Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [374]
In a final flurry of oratory, as the proceedings continued to deteriorate, Bill Clinton stared into the camera and spoke from the heart: “I would say to the grand jury, ‘put yourself in my position.’ This is not a typical grand jury testimony.… I’m doing my best to cooperate with the grand jury and still protect myself, my family, and my office.” President Clinton emphasized that he was downright skeptical about OIC’s insistence on filming these proceedings. After all, grand juries routinely functioned with grand jurors absent. As long as sixteen of the total panel of twenty-three grand jurors were present, they were permitted to conduct business. Typically, an FBI agent or a federal prosecutor simply read or orally summarized the testimony in the next session, if a juror was missing. Filming witnesses, especially potential targets, was almost unheard-of.
As each side openly accused the other of abusing the grand jury process, the clock finally ticked out. At 6:25 P.M., with both sides appearing worn out and filled with hatred, the proceedings came to an abrupt ending.
Bill Clinton’s defense team, as they hustled the president out of the Map Room, felt that it had been one of his most dazzling performances. Despite the rancorous exchanges, the Starr team had barely laid a glove on him. “He bulldozed them,” one adviser said later. Not only had the president rolled over the questions of the Starr prosecutors, but he had also “given a gloss to the original Paula Jones deposition testimony that would make it [even] hard[er] to prosecute.” The tortured definition of “sexual relations” used in the Jones deposition, the Clinton team felt, had left enough room to drive a Mack truck through it. The president had taken full advantage of this opening. Already, his lawyers had been compiling a thick file containing articles affirming the view that “oral sex” did not amount to “sex” in the minds of many Americans. A 1991 Kinsey Institute Report recently republished in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that nearly 60 percent of all college students surveyed indicated that they “don’t consider oral sex to constitute having ‘had sex.’” Some members of religious groups viewed oral sex as a form of abstinence to preserve a person’s virginity. The White House team was confident that there was enough wiggle room in the “sex” definition to make it nearly impossible for OIC to prosecute on this basis. Clinton had succeeded in using his grand jury performance to “clean up” his prior testimony and to “fill in the blanks,” actually strengthening his hand.
As he walked out of the room, Ken Starr felt “heartsick.” He had arrived at these historic proceedings agreeing with Senator Orrin Hatch and other prominent Republicans who were admonishing President Clinton on the Sunday talk shows: “Please don’t lie before the grand jury. Everything else will be forgiven.” The independent counsel thought that this had been the time for “plain speaking and telling the truth.” Instead, Clinton had “crossed the Rubicon,” marching in the opposite direction. Yet Clinton’s performance had been so brilliantly deceitful, Starr feared, that the truth might be obscured forever in the minds of the American public.
As Starr was gathering up his papers, Bill Clinton walked into the Red Room. The president’s face was deeply serious. As if hesitating for a moment, he extended his hand to Independent Counsel Ken Starr. Starr’s instinct was to shake it and to say something like, “I’m sorry that we’re in all this.” No words, however, came out of his mouth. Bill Clinton seemed to be afflicted by the same paralysis. Neither man, mortal enemies in a war bigger than themselves, was able to utter a single word. Instead they shook hands perfunctorily, turned away, and exited the room in separate directions.
Jackie Bennett, whose sole contribution was to lob out a few wrap-up questions concerning Kathleen Willey at the end of the proceeding, felt absolutely