The Event Timeline and Background
By the time it was all over the Office of the Special Prosecutor spent an estimated $4.5 million and caused the U.S. Federal government to spend up $11 million(1) in agency expenses to pursue charges against then President Bill Clinton. It took four years, the time of scores of FBI and IRS agents, hundreds of subpoenas, thousands of documents, outside consultants, law professors, personal counsel, ethics advisers, and a professional public relations expert to discover very little except that then President Bill Clinton had some type of sexual affair with White House Intern Monica Lewinsky. Some of the key events in the time line were:
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July 10, 1995: Monica Lewinsky begins a White House internship.
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November 15, 1995: President Clinton begins an intimate relationship with Lewinsky.
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April 5, 1996: Monica Lewinsky is transferred from the White House to the Pentagon.
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January 20, 1997: President Clinton inaugurated for a second term of office.
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December 5, 1997: Monica Lewinsky’s name appears on the Jones v. Clinton witness list.
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December 19, 1997: Monica Lewinsky is served with a subpoena to appear for a Jones v. Clinton deposition and to produce gifts she received from President Clinton.
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December 24, 1997: Monica Lewinsky completes her last day of work at the Pentagon.
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December 28, 1997: Monica Lewinsky meets with President Clinton and receives gifts, later giving a box containing gifts from President Clinton to Betty Currie.
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January 7, 1998: Monica Lewinsky signs an affidavit to be filed in Jones v. Clinton.
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January 12, 1998: The Office of the Independent Counsel receives deceptive information that Monica Lewinsky is attempting to influence the testimony of a witness in Jones v. Clinton.
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January 16, 1998: Attorney General Janet Reno asks the DOJ Special Division to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Monica Lewinsky’s activities relating to the Jones v. Clinton litigation; the Special Division, in a sealed order, appoints Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to investigate what became known as the Monica Lewinsky matter.
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January 17 1998: President Clinton is deposed in Jones v. Clinton.
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January 21, 1998: The Monica Lewinsky matter is widely reported in the national media. President Clinton publicly denies having had sexual relations with Lewinsky; he further denies asking anyone to lie.
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January 27, 1998: Betty Currie testifies before U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Grand Jury.
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January 29, 1998: The Special Division unseals the Lewinsky jurisdictional mandate.
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April 1, 1998: Chief Judge Wright grants summary judgment in favor of President Clinton in Jones v. Clinton.
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July 7, 1998: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirms the district court’s order compelling the grand jury testimony of Secret Service agents.
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July 17, 1998: President Clinton is served with a grand jury subpoena.
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July 28, 1998: Monica Lewinsky and the Office of the Independent Counsel reach an Immunity and Cooperation Agreement. She turns over a blue dress to investigators. The blue dress is sent to the FBI Laboratory.
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August 6, 1998: Monica Lewinsky testifies before the grand jury for the first time.
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August 8, 1998: President Clinton gives a blood sample to investigators from the Office of the Independent Counsel.
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August 17, 1998: FBI Laboratory confirms that the DNA sample taken from Monica Lewinsky’s dress matches the blood taken from President Clinton. President Clinton testifies before the grand jury, acknowledging an improper relationship with Lewinsky.
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September 11, 1998: Kenneth Starr sends his final report to the U.S. Congress.
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December 19, 1998: The U.S. House of Representatives votes two articles of impeachment of President Clinton.
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February 12, 1999: Following impeachment trial, the U.S. Senate’s votes on the House Articles of Impeachment does not get the two thirds of the Members present necessary for conviction of President Clinton.(2)
A submission by counsel for President Clinton to the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives made on September 11, 1998 sought to clarify the position of the Office of the President regarding the accusations made by the Office of Independent Council. Key points from that submission include:
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The Whitewater Investigative Dead-Ended: The Lewinsky investigation had its antecedent in the long-running Whitewater investigation. On August 5, 1994, Kenneth W. Starr was appointed Independent Counsel by the Special Division to conduct an investigation centering on two Arkansas entities, Whitewater Development Company, Inc., and Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association. The Office of Independent Counsel's (OIC) investigation dragged on slowly and inconclusively, without any charges being lodged against either the President or Mrs. Clinton.
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The President has insisted that no legalities be allowed to obscure the simple moral truth that his behavior in this matter was wrong; that he misled his wife, his friends and our Nation about the nature of his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. He did not want anyone to know about his personal wrongdoing. But he does want everyone -- the Committee, the Congress and the country -- to know that he is profoundly sorry for the wrongs he has committed and for the pain he has caused his family, his friends, and our nation.
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At his testimony before this Committee on November 19, 1998, Mr. Starr conceded that his agents had conducted interrogations and acknowledged that he had not sought expansion of his jurisdiction from the Attorney General or the Special Division of the Court of Appeals. He contended that these inquiries were somehow relevant to his Whitewater investigation. However, the OIC was obviously engaged in an effort to gather embarrassing information concerning the President.
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The Paula Jones Litigation: In January 1998, the OIC finally succeeded in transforming its investigation from one focused on long-ago land deals and loans in Arkansas into one involving a different topic (sex) and more recent events in Washington, D.C. The Lewinsky investigation grew out of the pretrial discovery proceedings in the civil suit Ms. Paula Corbin Jones had filed against the President in May 1994, making certain allegations about events three years earlier when the President was Governor of Arkansas. Ms. Jones selected a spokesperson, Ms. Susan Carpenter-McMillan, and retained counsel affiliated with the conservative Rutherford Institute, who began a public relations offensive against the President.
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Mr. Starr actively sought jurisdiction in the Lewinsky matter, despite his representations to the contrary: After four years of fruitless investigation of the President and Mrs. Clinton on a variety of topics generically referred to in the news media as "Whitewater," the Starr investigation was at a standstill and in early 1998 the Independent Counsel himself had sought to resign in 1997. However, a telephone call from Ms. Tripp with allegations of obstruction and witness tampering in the Paula Jones case (which turned out to be false) offered Mr. Starr a dramatic way to vindicate his long, meandering, and costly investigation. Mr. Starr seized his chance energetically, promising Ms. Tripp immunity and using her to surreptitiously tape Ms. Lewinsky even before he made his request for jurisdiction to the Department of Justice.
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Mr. Starr gave immunity to anyone he thought could help him go after the President: He granted immunity to one witness who had admitted engaging in illegal activity over a period of several months (Ms. Tripp), and another witness who was, as he stated, "a felon in the middle of committing another felony" (Ms. Lewinsky), Transcript of November 19, 1998 Hearing (testimony of Mr. Starr), all in an effort to gather information damaging to the President.
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The OIC leaked grand jury information as an exposure tactic to be hurtful to the President: The OIC investigation has been characterized by a flagrant and highly prejudicial (to the President) campaign of grand jury leaks. Mr. Starr and his office have been ordered by Chief Judge Johnson to "show cause" why they should not be held in contempt in light of "serious and repetitive prima facie violations. Leaks are significant not simply because they are illegal, but also because the leaks themselves were often inaccurate and represented an effort to use disinformation to put pressure on the President.(3)
