"Starr.Remarks" - читать интересную книгу автора (impeachment)

oath. At that moment, the president's intimate relationship with a
subordinate employee was transformed into an unlawful effort to thwart
the judicial process. This was no longer an issue of private conduct.

Recall that the Supreme Court had concluded that Paula Jones was
entitled to an "orderly disposition" of her claims. The president's
action on Dec. 17 was his first direct effort to thwart the Supreme
Court's mandate.

The story continued: The president faced a second choice. On Dec. 23,
1997, the president submitted under oath a written answer to an
interrogatory. The request stated in relevant part: "Please state the
name ... of (federal employees) with whom you had sexual relations
when you (were) ... president of the United States." In his sworn
answer, the president stated "None."

On Dec. 28, the president faced a third critical choice. On that day,
the president met with Ms. Lewinsky at the White House. They discussed
the fact that Ms. Lewinsky had been subpoenaed for gifts she had
received from the president. According to Ms. Lewinsky, she raised the
question of what she should do with the gifts. Later that day, the
president's personal secretary, Betty Currie, drove to Ms. Lewinsky's
Watergate home. Ms. Lewinsky gave Ms. Currie a sealed box that
contained some of the subpoenaed gifts. Ms. Currie then stored the box
under her bed at home.

In her written proffer on Feb. 1, four weeks after the fact, Ms.
Lewinsky stated that Ms. Currie had called her to retrieve the gifts.
If so, that necessarily meant that the president had asked Ms. Currie
to call. It would directly and undeniably implicate him in an
obstruction of justice. Ms. Lewinsky later repeated that statement in
testimony under oath. Ms. Currie, for her part, recalls Ms. Lewinsky
calling her. But even if Ms. Lewinsky called Ms. Currie, common sense
and the evidence suggest some presidential knowledge or involvement,
as the referral explains.

Let me add another point about the gifts. In his grand jury appearance
in August, the president testified that he had no particular concern
about the gifts in December 1997 when he had talked to Ms. Lewinsky
about them. And he thus suggested that he would have had no reason to
take part in December in a plan to conceal the gifts. But there is a
serious problem with the president's explanation. If it were true that
the president in December was unconcerned about the gifts, he
presumably would have told the truth under oath in his January
deposition about the large number of gifts that he and Ms. Lewinsky
had exchanged. But he did not tell the truth. At that deposition, when
asked whether he had ever given gifts to Monica Lewinsky, and he had
given her several on Dec. 28, the president stated "I don't recall. Do
you know what they were?"