You All About Paula Jones Again

Indeed, the referral never passes judgment on the president's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. The propriety of a relationship is not the concern of our office.

The referral is instead about obstruction of justice, lying under oath, tampering with witnesses and the misuse of power.
The referral cannot be understood without appreciating this vital distinction.

& That is why I have to tell you all about the Paula Jones case again. Please don't forget about her. & don't miss my erudite editorial aside.

This case or matter thus raises the following initial question:

Is a plaintiff in a sexual harassment lawsuit entitled to obtain truthful information from the defendant and from associates of the defendant in order to support her claim? That should be easy to answer.

No citizen who finds himself accused in a sexual harassment case, or in any other kind of case, can lie under oath or otherwise obstruct justice and thereby prevent the plaintiff from discovering evidence and presenting her case.

Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a federal sexual harassment suit against President Clinton in 1994.

The president denied those allegations.

Editorial Aside

We will never know whether a jury would have credited the allegations. We also will never know whether the ultimate decision-maker would have found that the alleged facts, if true, constitute sexual harassment.
When the president and Ms. Jones settled the case last week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, in St. Louis, was still considering the preliminary legal question whether the facts as alleged could constitute sexual harassment.

The Whole Truth?

Let's not mention here that a Judge did decide that even if the Ms. Jones' story was true, it did not constitute sexual harassment?

Was one of the main aims of filing this suit to get witnesses to discuss The President's sex life in front of a jury?
Well, we may have failed there, but we managed to get it in the report.

After the suit was first filed in 1994, the president attempted to delay the trial or more broadly the proceedings, until his presidency had concluded.

And, I was one of the attorneys interested in stopping him from delaying this embarrassing suit. I never actually filed a brief against The President on behalf of the Independent Women's Forum. My good friend, Barbara Olson, is a member of the Forum, and I'm sure you've heard her defending me against Clinton on national TV. But the Independent Women's Foundation is not a conservative organization even though over 90% of its members have conservative ties or husbands.

& I managed to wash the money I got from the Bradley Foundation for supporting school vouchers by having them make a grant to the state voucher program and then the state of Wisconsin paid me.

The president claimed a temporary presidential immunity from civil suit. And the case proceeded to the Supreme Court of the United States. At oral argument, the president's attorney specifically warned our nation's highest court.

But if Ms. Jones prevailed, her lawyers would be able to investigate the president's relationships with other women as is common in sexual harassment cases.

The Supreme Court rejected the president's constitutional claim of immunity and did so by a nine to zero vote. The court concluded that the Constitution did not provide such a temporary immunity from suit.

The idea was simple and powerful: No one is above the law. The Supreme Court sent the case back to trial with words that warrant emphasis. These are the words of our unanimous Supreme Court. "Like every other citizen who invokes" the District Court's jurisdiction, Ms. Jones -- the words of the court again "has a right to an orderly disposition of her claims."

After the Supreme Court's decision, the parties started to gather the facts. The parties questioned relevant witnesses in depositions. They submitted written questions. They made requests for documents.

Sexual harassment cases are often "he said-she said" kinds of disputes. Evidence reflecting the behavior of both parties can be critical, including the defendant's relationships with other employees in the workplace.

Such questions can be uncomfortable, but they occur every day in courts and law offices across our country.

Individuals in those cases take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And no one is entitled to lie under oath simply because he or she does not like the questions or because he believes the case is frivolous or that it is financially motivated or politically motivated.

The Supreme Court has emphatically and repeatedly rejected the notion that there is ever a privilege to lie. The court has stated that there are ways to object to questions. Lying under oath is not one of them.

During this fact-gathering process, Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock followed standard principles of sexual harassment cases. Over repeated objections from the president's attorneys, the judge permitted inquiries into the president's relationships with government employees.

On January 8, 1998, for example, Judge Wright stated that questions as to the president's relationships with other government employees, in the words of the judge, are within the scope of issues in this case.

