Monday, September 21, 1998
QUESTION: Do you recall inviting her to meet with you at your hotel that night?
CLINTON: No, sir, I do not.
QUESTION: Do you recall where you stayed in Richmond, Virginia during the debates you've told us about?
CLINTON: Well, I stayed at some hotel there, I believe.
QUESTION: Actually, did you stay at the Williamsburg Inn, not in Richmond?
CLINTON: Yeah, that's right. We prepared in Williamsburg. That's correct. I believe we prepared in Williamsburg and then went to Richmond for the debate, and then I think we spent the night in Richmond. And the next day, I think we had a rally before we left town. I believe that's right.
QUESTION: Do you know of any reason Kathleen Willey's telephone number would appear on your toll records from your room in Williamsburg?
CLINTON: No, there --
QUESTION: If you didn't call her?
CLINTON: No, I'm not denying that I called her, sir. You asked me a specific question. I won't deny that I called her. I don't know whether I did or not.
QUESTION: As a matter of fact, you called her twice that day, didn't you, sir?
CLINTON: I don't recall. I may well have done it and I don't know why I did it.
QUESTION: Well, does it refresh your recollection that you called her and invited her to come to your room that night, sir?
CLINTON: I don't believe I did that, sir.
QUESTION: If Kathleen Willey has said that, she's mistaken or lying, is that correct, Mr. President?
CLINTON: I do not believe I did that. That's correct.
QUESTION: But what is your best recollection of that conversation, those conversations?
CLINTON: I don't remember talking to her. But I -- it seems to me that at some point -- this is why I believe I had met her before, too. But at some point I had some actual person-to-person conversation with her about my sore throat, or what she thought would be good for it, or something like that. I have some vague memory of that. That's it.
QUESTION: Is this the chicken soup conversation, Mr. President?
CLINTON: Well, I don't know if I would -- maybe that's what she said I should have. I don't remember. But I have no recollection, sir, of asking her to come to my room. I -- and I -- I'm sorry, I don't. I can't -- I won't deny calling her. I don't know if I did call her. I don't know if she tried to call me first. I don't know anything about that. I, I just -- I met her and Doug Wilder. I remember that she and her husband were active for Government Wilder, and that's about all I remember, except that I had a conversation with her around the Richmond debate. I do remember talking to her there.
QUESTION: Mr. President, let's move ahead to the episode on November 29, 1993 in which Mrs. Willey met you in your office at the Oval, the subject matter of the "60 Minutes" broadcast a few months ago. You recall that episode?
CLINTON: I certainly do.
QUESTION: Mr. President, in fact, on that date you did make sexual advances on Kathleen Willey, is that not correct?
CLINTON: That's false.
QUESTION: You did grab her breast, as she said?
CLINTON: I did not.
QUESTION: You did place your hand in her groin area, as she said?
CLINTON: No, I didn't.
QUESTION: And you placed her hand on your genitals, did you not?
CLINTON: Mr. Bennett, I didn't do any of that, and she questions you're asking, I think, betray the bias of this operation that has troubled me for a long time. You know what evidence was released after the "60 Minutes" broadcast that I think pretty well shattered Kathleen Willey's credibility. You know what people down in Richmond said about her. You know what she said about other people that wasn't true. I don't know if you've made all of this available to the grand jury or not.
She was not telling the truth. She asked for the appointment with me. She asked for it repeatedly.
QUESTION: Did she make a sexual advance on your, Mr. President?
CLINTON: On that day, no, she did not. She was troubled.
QUESTION: On some other day?
CLINTON: I wouldn't call it a sexual advance. She was always very friendly. But I never took it seriously.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you mentioned the documents that were released and information that came out from people in Richmond, et cetera, after the "60 Minutes" piece was broadcast. As a matter of fact, you were required, under the Court's rulings, to produce those documents in response to document requests by the Jones litigants, isn't that correct?
CLINTON: No. I believe the Jones litigants' request for production of documents to me ran to documents that were in my personal files and in my personal possessions, and did not cover documents that were White House files. So, I don't believe we were required to produce them.
As a matter of fact, when that story first ran, sir, before "60 Minute", back in July or so of '97, I was aware that we had some letters. I didn't -- I didn't remember that she's written us as much as she had and called as much as she had, and asked to see me as often as she had, after this alleged incident. I didn't know the volume of contact that she had which undermined the story she has told. But I knew there was some of it.
And I made a decision that I did not want to release it voluntarily after the Newsweek ran the story, because her friend Julie Steele was in the story saying she asked her -- she, Kathleen Willey -- asked her to lie. And because, frankly, her husband had committed suicide. She apparently was out of money. And I thought, who knows how anybody would react under that. So, I didn't.
But, now when "60 Minutes" came with the story and everybody blew it up, I thought we would release it, But I do not believe we were required to release White House documents to the Jones lawyers.
