Monday, September 21, 1998
CLINTON: I recall him saying he thought that she was upset with -- somewhat fixated on me. But she acknowledged that she was not having a sexual relationship with me and that she did not want to be drug into the Jones lawsuit. That's what I recall.
And I recall his getting -- saying that he had recommended a lawyer to her and she had gone to see the lawyer. That's what I recall.
I don't remember the other thing you mentioned. I just -- I might well remember it if he had said it. Maybe he said it and I've forgotten it. But I don't -- I can't tell you that I remember that.
QUESTION: Mr. President, you swore under oath in the Jones case that you didn't think anyone other than your lawyers had ever told you that Monica Lewinsky had been subpoenaed. Page 68, line 22, through page 69, line three. Here's the testimony, sir.
Question: "We've gone over it a little bit before. Did anyone other than your attorneys ever tell you that Monica Lewinsky had been served with a subpoena in the case?"
Answer: "I don't think so."
Now this deposition was taken just 3½ weeks after, by your own testimony, Vernon Jordan made a trip at night to the White House to tell you, among other things, that Monica Lewinsky had been subpoenaed and was upset about it. Why did you give that testimony under oath in the Jones case, sir?
CLINTON: Well, Mr. Wisenberg, I think you have to -- again, you have to put this in the context of the flow of questions, and I've already testified to this once today. I will testify to it again.
My answer to the next question, I think, is a way of finishing my answer to the question and the answer you've said there. I was trying to remember who the first person, other than Mr. Bennett -- I don't think Mr. Bennett -- who the first person told me that -- who told me Paula Jones had -- I mean, excuse me, Monica Lewinsky had a subpoena.
And I thought that Bruce Lindsey was the first person and that's how I was trying to remember that. Keep in mind, sort of like today, these questions are very -- kind of put at me rapid fire. But unlike today, I hadn't had the opportunity to prepare at this level of detail.
I didn't -- I was trying to keep a lot of things in my head that I had remembered with regard to the Paula Jones case and the Kathleen Willey matter, because I knew I would be asked about them. And I gave the best answers I could.
Several of my answers are somewhat jumbled. But this is an honest attempt here -- if you read both these answers, it's obvious they're both answers to that question you quoted -- to remember the first person who was not Mr. Bennett, who told me. And I don't believe Vernon was the first person who told me. I believe Bruce Lindsey was.
QUESTION: Let me read the question because I want to talk about the first-person issue. The question on line 25 of page 68 is "Did anyone other than your attorneys ever tell you that Monica Lewinsky had been served with a subpoena in this case?"
Answer: "I don't think so."
You agree with me, sir, that the question doesn't say -- the question doesn't say anything about who was the first person? It just says, did anyone tell you?
QUESTION: Isn't that correct?
CLINTON: That's right, and I said Bruce Lindsey because I was trying to struggle with who -- at where I had heard this. And they were free to ask a follow-up question. And they didn't.
QUESTION: Mr. President, 3.5 weeks before, Mr. Jordan had made a special trip to the White House to tell you Ms. Lewinsky had been subpoenaed; she was distraught; she had a fixation over you. And you couldn't remember that 3.5 weeks later?
CLINTON: Mr. Wisenberg, if they had access to all this information from their conversations with Linda Tripp, if that was the basis of it, they were free to ask me more questions. They may have been trying to trick me.
Now, they knew more about the details of my relationship with Monica Lewinsky -- I'm not sure everything they knew was true because I don't know. I've not heard these tapes or anything. But they knew a lot more than I did. And instead of trying to trick me, what they should have done is to ask me specific questions. And I -- I invited them on more than one occasion to ask follow-up questions.
This is the third or fourth time that you seem to be complaining that I did not do all their work for them, that just sitting here answering these questions to the best of my memory with limited preparation was not enough, that I should have actually been doing all their work for them.
Now, they had been up all night with Linda Tripp, who had betrayed her friend Monica Lewinsky, stabbed her in the back, and given them all this information.
They could have helped more. If they wanted to ask me follow-up questions, they could. They didn't. I'm sorry. I did the best I could.
QUESTION: Can you tell the grand jury what is tricky about the question? Did anyone other than your attorneys ever tell you...
CLINTON: No, there is nothing. I'm just telling you. I have explained, and I will now explain for the third time, sir.
I was being asked a number of questions here. I was struggling to remember them. There were lots of things that had gone on during this time period that had nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky. You know, I -- I believed then -- I believe now, that Monica Lewinsky could have sworn out an honest affidavit that, under reasonable circumstances, and without the benefit of what Linda Tripp did to her, would have given her a chance not to be a witness in this case.
So I didn't have perfect memory of all these events that have now, in the last seven months, since Ms. Lewinsky was kept for several hours by four or five of your lawyers, and four or five FBI agents, as if she were a serious felon -- these things have become the most important matters in the world.