In making these rulings, Judge Susan Webber Wright recognized that the questions might prove embarrassing. She stated, in her words, "I have never had a sexual harassment case where there was not some embarrassment." She also stated that she could not protect the parties from embarrassment.

Five Steps to Sex
Let me summarize the five points that explain how the president's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky -- what was otherwise private conduct -- became a matter of concern to the courts. This is critical to fully understand the nature of the committee's inquiry.
One.	The president was sued for sexual harassment in federal court, and the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in that case that the case should go forward.
Two.	The law of sexual harassment and the law of evidence allow the plaintiff to inquire into the defendant's relationship with other women -- with women in the workplace, which, in this case, included the president's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
Three.	Applying those subtle legal principles, Judge Susan Webber Wright repeatedly rejected the president's objections to such inquiries. The judge instead ordered the president to answer the questions.
Four.	It is a federal crime to commit perjury and obstruct justice in civil cases, including sexually harassment cases. Violators are subject to a sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment for obstruction and five years for perjury.
Five.	The evidence suggest that the president and Ms. Lewinsky made false statements under oath and obstructed the judicial process in the Jones case by preventing the court from obtaining the truth about their relationship.
I thought this would be a good place to slip in my interpretation of the evidence again. I couldn't fill up all this time I have to talk to the committee today with actual evidence because there just isn't enough factual evidence to talk about.

At his grand jury appearance, the president invoked a Supreme Court justice's confirmation hearings as a comparison to his current situation.

The president's use of the analogy did not fit the facts in the Monica Lewinsky case, however. But the president, having raised the analogy, let me make it more fitting to the case, here.

Suppose that there is a nominee for a high government position. Assume that in the confirmation process, there is an allegation of sexual harassment. Suppose that several women other than the accuser who have worked with the nominee testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Slipping It in Again
If I say it is analogous to the facts, then you will believe that what I say is an accurate representation of the facts. Since we just don't have enough facts to support my interpretation of "the evidence," I needed some useful filler.
	Suppose that the nominee then confers with one of those women.
	Now you will believe we have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that The President "conferred" with a witness. Notice my choice of the wording "confers with." That sounds much more like they must have been talking about legal matters than if I had used the a different wording such as "talks to."
	Suppose that the lying under oath and obstruction of justice occurs in a sexual harassment suit brought against the nominee.
	Now you will believe that we have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that The President engaged in "lying under oath and obstruction of justice...in a sexual harassment suite brout against [him.]"
	Suppose further that the false statements and obstruction continue into a subsequent criminal investigation.
	Now you will believe as "fact" my allegation that The President not only made false statements and obstructed justice in the Jones' case but also that The President's "false statements and obstruction continued into a subsequent criminal investigation."
What would this committee do with compelling evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice committed by, for example, a sitting justice of the Supreme Court in a sexual harassment case in which he was the defendant?
	Now you will believe as "fact" my allegation that I really do have "compelling evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice committed by" The President " in a sexual harassment case in which he was the defendant Oh, & P.S., I wouldn't want all those Republicans in the audience to forget about Justice Thomas and miss their chance for revenge.
	Those hypotheticals -- which track the facts of this case -- put in sharp relief the issue that is before this committee.
Not actually having any proven facts at this time, I've done a great job of convincing you through my hypothetical presentation -- & claim that it tracks the facts -- that all of my interpretations and allegations are facts.
Let me again stress that it is this House, the House of Representatives, and not an independent counsel, that has the sole power to impeach.
Since I continually disregard this Constitutional guideline, I thought I'd better remind you that I do remember it. I want to be sure that you remember I'm an expert on the Constitution, which is why I am eminently qualified for the Supreme Court.
	But I am suggesting that the consideration of our referral be focused on the issues that are actually presented by the referral.
That's why I wanted to try to expand our investigation and yours by adding the Lindsey charge.

N E X T+P A G E+| "He could choose truth, or he could choose deception"