Analysis of President Clinton’s decision to testify before the Starr grand jury and related procedural considerations

4.2.12 WC: 191694 presence of his own lawyers. In reaching this agreement, the President withdrew his constitutional challenge to the power of a grand jury to compel his testimony. This was a serious constitutional issue, especially since Starr had given Lewinsky total immunity from prosecution. This left Clinton as the primary target of the grand jury. But there is grave doubt whether a sitting President can be indicted or prosecuted. If he cannot, then there is even graver doubt whether it is proper to use a grand jury to gather information for an impeachment. In my view, the President could have leveled a serious challenge, on this and other grounds, against the grand jury subpoena. Such a challenge would have taken at least a year to resolve. In the meantime, he would not have had to testify. But the President decided to waive this challenge and to testify “voluntarily.” What I don’t know is whether at the time the President made the decision to testify he knew of the existence of the semen-stained dress. There had, of course, been rumors of such a dress over the prior months, but they had been denied by Lewinsky’s lawyer. The news of the uncleaned dress with a telltale stain became public only after the President made his decision to testify. It is fair to ask whether the President’s decision would have been different if he knew about the existence of the dress. It is also fair to ask whether the President’s testimony in front of the grand jury would have been different had there been no dress. We don’t know. What we do know is that the President’s decision to testify before the Starr grand jury gave the prosecutor an opportunity to trap the President once again into committing perjury — this time not in a live deposition in a dismissed case where the testimony was only marginally relevant, but in a grand jury proceeding where the testimony was central. It also gave the prosecutor an unprecedented opportunity to videotape the interrogation so that it could be seen by Congress and the public. Again short term considerations prevailed. First, the President’s political advisors urged him to avoid that day’s image of the President walking into the courthouse — the so-called “perp walk.” The White House agreed therefore, to the making of a videotape which would later show the President being evasive and perhaps even dishonest. Although the President’s videotaped testimony was not as bad as many thought it would be — at least in the short run -- it was more damaging in the long run than a walk to the courtroom might have been. Ultimately, after the disclosure of the semen-stained dress made it undeniable that there had been sexual activity between them, President Clinton had to appear on television and acknowledge that he had behaved “inappropriately” with Monica Lewinsky. It was a low point both in his presidency and in his personal life. The day after President Clinton publicly acknowledged that he had behaved “inappropriately”, he flew to the Vineyard. The next day, we were both at a party. The President gathered a small group—including several lawyers—around him and began to discuss the case. He said that following the unanimous Supreme Court decision refusing to postpone the lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones, he had no choice but to submit to a deposition about his sex life, because Jones refused to settle the case. I told him he did have an alternative: he could have ended the law suit by simply defaulting and paying Paula Jones’ damages. If he paid the damages 274 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017361