QUESTION: Mr. President, have you made a decision on whether to stay beyond the four house we agreed to, to accept questions from the grand jury?
MR. KENDALL: We have made an agreement, Mr. Bennett, to give you four hours. We're going to do that. By my watch, there are about 12 minutes left.
MR. BENNETT: I guess that's no. Is that correct, Mr. Kendall?
MR. KENDALL: Yes, that's correct.
THE WITNESS: May I ask this question? Could I have a two-minute break?
MR. BENNETT: Sure.
THE WITNESS:; I'm sorry to bother you with this. I know we're getting to the end, but I need a little break.
(Whereupon, the proceedings were recessed from 6:04 p.m.. until 6:09 p.m.)
BY MR. STARR:
QUESTION: Mr. President, at various times in this investigation, officials have invoked executive privilege in response to questions that have been posed to them by the grand jury and in the grand jury. One of the grand jurors has posed the question, did you personally authorize the invocation of executive privilege?
CLINTON: If the answer is authorized, I think the answer to that would be yes. But I would like the grand jury to know something.
In the cases where we raised the lawyer/client privilege, or executive privilege, or where the Secret Service raised their privilege, and when I say -- I had nothing to do with that. I did not authorize it, approve it, or anything else. That was something that asked to be free to make their decision on by themselves.
In none of those cases did I actually have any worry about what the people involved would say. The reason those privileges were advanced and litigated was that I believed that there was an honest difference between Judge Starr and the Office of Independent Counsel, and Mr. Ruff, my counsel, and I about what the proper balance was in the Constitutional framework.
And I did not want to put the Presidency at risk of being weakened as an institution, without having those matters litigated. Now, we've lost some of those matters. Our people have testified and the grand jury is free to conclude whether they believe that the testimony they gave was damaging to me. But I don't, I don't imagine it was and I wasn't worried about it. It was an honest difference of Constitutional principal between Judge Starr and the Office of Independent Counsel and the White House.
QUESTION: Mr. President, a couple of very brief questions, given our time. The White House's outside counsel, Mr. Eggleston, withdrew the White House's appeal from Chief Judge Johnson's ruling that the invocation of executive privilege had to give way to the grand jury's right to the information, that ruling in connection with the testimony of Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Lindsey.
Were you informed of that fact that the appeal had been withdrawn?
CLINTON: I was informed of it and, as a matter of fact, I was consulted about it and I strongly supported it. I didn't want to appeal it.
QUESTION: Okay.
CLINTON: It was -- I had -- my main difference, Judge Starr, as you know with you, is, and with some of the Court decisions, is on the extent to which members of the White House Counsel's staff, like Mr. Lindsey, should be able to counsel the President on matters that may seem like they are private, like the Jones case, but inevitably intrude on the daily work of the president.
But I didn't really want to advance an executive privilege claim in this case beyond having it litigated, so that we, we had not given up on principal in this matter, without having some judge rule on it. So, I made --
QUESTION: Excuse me. Are you are satisfied that you now have the benefit of that ruling, is that correct?
CLINTON: Well, yes. I just didn't want to, I didn't want to -- yes. And I didn't -- I made the -- I actually, I think, made the call, or at least I supported the call. I did not, I strongly felt we should not appeal your victory on the executive privilege issue.
MR. STARR: Thank you.
BY MR. WISENBERG:
QUESTION: Mr. President among the many remaining questions of the grand jurors is one that they would like answered directly without relation to, without regard to inferences, which is the following: Did Monica Lewinsky perform oral sex on you? They would like a direct answer to that, yes or no?
CLINTON: Well, that's not the first time that question's been asked. But since I believe, and I think any person, reasonable person would believe that that is not covered in the definition of sexual relations I was given, I'm not going to answer, except to refer to my statement.
I had intimate contact with her that was inappropriate. I do not believe any of the contacts I had with her violated the definition I was given. Therefore, I believe I did not do anything but testify truthfully on these matters.
QUESTION: We have a couple of photos of the tie that you wore.
Would you please give them to me?
QUESTION: Yes.
CLINTON: Now, this is August 6th, is that correct?
QUESTION: 1998, the day that Monica Lewinsky appeared at the grand jury. And my question to you on that is, were you sending some kind of a signal to her by wearing --
CLINTON: No, sir.
QUESTION: -- one of the ties -- let me finish, if you don't mind, sir.
CLINTON: Sure. I'm sorry. My apology.
QUESTION: Were you sending some kind of a signal to her by wearing a tie she had given you on the day that she appeared in front of the grand jury?
CLINTON: No, sir. I don't believe she gave me this tie. And if I was sending a signal, I'm about to send a terrible signal, and maybe you ought to invite her to talk again. I don't, I don't want to make light about this. I don't believe she gave me this tie. I don't remember giving, her giving me this tie. And I had absolutely no thought of this in my mind when I wore it.