At the moment they were occurring, many other things were going on. I honestly tried to remember when -- you know, if somebody asks you, "Has anybody ever talked to you about this?" You normally think -- Well, where was the first time I heard that. That's all I was trying to do here. I was not trying to say not Vernon Jordan, but Bruce Lindsey. Everybody knows Vernon Jordan is a friend of mine.
I probably would have talked to Vernon Jordan about the Monica Lewinsky problem if he had never been involved in it. So I was not trying to mislead them. I was trying to answer this question with the first person who told me that. Now, I realize that wasn't the specific question. They were free to ask follow-ups just like you're asking follow-ups today.
And I can't explain why I didn't answer every question in the way you seem to think I should have. And I certainly can't explain why they didn't ask what seemed to me to be logical follow-ups, especially since they spent all that time with Linda Tripp the night before.
QUESTION: You've told us that you understand your obligation, then as it is now, is to tell the whole truth, sir. You recall that?
CLINTON: I took the oath here.
QUESTION: If Vernon Jordan...
CLINTON: You even read me a definition of the oath.
QUESTION: If Vernon Jordan has told us that you have an extraordinary memory, one of the greatest memories he has ever seen in a politician, would that be something you would care to dispute?
CLINTON: No. I do have a good memory. At least I have had a good memory in my life.
QUESTION: You understand that if you answered, "I don't think so," to the question "Has anyone other than your attorneys told you that Monica Lewinsky has been served with a subpoena in this case?" and if you answered, "I don't think so," but you really knew Vernon Jordan had been telling you all about it, you understand that that would be a false statement, presumably perjurious.
CLINTON: Mr. Wisenberg, I have testified about this three times. Now, I will do it the fourth time. I am not going to answer your trick questions.
CLINTON: And people don't always hear the same questions in the same way. They don't always answer them in the same way. I was so concerned about the question they asked me that the next question I was asked, I went back to the previous question trying to give an honest answer about the first time I heard about the Lewinsky subpoena.
I -- look, I could have had no reasonable expectation that anyone would ever know that, or excuse me, not know if this thing would be --but I would talk to Vernon Jordan about nearly everything. I was not interested in -- if the implication of your question is that somehow I didn't want anybody to know I had ever talked to Vernon Jordan about this, that's just not so.
It's also -- if I could say one thing about my memory -- I have been blessed and advantaged in my life with a good memory. I have been shocked and so have members of my family and friends of mine at how many things that I have forgotten in the last six years -- I think because of the pressure and the pace and the volume of events in a president's life, compounded by the pressure of your four-year inquiry, and all the other things that have happened.
I'm amazed -- there are lots of times when I literally can't remember last week. If you ask me -- Did you talk to Vernon -- when is the last time you talked to Vernon Jordan? What time of day was it? When did you see him? What did you say? My answer was -- the last, you know, if you answered -- When is the last time you saw a friend of yours in California? If you ask me a lot of questions like that, my memory is not what it was when I came here because my life is so crowded.
And now that -- as I said -- you have made this the most important issue in America. I mean, you have made it the most important issue in America from your point of view. At the time this was occurring, even though I was concerned about it, and I hoped she didn't have to testify, and I hoped this wouldn't come out, I felt --I will say again -- that she could honestly fill out an affidavit that in -- under reasonable circumstances would relieve her of the burden of testifying.
And I'm not trying to exclude the fact that I talked to Vernon here. I just -- all I can tell you is, I believe this answer reflects I was trying to remember the first person who told me, who was not Mr. Bennett. And I believe it was Bruce Lindsey.
QUESTION: As you yourself recall, just recalled, Mr. President, Vernon Jordan not only discussed the subpoena with you that night but discussed Frank Carter, the lawyer he had gotten for Ms. Lewinsky. And also, Mr. Jordan discussed with you over the next few weeks, after the 19th of December, the -- in addition to the job aspects of Ms. Lewinsky's job, he discussed with you her affidavit that she was preparing in the case. Is that correct, sir?
CLINTON: I believe that he did notify us, I think, when she signed her affidavit. I have a memory of that. Or he -- seems like he said that she had signed her affidavit.
QUESTION: If he told us that he notified you around January 7, when she signed her affidavit that you generally understood that it would deny a sexual relationship, do you have any reason to doubt that?
CLINTON: No.
QUESTION: So that's the affidavit, the lawyer and the subpoena. And yet when you were asked, sir, at the Jones deposition about Vernon Jordan, and specifically about whether or not he had discussed the lawsuit with you, you didn't reveal that to the court. I want to refer you to page 72, line 16, is where this starts. It's going to go down, it might go down some what.
Line 16.
"Question: Has it ever been reported to you that he..."
... and that's referring to Mr. Jordan...
At line 12 you were asked: "Do you know a man named Vernon Jordan?"
Your answer: "I know him well."
Continued...
