The President on Trial: Sifting Through the Evidence            Full Coverage Search Clinton in Crisis The Trial Trial Guide Evidence Guide Transcripts Video Discuss the Trial The Starr Report and Rebuttals Video Index Documents Starr Investigation Jones v. Clinton Whitewater Jones v. Clinton Whitewater Article I, Charge 3: Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil? William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury concerning...prior perjurious, false and misleading testimony he gave in a Federal civil rights action brought against him. Perhaps the most salient evidence regarding the third charge in Article I involves Clinton's silence during one specific moment during the Paula Jones deposition. This particular moment in the deposition occurred as follows: Jones' lawyers asked if Clinton and Lewinsky ever went "down the hallways from the Oval Office to the private kitchen" nearby. Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett interrupted, objected to the "innuendo in the question" and questioned the "good faith" of Jones' lawyers in asking it. Jones' lawyers, he reminded U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright (who was presiding over the matter), knew that Lewinsky's affidavit said "that there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton." (In the affidavit, the world's most famous intern said: "I have never had a sexual relationship with the President, he did not propose that we have a sexual relationship, he did not offer me employment or other benefits in exchange for a sexual relationship, he did not deny me employment or other benefits for rejecting a sexual relationship.") Clinton sat silently during Bennett's objection and the exchange that followed between Bennett and Judge Wright. When asked during his grand jury testimony about this exchange, Clinton said, "I'm not even sure I paid much attention to what he was saying. I was thinking, I was ready to get on with my testimony here and they were having these constant discussions all through the deposition. But that statement in the present tense, at least, is not inaccurate, if that's what Mr. Bennett meant." And when asked if he ought to have corrected Bennett's statement, Clinton responded, "Mr. Bennett was representing me. I wasn't representing him. And I wasn't even paying much attention to this conversation." This was followed by a long harangue against the tactics of the Jones lawyers, and his insistence that it was not his "responsibility to volunteer a lot of information." Finally, when asked if he had a responsibility to ensure the judge clearly understood the facts, he told grand jurors that he didn't think he "ever focused" on Bennett's statements until he started preparing for his grand jury appearance. At the time, Clinton insisted, "that whole argument just passed me by. I was a witness. I was trying to focus on what I said and how I said it." Clinton's statement regarding the tense of Bennett's words ("is absolutely no sex" versus "was absolutely no sex") is essentially accurate, though it is the exact sort of linguistic parsing for which he has been frequently criticized. However, according to video of Clinton's testimony, the president appears to be attentively watching Bennett, which tends to undermine his statement that he wasn't paying attention. House prosecutors have focused on Clinton's apparent rapt gaze as evidence that his claim he "wasn't even paying much attention" was false. Only the president knows his precise state of mind at that very moment, of course, and his lawyers could argue that, despite Clinton's seemingly keen interest, the president truly wasn't concentrating on what Bennett said. Again, to reach the essence of all of this, a dash of common sense may help. Does any client have the obligation to correct their lawyer when they know the lawyer is lying to a federal judge? And is that obligation even more powerful when the client happens to be the President of the United States? Or is this obligation vanquished when the lawyer, although inaccurate, couches his remarks in the present tense? Introduction Article I Charges 1 & 2: What is Sex? | Charge 3: Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil? | Charge 4: A Man of Influence? | In Sum...A Man of Honor? Article II Charges 1 & 2: Greasing the Wheels? | Charge 3: The Trail of the Gift Horse | Charge 4: Escape to New York | Charge 5: Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil? (Part II) | Charge 6: The Four Questions | Charge 7: An Influential Man (Pt. II) | In Sum...All or Nothing? Version for Printing