If she did, I, I, I, I don't remember it, and this is the very first I've ever hearing of it.
QUESTION: Did you realize when you --
MR. WISENBERG: Can I just have for the record, what are the exhibit numbers?
MS. WIRTH: Yes. They should be WJC-5 and 6. (Grand Jury Exhibits WJC-5 and WJC-6 were marked for identification.)
MR. WISENBERG: Mr. Bennett has some more questions.
BY MR. BENNETT:
QUESTION: Mr. President, we were talking about your responses to document requests in the Jones litigation, and I had just asked you about turning over the Kathleen Willey correspondence. Do you recall that?
CLINTON: Yes, sir, I do.
QUESTION: And, if I understand your testimony, you did not believe that the request for documents compelled you to search for those documents in the White House?
CLINTON: Mr. Bennett, I want to answer this question in a way that is completely satisfactory to you and the grand jury, without violating the lawyer/client privilege, which is still intact.
It was my understanding that in the request for production of documents, that those requests ran against and operated against my personal files. Now, I have some personal files in the White House. And, I'm sorry. In this case, I'm not my own lawyer, and I don't know how the distinction is made between files which are the personal files of the President, and files which are the White House files.
But I do have a very clear memory that we were duty-bound to search and turn over evidence or, excuse me, documents that were in my personal files, but not in the White House files. And I believe that the letters to which you refer, Ms. Willey's letters and Ms. Willey's phone messages, were in the White House files. And, therefore, I was instructed at least that they were, that we had fully compiled (sic) with the Jones lawyers' request, and that these documents were outside the request.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you're not contending that White House documents, documents stored in the fashion that these were stored, are beyond your care, custody or control, are you?
CLINTON: Mr. Bennett, that may be a legal term of art that I don't have the capacity to answer. I can only tell you what I remember. I remember being told in no uncertain terms that if these were personal files of the President, we had to produce documents. If they were essentially White House files, we were not bound to do so. So, we didn't.
QUESTION: So, you are saying somebody told you that you didn't have to produce White House documents?
CLINTON: That's --
MR. KENDALL: I'm going to caution the witness that this question should not invade the sphere of the attorney/client privilege, and any conversations with counsel are privileged.
THE WITNESS: Let me say, and maybe, Mr. Kendall, we need a break here. I'm not trying -- I'm trying to avoid invading the lawyer/client privilege.
I can just tell you that I did, I did the best I could to comply with this. And eventually we did make, of course, all of this public. And it was damaging to Ms. Willey and her credibility. It was terribly damaging to her. And the first time she came out with this story, I didn't do it. I only did it when they went back on "60 Minutes" and they made this big deal of it.
It turned out she had tried to sell this story and make all this money. And, I must say, when I saw how many letters and phone calls and messages there were that totally undercut her account, I, myself, was surprised.
BY MR. BENNETT:
QUESTION: But you knew there were letters?
CLINTON: I did, sir.
QUESTION: And the White House --
CLINTON: I knew that --
QUESTION: -- is under your control, isn't it, Mr. President?
CLINTON: Well, Mr. Bennett, again, I'm not trying to be -- some days I think it's under my control and some days I'm not so sure.
But, if you're asking me, as a matter of law, I don't want to discuss that because that's -- I mean, I'll be glad to discuss it, but I'm not the person who should make that decision. That decision should be made by someone who can give me appropriate advice, and I don't want to violate the lawyer/client privilege here.
QUESTION: Well, Mr. President, how are the letters from Kathleen Willey that surfaced after the "60 Minutes" episode aired any different from the correspondence and other matters, tangible items, tangible things, of Monica Lewinsky?
CLINTON: Well, the items you asked for from Monica Lewinsky that I produced to you, you now that there was a tie, a coffee cup, a number of other things I had. Then I told you there were some things that had been in my possession that I no longer had, I believe. I don't remember if I did that. There was one book, I remember, that I left on vacation last summer.
QUESTION: The same documents that the Jones litigants had asked you for?
CLINTON: Yes. But, at any rate, they were different. They were in my -- the gifts were in my personal possession, clearly.
QUESTION: In your office at the Oval?
CLINTON: Well, in the books, now, the Presidential books were with my other books that belong to me personally. They were in the Oval.
QUESTION: Where do you draw the line, sir, between personal and White House. Now, you are talking about some documents that are in the Oval Office and we don't see where you are drawing the line.
CLINTON: Well, Mr. Bennett, I don't think these -- I think the Lewinsky gifts were all non-documents. And you can --
MR. KENDALL: Is that the time?
THE WITNESS: Just a moment.
MR. KENDALL: Excuse me, Mr. Bennett.
Continued...
