Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [371]
A diagram of the Map Room contained in OIC’s files would later reveal the layout of this historic proceeding: The president was seated in the front right corner at a small table. In the back of the room, there was a podium for the OIC lawyers. Beside them was an electronically operated camera. On the opposite side of the room, the official court reporter, Elizabeth A. Eastman, recorded the proceedings, tapping away on a transcribing machine.
President Clinton, dressed in a dark suit and handsome gold-black tie, did his best to assume a presidential posture as he took a seat at the witness table. Starr recalled thinking as the chief executive settled into his chair that Clinton was “physically quite large” and surprisingly “imposing.”
Just as Bittman began the questioning for OIC, President Clinton took a long sip of water and then interrupted: “Mr. Bittman, I think maybe I can save you and the grand jurors a lot of time if I read a statement, which I think will make it clear what the nature of my relationship with Ms. Lewinsky was and how it related to the testimony I gave.”
The president removed a single sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it out, extracting his reading glasses and affixing them to his nose, as if every moment that ticked away on the clock was worth a shimmering gold piece. The sheet had been typed with an antiquated IBM Selectric typewriter that David Kendall kept in his office so that certain highly sensitive documents were kept under wraps no matter how secure the firm’s computer system. Kendall could not risk that anyone other than he and Bill Clinton saw this folded sheet of paper in advance. The president commenced in a steady voice: “When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not constitute ‘sexual relations’ as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition. But they did involve inappropriate intimate contact.”
After expressing deep regret and insisting that he took “full responsibility for my actions,” the president looked deep into the camera as if searching for the eyes of each grand juror. Clinton said that he was prepared to answer questions from the Starr prosecutors. Yet, he continued in a firm voice, “Because of privacy considerations” and in an effort “to preserve the dignity of the office I hold,” this written statement was “all I will say about the specifics of these particular matters.”
Starr’s prosecutors instantly called for a recess and halted the proceedings. They had expected some slick maneuver like this, even before Kendall’s “walk in the woods.” During Hickman Ewing’s moot court playacting, they had referred to this as the “modified limited hangout” approach, by which Clinton would admit to oral sex with Monica, in some obtuse fashion, then declare innocently, “But I didn’t think it was sex!” So Clinton’s “admission was not a shock.” What was surprising was that they had never formulated a precise plan as to how to handle it.
Wisenberg wanted to “hit [Clinton] right there with a new subpoena.” Starr and Bittman vetoed that idea—as slippery and shameless as Clinton’s tactic might be, it was best to give him enough rope to hang himself. They could always come back with a subpoena later, if they needed to finish him off.
Wisenberg would later lament, “I think that was a mistake.”
When the OIC lawyers walked back into the Map Room and resumed their questioning, President Clinton seemed to be more in control than ever. Several blocks away in a secure room of the federal court house, grand jurors were watching by live video feed. Observers in the room with the grand jury noted that the Starr prosecutors’ questions were barely audible. Like children trying to communicate through tin cans tied together with string, the questioners