Keeping her composure while presenting an account that President Clinton will confront in 10 days, Monica Lewinsky has told a grand jury that she and Clinton had a sexual relationship inside the White House and discussed ways to conceal their involvement, a legal source says.
Lewinsky, telling 23 strangers on a federal grand jury about her sex life, set the stage Thursday for Clinton's testimony by closed-circuit television Aug. 17.In stark contrast to her testimony, Clinton has denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky - once in sworn testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit and again in a televised statement.
After spending 81/2 hours in the federal courthouse, most of the time in closed session with the grand jury, Lewinsky, 25, was not told whether she would have to testify again. That raised the possibility that she could be recalled after Clinton becomes the first sitting president to give grand jury testimony in a criminal case that targets his conduct.
Clinton could be asked, as he was by lawyers for Jones in her civil lawsuit against him, whether he was sexually involved with Lewinsky, based on a certain definition of sexual relations. The actual definition presented to Clinton in Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit has not been made public.
"I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky," Clinton testified in the Jan. 17 Jones deposition after the judge allowed Jones' lawyers to show him "definition number one." Clinton added: "I've never had an affair with her."
Lewinsky, a former White House intern, left the courthouse Thursday pale and drawn-looking. Her spokeswoman, Judy Smith, later said she testified "truthfully, completely and honestly."
"Monica and her family are relieved that this ordeal finally appears to be coming to an end," Smith said in a statement read to reporters.
The legal source said Lewinsky stuck to the account she has been telling prosecutors this past week, under an agreement that granted her and her parents blanket immunity from prosecution.
That account includes testimony that Lewinsky and Clinton had sexual encounters inside the White House, including in a study near the Oval Office, and discussed how they could conceal their relationship. But she says Clinton never instructed her to lie under oath, the source said, speaking only condition of anonymity.
Plato Cacheris, one of Lewinsky's lawyers, said his client "did a fine job."
In Maryland Thursday, a grand jury met with a prosecutor who is weighing charges against Linda Tripp for secretly taping her phone conversations with the former White House intern.
A Howard County Circuit Court clerk, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that grand jurors met with State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli to discuss the Tripp case.
Montanarelli is investigating whether Tripp broke state law when she taped Lewinsky. In Maryland, it is illegal to tape record a phone conversation without the other person's consent. However, it is legal in the District of Columbia and in Virginia, where Tripp works at the Pentagon. Tripp is a resident of Columbia, Md., which is 20 miles northeast of the district.